Apologetics – In Search of New Creation

Challenges: Theological Consistency

*This post is part of a series on challenges I’ve faced while in seminary.
START AT THE BEGINNING.

In my previous post, I talked about how we can trust the Bible not just in spite of but because of textual variants. But the other challenge I faced regarding the trustworthiness of the Bible had to do with its theological consistency.

What I mean is: Does God contradict Himself? Does the Bible at any point present two versions of God that are incompatible? Or…does it ever make contradictory claims about what is real and true?

These questions ultimately led me to a field of study known as biblical theology, which has been my most enjoyable area of study in seminary.

To do biblical theology is to track a theme or topic as it progresses through the Bible. There’s actually been a resurgence of interest in this subject in recent years through the search for Jesus in the Old Testament. There are even children’s books getting in on the action (The Jesus Storybook Bible and The Biggest Story), but my ah-ha moment came when I heard this sermon by Tim Keller.

And while the question of theological consistency is even more complex than that of textual variants, time and time again I’ve discovered gifted preachers and writers who’ve helped me see that God never contradicts Himself, even when it might look like it at first.

Let me give just one example.

Some claim that God basically doesn’t give a hoot about the Gentiles in the OT but then suddenly loves all people in the New.

Sure…God did work almost exclusively through one nation (Israel) in the OT to advance His plan of redemption; but if this leads us to conclude that He only cared about Israel, we’ve missed one of the most amazing themes in the Bible.

Israel’s charter began with, “I will bless you…so that you will be a blessing…and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:2-3), and God doubles down on this promise many times in the OT. He exalted Himself over Pharaoh and Sihon and Og “that (his) name may be proclaimed in all the earth” (Ex. 9:16); and it was (Josh. 2:10-11)! Israel was called to be “a light to the nations” (Isa. 49:5-6), reflecting God’s goodness and glory to them. It has always been God’s plan to “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy” (Psa. 67:4). And how was this to be accomplished? The psalmist prays, “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us [Israel], that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among the nations” (Ps. 67:1-2). God didn’t change. He has always desired to bless His people that they might bless the world!

When we arrive in the New Testament, it becomes clear that Jesus is the true and better Israelite who will finally fulfill God’s desire to bless the nations: “God so loved the world that He sent His Son” (John 3:16). And now, He sends His New Covenant people (composed of Jews and Gentiles!) to preach the gospel to the whole world (Matt. 24:14) making new disciples, baptizing them, and teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded (Matt. 28:18-20). And what is the result of this? “A great multitude…from every nation…crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:9-10).

Yes, the Bible is consistent theologically.

I don’t yet see all of the connections and ways in which God’s plan develops from Genesis to Revelation, but that’s the fun of it! I get to spend the rest of my life discovering the vastness of God’s wisdom in piecing together a beautiful theological tapestry over time.

If you’d like to delve a little more into biblical theology, I highly recommend the Bible Project. Here’s where you can find them on YouTube. And here’s my favorite video (so far!) that they’ve produced:

Also, here’s a sermon I preached on Psalm 67, trying to tie as many theological pieces together as I could:

Finally, here are some books to check out if you are interested in the subject.

Challenges: Can the Bible Be Trusted?

*This post is part of a series on challenges I’ve faced while in seminary.
START AT THE BEGINNING or check out the PREVIOUS POST.

Can I trust the Bible enough to bear the weight of my tough questions? If you know me, you know that I didn’t drop out of seminary or leave the ministry or deny the faith. So, you can guess how I answer that question.

So, my purpose in this post is not to give a full-scale apologetic for the reliability of the New and Old Testaments. There are plenty of great books out there that do a better job at this than I could. To me, the external evidence in favor of the reliability of Scripture was overwhelming; therefore, my questions were: “Is the Bible internally consistent? Does it contradict itself?” and “Can I trust a Bible that contains thousands of textual variants?”

To answer these, I decided that I needed to examine my point of reference (see my last post) in its most pure form I could access. This led me to sign up for as many biblical language and interpretation classes I could squeeze into my schedule. Over time, I began to develop the tools I needed.

Let me just address the textual variant question for now. After personally studying several of the most problematic textual variants – along with a host of other less-troubling ones, I am more amazed than ever by the internal consistency of the Bible.

By and large, Christians didn’t discard manuscripts with variant readings (unlike other religions) so as to present a semblance of divine consistency. Sure, there have been failed attempts in Christian history to claim the primacy of supposedly uniform texts, but the real miracle is that God used incredibly human means – textual variants – to actually preserve for us a trustworthy Bible. We can compare texts from all over the world and throughout early church history and feel quite confident that we hold in our hands what God wanted to communicate to us.

