Wildness and the Word of God

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him. [Proverbs 26:4 (NIV).]

Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes. [Proverbs 26:5 (NIV).]

I accept that all of scripture is "God breathed." (2 Timothy 3:16.) So I wrestle with what it means that the Bible says one thing in one place, but another thing in another place.

1. Apology.

Let me be clear: I’m fine with anyone who takes the Bible as historically accurate in all its parts, and without contrast from one part to another. I respect that person. I crave that person’s prayers. I am not superior to that person; I know that, and God bless him or her. I know persons who know the Bible better than I do, and they accept it as literal, perfect history and completely consistent throughout. That’s fine.

Arguments over Biblical literalness and consistency might be like the "foolish controversies" condemned by Paul. (Titus 3:9.) I have no wish to press against anybody a "foolish controversy".

This is written for people who read the Bible, like me, and who find contrasts among its parts. This is for people who wonder: what does this mean?

2. Historical contradictions.

These are examples of what I’m talking about. History in the Bible varies from one part to another.

Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 differently describe the creation of the world. For example, in chapter 1, animals were created before man, and man was created to have dominion over them. In chapter 2, man was created first, and the animals were then created to be companions to him. Also, note that in chapter 1 God separated the light from the darkness twice.

David met Saul under two circumstances. A mighty warrior, he was called to sooth King Saul’s tormented spirit with music. (1 Samuel 16.) This is the first description of their meeting. But in 1 Samuel 17, David came to Saul because, as a lad, he slew Goliath.

In Matthew 27, Judas the betrayer hanged himself. In Acts 1, he pitched forward in a field, and his intestines spilled out.

3. Doctrinal differences.

Biblical doctrine also varies from one part to another.

a. Prayer.

Different Gospels say different things about prayer. This is Matthew chapter 6, which encourages short prayers:

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. [NIV.]

And yet, Luke chapter 18 has the parable of the persistent widow. An unjust judge gave her justice because she gave him no rest from her petitions. Jesus compared her to believers who come before God with prayer:

And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. [NIV]

b. God’s treatment of the righteous and the wicked.

The speeches of Job’s accusers aren’t wrong. Scripture does say that God punishes the wicked and blesses the righteous. Compare Psalm 34 to Job 36 (speech of Elihu). Compare Psalm 112 to Job 8 (speech of Bildad the Shuhite). Compare Proverbs 12:21 to Job 22 (speech of Elipaz the Temanite). Yet Job was righteous, and Job was afflicted. This was true despite these scriptures and the words of Job's accusers. That’s the point of the Book of Job.

c. The Laws of Moses.

Then there is the controversy over what parts of the Law of Moses survive in the New Testament era. Here’s Matthew chapter 5, where the Law is preserved intact and in its entirety:

For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.[NIV.]

Contrast the letter of the Apostles and Elders to believers in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, about whether those believers should accept circumcision and follow the Law of Moses (from Acts 15). This is a pocket-ready version of the Law:

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. [NIV.]

d. Faith or faith and works?

And then there is the question: is salvation by faith, or by faith and works? Romans 3:28 says:"For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law." (NASB.) James 2:24 says: "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." (NASB).

Martin Luther believed that these passages could not be reconciled; he wondered if James belonged in the Bible. Attempts to reconcile James and Romans spew like sparks from a fountain-style firework. (Go ahead, Google it.)

As to faith and works and James and Romans, I don’t know if this part of Matthew ties the twain, or if it makes a middle ground:

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. [Matthew 7:24-27 (NIV).]

But reconciliation might not be needed.

4. Plausible explanations?

There are plausible explanations for these differences.

a. Scope to the writers.

All scripture is God-breathed. (2 Timothy 3:16.) But that doesn’t mean scripture is God-dictated. God gave scope to the writers for their own personalities and opinions and traditions to enter into what they wrote. And because their personalities and opinions and traditions differed, the writings differed.

b. The Bible is pastoral.

Also, the Bible is pastoral; it leads people to God and salvation. Contrasts could be explained in that vein.

So differences among writers in the Bible might reflect differences among believers or circumstances. It might be important for some believers to pray persistently and at length, like the widow who sought justice from the unjust judge. But God might want to assure other believers that he will not neglect their prayers only because their prayers are brief.

Smug believers might need to hear that God will judge them by what they do or by what they don’t do. Struggling believers who labor and strive and become disheartened by their perpetual failure might need to hear the word of grace.

c. Tethering to the Holy Spirit.

God might not want us to be solely tethered to a book, even the Bible.

