Doubt Busters

A parable is a story using everyday events to illustrate a truth. This was Jesus’ main mode of teaching the public. “But without a parable He did not speak to them. And when they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples” (Mark 4:34).

The disciples asked the question many Christians have asked, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” (Matthew 13:10). Jesus gave a full and fascinating answer over the next several verses. We usually think that a parable is used to explain a truth. Jesus’ reason is surprisingly different.

“Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Matthew 13:14-15).

Jesus used parables to tell the public about the kingdom of God to fulfill prophecy. Prophecy states that the Jewish people will hear but not understand. They will listen to truth about the kingdom, but not know how to apply it. Let’s look at an example.

In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus tells us why the seed (teachings about the kingdom of God) do not produce results. In one case, it’s because people are distracted by the cares of this world or decieved by riches, and these prevent the word of God from making a difference in their lives (Matthew 13:22).

How many of you are not growing in your faith because you are more concerned for the things of this life, or for wealth, so you have little time for the word of God? Then you are hearing the word, but not understanding it – you don’t see your precarious position and repent of it. The truth always demands change on the part of the hearer.

Only to his disciples does he explain everything: “Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given” (Matthew 13:11). How can you tell if you are one of these privileged people?

Jesus explains: “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath” (Matthew 13:12). If you put the kingdom teaching to use and change, God will add more to it. If you apply those new words, God will add even more to it, and you will grow in understanding and wisdom. If you are not growing, it is because you are not applying the word and, according to Jesus’ teaching, God is taking away even what little you had. This was the state of the Jews at the time Jesus came, and it is the state of many today in the churches.

“But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear” (Matthew 13:16).

What Do You Think?

a. Do you think about what the word of God means for you, and how it should affect your life? Why or why not?

b. What is so important in your life that you choose it over studying the word of God?

As a whole, the texts are amazingly well preserved. Some modern Bibles use a variety of manuscripts to translate the text. In choosing some manuscripts, Bible translators will leave out the parts not contained in other manuscripts. You may look at the bottom of the pages of many modern Bible translations to read the variant readings for yourself. You’ll find that the readings are very slight and do not change the meanings of the texts. No Bible theology is changed with the minor word changes you will find.

You can still base your whole life on the Word of God. If you are suspicious, simply read several versions of the Word when you do your daily Bible reading. Many students of the Bible follow this practice.

What Do You Think?

a. If someone tells you to keep track of all the emails that did not reach your email box, how could you possibly do this if the emails did not get through? Similarly, if verses did not appear in the original manuscripts, how could somebody claim they were missing?

Christians who quote the Bible for perspectives in life are saying that God’s perspective is unchanging and trustworthy. Your parents say one thing, your experience teaches something else, your teachers have other perspectives, and your friend goads you in yet another direction. You grow up and your values change. What was important to you at nine years old is not the same at nineteen or fifty-nine years. Your perspective can also change with your mood. So, how do you know which view to follow? God’s view is consistent and will always hold true across time and culture. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

A manufacturer of a widget is often the best source to consult for advice on their widget, so God, being the Creator of all, his manual, the Bible, is the best source to consult on how life works. As we see in the book you hold in your hands, the Bible addresses and answers some of life’s toughest spiritual questions.

We believe that we were born sinners and that this world will show us how to live sinful lives. But only the Bible will teach us how to live this life in a way that pleases God. The world will tell us one thing about sex, relationships, life and death, paying taxes, spending money, ordering our households, and parenting, and God will have something to say about them too. If we want to live lives that honor God, we turn to the Bible for instruction in all these things. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Christians are well able to form their own opinions on a wide variety of subjects – and they don’t all agree with each other! So we certainly can hold our own counsel; we have free will; we’ll evaluate and consider according to our present understanding.

What Do You Think?

a. Have you ever derived any good ideas worth keeping from books you’ve read?

b. Have you ever had ideas and opinions changed by anything you’ve read?

It helps to understand what Christians mean by the Word of God. The Word contains the words of saints and sinners, of men and demons. Although it quotes sinners and demons, it is the Word of God simply because God wanted those words preserved for us to read.