In fact, I have encountered no textual variant which substantial alters the content of Christian doctrine or our understanding of the historical events recounted in the Bible. Even when we are unsure of which manuscript reading to go with, the basic content often remains unaltered. To quote Dan Wallace, one the world’s leading New Testament text critics, “For more than two centuries, most biblical scholars have declared that no essential affirmation has been affected by the variants.”1

I’d also like to quote Greg Gilbert at length, because his words may help someone:

“First…the vast majority of the textual variants in the manuscript copies we have are just utterly uninteresting and undramatic. They have to do with plural versus singular pronouns, inverted word order, subjunctive versus indicative mood, aorist versus perfect tense, and on and on…Second, Christian scholars have been exceedingly careful to document…the most significant variants along with an analysis of each one…But the point is that…there’s no conspiracy to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes…we believe that those variants…can help us determine to a remarkably high degree of probability what the original documents of the New Testament actually said. Finally…it turns out that not a single doctrine of orthodox Christianity depends solely on a questioned portion of the biblical text. Either the questioned portions don’t involved anything truly interesting, or if they do, the very same doctrines expressed in those locations are taught elsewhere in unquestioned portions of the Bible” (Why Trust the Bible, 56-57, bold mine).

I am grateful for scholars who have devoted their lives to the study of these issues, but when I embarked on my investigation, I wasn’t willing to simply take their word for it. I wanted to see things for myself. And what I discovered through personal experience was that Wallace’s and Gilbert’s claims are true. We need not doubt the trustworthiness of the Bible because of the presence of textual variants.

If you want to read a little more about this issue, see this article.
If you wanna get really nerdy with textual variants, check out this debate between Bart Ehrman and Daniel Wallace or the website of the CSNTM.

Have you had an experience similar to mine? Please share in the comments!
Is there a textual variant that you’ve wrestled with or have a question about? Share your story or ask your question in the comments!
Are there any books that you would add to my Amazon list on the reliability of the Bible? Please share these with me in the comments!

Challenges: Point of Reference

*This post is part of a series on challenges I’ve faced while in seminary.
START AT THE BEGINNING or check out the PREVIOUS POST

Not long after arriving at seminary, I hit one of the lowest points in my life. I found myself kneeling on a cold, hard floor in the back room of the hotel lobby where I was working the night shift. I spoke into what felt like nothingness: “God, I’m just not sure that I can believe in You anymore.”

Since the China mission trip mentioned in a previous post, questions and doubts had been piling to the ceiling of my mind. Some were big questions, like: “Why do You allow evil in the world?” and “How could You create a place like Hell?” But on that night, the questions were much more basic and practical: “Why would you call me to go to seminary and not provide a way for my family to be taken care of?” (I had only found a part-time job up to that point) and “Am I even cut out to be a minister?”

Eight and a half years later, I find it ironic – almost humorous – that I was tempted to abandon faith in the very God to whom I was addressing my questions and doubts. Whether I liked it or not, my point of reference was: there is a God.

I’ve since realized that we all start from some point of reference. It’s unavoidable. No one looks on from the outside and examines the nature of reality from an objective point of view. The question is whether or not we are willing to honestly assess the validity of our assumptions. Yes, my assumption was: there is a God, but not just that. I believed: there is a God…and He has spoken through the Bible…and, if I’m honest, some of the things He has said confuse or frustrate me. That was (and still is!) my point of reference.

The other two most common points of reference I see in the world around me are: feelings and niceness. Let me explain…

Some assert that the answers to life’s questions can only be known by means of personal experience. “It’s not real if I don’t feel it,” they insist. This is why skeptics doubt and atheist deny the existence of God. They think that they haven’t experienced God – that they haven’t “felt” Him with their five senses. And, given this point of reference, their conclusion makes perfect sense.

But how someone feels about a truth claim can’t affect its validity. It’s either true, or it’s false: God either exists or He doesn’t. The Bible is either God’s word, or it isn’t. How I feel doesn’t affect reality.

Others borrow loads of moral capital from monotheistic religions, customize that point of reference to their liking, and end up with a philosophy of niceness. “We all just need to love each other,” the mantra goes. And I don’t disagree. However, I know that sometimes the most loving thing you can do for a person is confront them about the self-destructive lifestyle they are living. But this practice is only partially acceptable to the philosophy of niceness. It’s okay to have an intervention with an alcoholic or a hoarder, but don’t dare confront a couple who is living together before marriage, and don’t even consider questioning today’s popular consensus on social issues. Again… Borrowed morality + customization = niceness.

To be clear, I think we should be nice to each other, and I affirm that no one truly believes anything until they experience it. But these ideas are only two parts to a larger whole, and I find them far too subjective to hold the weight of being my ultimate point of reference.

There are so many other points of reference I could examine here, and I could do a much better job at treating these two, but I need to get to the point.

If there is a God…and if He has spoken through the Bible…and if how I feel about what He said doesn’t affect its validity…but if I still need to experience this God (by some means!) in order to believe in Him…and if I am willing to examine the validity of my point of reference…then the next important challenge I need to address is: “Can the Bible be trusted?”