The Bible is very, very important to a believer. A believer who doesn't travel deeply into the Bible neglects a resource that can draw him upward to God.

But God might not intend for us to rely upon the Bible to the neglect of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate. The mysteries of scripture bring us to God in prayer, and certainly it is a mystery why the Bible says one thing in one place and another thing in another. When we come to God in prayer, that invites the Helper to guide us. And that help might be so important that anything that brings us to it is a boon and not a detriment as some see it.

5. The vitality of the word.

Here’s a thought: maybe the whole issue of consistency and inconsistency needs to be hissed at.

The Bible is a book apart. The Word of God has a unique brilliance. In its brilliance there is something wild and unmanageable.

In The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis said of his Christ-figure, the lion Aslan, that he was "not a tame lion." Maybe if we worry about contrasts in the Word of God, we err by trying to impose on it a buttoned-down quality, a tameness.

So in judging the Word of God like we might judge a witness in a theft trial or a mere philosophical essay, we fail to see its wildness and its vitality. This is a vitality that no mortal mind can contain. It stops us from judging the Bible as we might judge lesser literature.

6. The writers weren’t troubled.

The holy persons who wrote scripture fully knew of the contrasts among its parts. The two proverbs at the beginning of this piece, about answering a fool, appear literally side-by-side. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are sequential chapters. The two ways that David met Saul are only one chapter apart.

If making the Bible less mysterious were the first goal of the writers of scripture, the solution would have been easy. They simply could have deleted one version or the other.

But that wasn’t done. And that tells me that the writers of the Bible were not unduly troubled by what might trouble a modern believer or by what might excite an unbeliever looking for a reason to un-believe.

The writers of the Bible saw and believed. Believers today can read and likewise believe.

7. The final word is God’s.

Perhaps it’s right to think of the Bible, at times, as a debate about God and about God and history. In a way, this debate is like the debate among Job and Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar and Elihu. None of them were per se wrong. But the winning word, as in the book of Job, will be God’s.

The Bible on Itself

The Bible says a lot about itself.

1. (Imperfect) knowledge.

 In scripture we know God, but our knowledge will be imperfect.

So says the apostle Peter in his second letter. He speaks of the "lamp" of scriptural prophecy that shines in the "dark place" of our times. He contrasts that lamp shining in a dark place with the coming light of dawning day. 2 Peter 1:19 (ASV):

And we have the word of [scriptural] prophecy made more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts.

Peter’s point that scripture illuminates and his point that it does so (relatively) dimly are expressed elsewhere in scripture. For example, Jesus appears unrecognized to certain disciples, after his resurrection. He explains to them how his sufferings were foretold in scripture. He reveals himself, he leaves, and his disciples said, "Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?" (Luke 24:32 (ASV).) This shows the illuminating power of scripture.

The imperfect quality of our present knowledge is also told elsewhere in scripture. The apostle Paul says:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV).)

And the apostle John says that we are children compared to the adults that we will become in the presence of God. 1 John 3:2 (KJV):

Beloved, now are we the sons (NIV:children) of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

2. Important to the believer.

The Bible makes clear that scripture is important to the believer. 2 Peter, quoted above, makes this point well when it speaks of the scriptural prophecy as a lamp in a dark place. Other biblical passages also discuss the believer’s need of scripture.

Scripture is useful for our learning, and it gives us comfort and hope. Romans 15:4 (KJV):

For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

Scripture gives wisdom. Paul speaks to his disciple Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15 (KJV):

[F]rom a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

Jesus was led to the desert to fast. After he had fasted for 40 days, the devil came and tempted him. Every time, Jesus answered the devil with scripture. Matthew 4:3-10(KJV):

And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Even before he began his ministry, we see Jesus immersed in scripture. Jesus’s parents left him behind in Jerusalem, realized their mistake, went back, and found him in the Temple, with the teachers. Luke 2:46-47 (ASV):

And it came to pass, after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both hearing them, and asking them questions: and all that heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.

So scripture is a lamp; it gives us hope, comfort, and wisdom unto salvation; it gives answers.

3. Potentially dangerous.

But the believer must approach scripture humbly and carefully. Jesus in the desert answered the devil according to scripture, but also the devil used scripture to tempt him.

2 Peter 3:16 cautions the believer against being misled by scripture. Peter speaks of Paul’s letters and of scripture:

[I]n [Paul’s letters] are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. [ASV]

So scripture can lift up, but it can also cast down.

4. Moved by God and God-breathed.

The Bible speaks of divine influence in the origins of the Bible. 2 Peter speaks of prophets – "holy men" – speaking as God "moved" them to speak. 2 Peter 1:20-21.