The words in the Bible are words God had moved men to write down. God chose the words, but let the writers’ personalities show through. Here is one way to see God’s hand in the Bible: imagine giving a quiz to forty students in one university class. Have them write down what they think about the meaning of life, about death and the afterlife, heaven and @#!*% , punishment, spirituality, God, and love. You would get a wide range of opinions, just like you would on any Internet bulletin board topic.

But the Bible is consistent in its view of these very controversial subjects. It was written by about forty men over a period of over a thousand years, in several languages and countries and cultures. Yet they are united in their views of God, life and death, heaven and @#!*% , and other biblical doctrines.2 This harmony is one of the most important aspects that point to the Bible’s authorship of God. God used fallible men to write a book that has outlasted the fall of civilizations.

What Do You Think?

a. Fallible men and women make amazing scientific discoveries all the time. Because fallible scientists developed the theory of evolution, should we discard it on that basis? Why or why not?

b. If you found out that forty students all wrote the same answer to an essay question, wouldn’t you suspect they had all borrowed from the same source, such as from each other or from the Internet?

2. McDowell, Josh, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict. (Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville 1999.) p 6.

Here is the verse: “Then he made the Sea of cast bronze, ten cubits from one brim to the other; it was completely round. Its height was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference” (1 Kings 7:23). These were the dimensions given for a large round vessel.

When my wife told me we were only getting twenty miles per gallon with our station wagon, she was rounding off the number. It would be unusual for her to say, “Guess what? I got 19.662 miles per gallon on my last tank!” We know when someone is just rounding off the number.

In the same way, someone would be amused if I answered their question of, “How old are you?” with, “I am 48 years, 11 months, 4 days, 12 hours, and 23 minutes old.” Anyone would be satisfied with “48 years old,” “Almost 49 years,” or even, “I’ll be 49 this month.” Using a whole number just comes naturally to us.

The Bible supplied whole numbers for the diameter of a vessel and its circumference. Pi is the ratio of circumference divided by diameter, which is always 3.1415. When you do the math regarding the recorded circumference (30 cubits) and the diameter (10 cubits) of a giant bowl, it appears that pi = 3. To be accurate, the 30-cubit figure should have been 31.415 cubits.

I believe the Bible rounds off the measurements, just like we do with many of our measurements. At that time, in a non-technological age, the people measured in whole numbers. In some cases, they would measure something with the span of their hand, which is the width of a hand with the fingers spread apart. How accurate can you get with that?

What Do You Think?

a. Is it reasonable to insist that people in ancient civilizations must have decimal-point accuracy in their measurements?

b. If you can respect the cultural differences of less-advanced nations, including their makeshift measuring devices, can God be faulted for doing the same? Why or why not?

I remember watching kids playing the game of Telephone, where the teacher whispers a message in the ear of the child at one end of the line, and the children pass it on to the other end of the line, whispering the message from child to child. Of course, by the time it reaches the last child, the message ended up hopelessly (and comically) garbled. Isn’t that what happened to the transmission of the Bible texts? Well, no. The difference is that the Jews treated the text as the Word of God reverently, to be preserved carefully. How do we know the texts were preserved faithfully?

Enter the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some of the scrolls date back to 250 B.C. So scholars were able to take the later manuscripts and compare them to the same biblical books dated a thousand years earlier. Their findings indicate that the Hebrews treated the words of God with the care they deserved. For instance, “of the 166 words in one chapter, Isaiah 53, there are only seventeen letters in question. Ten of these letters are simply a matter of spelling, which does not affect the sense. Four more letters are minor stylistic changes, such as conjunctions. The remaining three letters comprise the word ‘light,’ which is added in verse 11, and does not affect the meaning greatly. Thus, in one chapter of 166 words, there is only one word (three letters) in question after a thousand years of transmission-and this word does not significantly change the meaning of the passage.”3

Today you can get some versions of the Bible containing the variations between the manuscripts in the margins of those versions. You can read for yourself that the differences are minor. The Bible texts have been preserved very well indeed!

What Do You Think?

a. Nowadays digital files can be duplicated perfectly, pixel for pixel, with a few mouse clicks. The ancient world, however, had to copy things the hard way. The Hebrew scribe double-checked his work by counting across so many letters and down so many letters to arrive at the same letter in the middle of the manuscript as the original. If the next person had to copy your entire page letter-for-letter by hand, what steps would you take to ensure absolute accuracy?

b. Would you expect the next person to copy the manuscript accurately if he did not believe in the text’s importance?

3. McDowell, Josh, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict. (Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville 1999.) pp78-79.

It is historical, not symbolic, for several reasons:

The story is treated as a straightforward, literal account in Genesis, and acknowledged in the epistles, such as here: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression” (1 Timothy 2:13-14).

• Real consequences (sin) came from the interaction of Adam and Eve with the Tempter.
• Real offspring with stories of their own came from Adam and Eve.
• Adam’s name is part of Jesus’ genealogy in Luke 3:38.

In every case, Adam and Eve are treated as real people who knew God, received instruction from him, disobeyed him, and suffered the consequences of their sin – bringing death into the world. Through their story we understand that God gave them dominion over the earth and the free will to accept his rule over their lives or reject it. Because of their fall, God gave a beautiful promise of salvation through the offspring of Eve (Genesis 3:15). The rest of the Old Testament follows her offspring, the lineage that leads to the promised deliverer, Jesus Christ.

What Do You Think?

a. Just as some people believe Adam is a mythical person with an existence having no basis in fact, some people believe the same for Santa Claus. The Saint Nicholas figure who actually formed the basis for the symbol we revere is little known. Can you believe there are other symbols whose origins are now obscure, but were based on fact?

b. Even now scientists and nutritionists are trying to figure out why we all can’t live twice as long. Death seems to be alien. Did you know that because of Adam’s sin, we all die? Jesus came as the second Adam, so that through his death and resurrection, we who believe in Jesus may all be made alive with him.

The Bible is composed of several different types of literature. For instance, the books of Moses up to Psalms are historical records of literal events. The Psalms are poetical in many places. Proverbs is wisdom literature. The prophetical books record prophet’s speeches, many of which include many instances of symbolism. The Gospels are a narrative which focuses on Jesus, the central character. The epistles of Paul are his message to churches. Revelation is prophetical, or apocalyptic literature.

In our everyday reading and writing, we may use figures of speech of every kind, and we usually know when to take them literally or not. We can usually detect a simile (“he’s as sly as a fox”), figures of speech (“it’s raining cats and dogs”), irony (“as clear as mud”), sarcasm (“yeah, that’s really going to work”), and euphemisms (“passed away”). We don’t take them literally; and in the same way we don’t take similar word treatments in the Bible literally.

Perhaps this question is referring to the many stories told in the Bible. Do we take them literally? When a miracle occurs, do we accept it at face value? Did God really create Adam and Eve, or is the account a metaphor?

One of the reasons we’ll have a hard time taking such stories literally is because we don’t believe in a God who is working in the world. In that case, understandably, any miracles would be hard to believe. What is fascinating to me, though, is that all the stories in the Bible, occurring over centuries, have a running theme through them all.

We may get bored reading all the genealogies, but they follow the bloodline to Jesus Christ. Therefore, every person in those genealogies is an actual, historical figure. God allowed some prophets to perform miracles, and such acts cemented their calling in the people’s eyes. When Jesus did miracles, he proved that the promised kingdom was at hand – a kingdom with no death (so he raised people from the dead), nor physical impairments (so he healed many infirmities and sicknesses), and no more spiritual oppression (so he cast out demons).

Keep in mind, too, that not everyone believed in the miracles that occurred. I speak especially of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. When the women told the disciples that they has seen the risen Christ, they refused to believe – until Jesus appeared in their locked room on day. Such human reactions lend credibility to the miracle accounts.