Elsewhere, the Bible speaks of itself as being "God breathed". 2 Timothy 3:16 (ASV):

Every scripture inspired of God (NIV: "God-breathed") is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness.

This is poetic language. It’s meaning is not obvious. In the Bible, the breath of God has different meanings.

Sometimes it means the destructive power of God. So, for example, 2 Thessalonians 2:8 (ASV) says:

And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth . . ..

Also, for example, Isaiah 40:7 (ASV):

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the breath of Jehovah bloweth upon it; surely the people is grass.

And Ezekiel 21:31(ASV):

And I will pour out mine indignation upon thee; I will blow upon thee with the fire of my wrath; and I will deliver thee into the hand of brutish men, skilful to destroy.

Other times, the Bible speaks of the life-giving breath of God. For example, Genesis 2:7(ASV):

And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Also, Job 33:4 (ASV):

The Spirit of God hath made me, And the breath of the Almighty giveth me life.

Sometimes the breath of God is the act of creation. Psalm 33:6 (KJV):

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.

So the breath of God can stand for a number of things.

5. God-breathed like humanity.

 Here are my imperfect thoughts on the meaning of God-breathed.

Whatever else God-breathed means, it means that scripture reveals God. Paul says that the Bible is God-breathed; the Bible says that Man was created by the breath of God. Breath and breath. God-breathed Man is God’s likeness. (Genesis 5:1; James 3:9.) Just so, the God-breathed Bible reveals God.

I don’t think that God-breathed means that God himself created scripture in the sense of Psalm 33:6, where the "breath of God’s mouth"created the stars. I don’t think it means that God created scripture in the same way that he created the Ten Commandments. Exodus 24:16 says that God wrote the Ten Commandments and gave them to Moses:

And Jehovah said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee the tables of stone, and the law and the commandment, which I have written, that thou mayest teach them. [ASV]

Exodus shows that the Bible can say that God wrote something – like it says that God wrote the Ten Commandments. But it makes no such claim in general about scripture.

Scripture doesn’t start with the words: "God said:" It doesn’t end with the words, "So said God." Where it quotes God, or it quotes Jesus, it makes clear that it is quoting. When that is not made clear, we are left with poetic words moved and God-breathed to describe God’s role in shaping the words of the Bible. For all we know, that poetic language means different things in different parts of the Bible.

6. Not from the Lord.

God is a moving force behind scripture. But perhaps not all of scripture.

Paul, if fact, makes a point of saying that some of what he says in his letters is not "from the Lord": 1Corinthians 7:10-13 (ASV):

[U]nto the married I give charge, yea not I, but the Lord, That the wife depart not from her husband (but should she depart, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband); and that the husband leave not his wife. But to the rest say I, not the Lord: If any brother hath an unbelieving wife, and she is content to dwell with him, let him not leave her. And the woman that hath an unbelieving husband, and he is content to dwell with her, let her not leave her husband.

This is another reason to be careful with scripture.

7. Sufficient.

 Maybe the Bible says as much about the origin of scripture as we need to know. Maybe the Bible itself must be a mystery, like the mystery of the meaning of many of its parts. Maybe in the brilliant compactness of the Bible, a hint of the Bible’s origin is sufficient.

There are other places to go to learn about the mechanics and origins and inspiration of the Bible. History books can tell us about why certain books were put into the Bible and others were left out. People study the history of the Bible for decades, and among them there is widespread common ground that sometimes even a single book of scripture is spliced together from the writings of more than one author. People have studied non-Jewish texts from before the Hebrew Bible was written. These people have seen a likeness between those texts and parts of the Bible such as some Psalms and Proverbs.

But the Bible does not lay out these mechanics and origins and inspiration. Perhaps this is because these things are external to the purpose of the Bible: they do not make us "wise unto salvation".

8. Conclusion.

 I started out talking about Peter’s second letter, which suggests that our knowledge will be imperfect in this world. Paul supports this. And John.

So if scripture is like a lamp compared to dawning day, if we see as through a glass darkly, if we are as children until we come into God’s presence, so be it. We can plumb scripture from youth to old age, and never reach its depth, or the depth of God, in this world.

Paul had a bodily ailment that he prayed for God to cure. But God told him, "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthinas 12:9 (ASV).)

I hope I don’t stretch scripture too far to say that God’s word to Paul could apply the same way to our imperfect knowledge from the lamp of scripture. We might want answers more exact than the Bible gives us. But God’s power is made perfect in weakness.