It’s not narrow-minded to take the Bible literally where it’s supposed to be understood literally, and figuratively where appropriate – it’s just good sense.

What Do You Think?

a. If you can’t accept the idea that God exists and can work miracles, are you narrow-minded?

The Bible has several fascinating traits that some claim are the fingerprint of God in the book. Some claim that one such discovery is the Bible Code. This method seeks to find hidden messages that relate to modern events by using the computer to find equidistant letter sequences, or ELS. That is, by noting every fourth letter, or every fifth letter, and so on, in the original Hebrew of the OT, one will inevitably find messages or words spelled out.

Another way to investigate the Bible for hidden meanings is by checking the meaning of the proper names. For instance, Adam means Man. Enoch means Teaching. Noah means Rest. Chuck Missler reported an astonishing message that was spelled out by the genealogy from Adam through Moses. First, take the names in order: Adam Seth Enosh Kenan Mahalalel Jared Enoch Methuselah Lamech Noah. Now put their meanings in order: “Man (is) appointed mortal sorrow; (but) the Blessed God shall come down teaching (that) His death shall bring (the) despairing rest.” That’s remarkable – the Gospel is spelled out in the names of these men.

Some scholars have noted the recurrence of the number seven (or multiples of seven) throughout the Bible. The Sabbath on the seventh day; the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine in Egypt; the seven priests and seven trumpets marching around Jericho; the Sabbath Year of the land are well-known examples. Even more astonishing, though, is the occurrence of the number 7 behind the scenes. Look at some of the amazing discoveries made by Dr. Ivan Panin:

For example, the first 17 verses of Matthew deal with the genealogy of Jesus Christ. The number seven figures predominantly in many ways:

The number of words which are nouns is exactly 56, or 7 x 8.
The Greek word “the” occurs most frequently in the passage: exactly 56 times, or 7 x 8.
There are two main sections in the passage: verses 1-11, and 12-17. In the first main section, the number of Greek vocabulary words used is 49, or 7 x 7.
Of these 49 words, the number of those beginning with a vowel is 28, or 7 x 4. The number of words beginning with a consonant is 21, or 7 x 3.
The total numbers of letters in these 49 words is 266, or 7 x 38 – exactly! The number of vowels among these 266 letters is 140, or 7 x 20. The number of consonants is 126, or 7 x 18 – exactly.
Of the 49 words, the number of words which occur more than once is 35, or 7 x 5. The number of words occurring only once is 14, or 7 x 2. The number of words which occur in only one form is exactly 42, or 7 x 6. The number of words appearing in more than one form is also 7.
The number of the 49 Greek vocabulary words which are nouns is 42, or 7 x 6. Of the nouns, 35 are proper names, or exactly 7 x 5. These 35 names are used 63 times, or 7 x 9. The number of male names is exactly 28, or 7 x 4. These male names occur 56 times, or 7 x 8. The number which are not male names is 7.
Three women are mentioned – Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. The number of Greek letters in these three names is 14, 7 x 2.

Still another Bible oddity occurs when you realize that every Hebrew and Greek letter has a number equivalent (the Greek or Hebrew equivalent of A = 1, B = 2, C = 3). What happens when you add up those numbers? Let’s take the passage of John 21:11: “Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three.” Does the figure of 153 have any parallels? Yes: In the record of the miraculous draught, the word for “fishes” comes to 1,224, or 8 x 153, and the words for “the net” have the same value, 1,224. “Multitude of fishes” is 1,069, or 16 x 153. The numerical equivalent of verses 9-11 gets 28,460, or 186 x 153. The letters added up for all of verse 11 is 15,758 or 103 x 153.

These are not the only methods of seeing messages behind the words. But do let us remember that what God has plainly written is to be taken of greater value than the hidden meanings.

What Do You Think?

a. Do these amazing Bible facts convince you that the Bible was inspired by God? Why or why not?

Resources:

http://www.biblecodedigest.com/

http://www.khouse.org/

http://www.khouse.org/

http://www.asis.com/

http://www.wordworx.co.nz/