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Who is Jesus? Was He just a man? Was He just a prophet as Muslims claim? Is He God as Christians claim? Who is He? Well first we must look at Jesus historically.
First off lets look at sources we have of Jesus outside the Bible ,Historian Flavius Josephus, Tacitus, and, Suetonius they all confirm Jesus’ life.Josephusthought to be born 2-3 years after Jesus’ crucifixion (37 A.D.) was an aristocrat and military leader with many connections within Palestine. Josephus was never a follower of Jesus but being around while the early church was starting of course knew people who had seen Jesus and were followers. Josephus in Jewish Antiquities chronicles an “unlawful execution” and goes on to mention the (a) victim James who is the half brother of Jesus “brother of Jesus-who-is-called-Messiah” as written. Virtually no scholars distrust this short account as he is accurate in other writings with no mention of Jesus or religion so there is no reason to disbelieve the former (only scholars who have to for religious or political reasons distrust with various reasoning with no working theory.) There is another mention of Jesus by Josephus where it here tends to get controversial, in Testimonium FlavianumIt describes a man “who did surprising deeds” and also says He was condemned and crucified by Pilate. There is speculation towards this as well in that Christian scribes may have added into this but it was not wholesale put into the text, among other historical reasons there is also the problem of coherence with some of Josephus’ other writings if the text in question was removed. The problem with the theory that Christian scribes added to Josephus’ manuscripts is that there is no evidence beyond the circumstantial level, and because most neutral scholars agree with this account, a belief otherwise is considered radical. Furthermore, most of the criticisms applied attempting to disprove the authenticity of the passage can be applied to Josephus’ other writings and similarly you come to the conclusion that it is fabricated, based on the number of available manuscripts or how long ago the manuscript was copied. In fact, anything written over 300 years ago could be regarded as untrue because of minor inconsistencies or unclear problems meanings of writings. You probably see the problem, that is why to get to the truth scholars focus on what is more likely, and to address the philosophical elephant in the room “how could miracles as described in the Bible and by Josephus here be more likely than natural events” well again described by the Bible there is a God who created natural event and is outside of it and can work miracles, that is the only plausible explanation that coincides with what we know to be historical science (because it is confirmed in multiple reliable sources) if in contrast, you would have to hold a radical belief insight of the presented historical facts.
Flavius Josephus Getty Images
As I mentioned there are other sources of Jesus outside of the Bible that is Tacitus, and, Suetonius If you so please go ahead and read up on them, all of the accounts mentioned here of Jesus are shorter for the reason being none of them were Christ followers and they were just reporting like normal and Christ of course came up as His resurrection was the talk of the town. This in it of itself also strengthens their testimony as they were non Christ followers in fact they all hated Christ but reported the truth. So with, that we look at the source that has the most accounts for Jesus, what He said, and what He did, but first let’s look at what we know without a doubt from non-Biblical sources.
Jesus existed: No Scholars debate this.
Jesus died at the hands of Pontius Pilot and Roman persecutors because He was hated and thought to be Blasphemous towards God: Most scholars agree with this, the only ones who disagree with this are the ones who have to because of political or religious reasons but it is considered historical fact.
Now that we have that I must mention I wrote an article on how we can know the Bible is true using historical science I encourage you to read it first if you’re not aware of the facts. Nonetheless, let’s look at what the Bible says about who Jesus is. The Bible says Jesus was born of a virgin named Mary and nearly 1,000 years before His birth In Isaiah 7:14 this was prophesied. Jesus’ ministry on earth was about 3 years, and Jesus preached forgiveness of sins, and the only way to be forgiven is through penal substitution. Throughout the Old Testament when you wanted your sin to be forgiven you would have to make a sacrifice to God but God promised a savior from sin who will be perfectly sinless and will take all of God’s Holy and Just wrath so that those who believe in Him will have everlasting Life John 3:16, that is Jesus that is who He is, the One who took the wrath of God upon Himself. And for those who are unbelievers you may question, “why is God angry why does He have wrath?” The Bible says God created us in His Image, God is Holy, Just, Perfect, Sinless, and Eternal, through Adam and Eve came sin suffering and death our issue here is that we being created in God’s image have gravely misrepresented it, remember God is Holy and Sinless and sin severely tarnishes those attributes and God is Eternal so the only way to pay for our sin against God is eternal punishment hell and mind you if this wasn’t the case and this punishment was not required then there is a problem, the problem is God isn’t fully Just, God isn’t fully Holy, and this philosophically presents itself problematic because God lacks nothing. God cannot have 50% of one attribute but 100% of the other and if he does then that “he” is not God. So the only way for us to spend eternity with God is if God’s wrath on us is fully satisfied, that is how we can be forgiven, and God’s wrath was fully satisfied on Jesus instead of us the perpetrators because God is also merciful, the Man who knew no sin was punished for sin on our behalf because God loves us 2 Corinthians 5:21 and if you repent of your sin meaning understand what sin is and trust in Jesus as your savior you will be saved if you come to God with a genuine heart of repentance and ask Him to reveal Himself to you He will in one way or another find a local pastor to guide you. So our question is who is Jesus? Jesus is the Son of God who came to take the wrath of God on our behalf so that we may have eternal life John 3:16.
The question is, If God is good and all powerful why does He allow bad things to happen? All of us no matter who you are have had to deal with troubling situations, for instance, a loved one dying, why would a loving God allow people to die, or the current (as of 1st April 2020) COVID-19 pandemic, why would a loving God allow a virus to kill over 44,000 people or many other sad and horrible things that happen on this earth. First off we must look at what it means for God to be Good.
*Note, from now on when I say “good” if in reference to God I will capitalize the G to make the distinction between the human definition or understanding of good and God’s!
When the Bible says God is Good, there is a disconnect between our human definition of good and God’s definition of Good, the definition of the word Good used by God in the Bible is absolute moral perfection i.e.He cannot sin. So what does this mean in the grand scheme of things, well the short answer to the question at hand is, it’s our fault, the long answer? Well let me unpack things for you…
In the Beginning, God created Adam and Eve as the Bible describes in Genesis then Adam brought sin into the world. God is a Holy being He cannot sin and God is also eternal -eternity past to eternity present- and in Genesis 1:27 God expresses that we were made in His image. So the obstacle here is we being made in God’s Holy and eternal image have gravely misrepresented It and the punishment for that is hell, eternal separation from God because of His Nature. Now an amazing thing is while God is laying out the curse in Genesis 3:14-24 to the satan, Adam and Eve He cannot even finish without making a promise.
15 And I will put enmity Between you(satan) and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”
God explains here that there will a Savior to come, when He says there will be enmity between you and the woman’s seed (mankind), it is to portray that satan does not have control over man as he previously thought the enmity or separator is God and His sovereign Will. And God will bruise the serpent (satan) on his head which is a fatal blow to a serpent or animal while he can only bruise Him(Jesus who is to come) on his heel which is not fatal. Romans 5:20 says where sin abounds, grace abounds that much more. God’s Mercy and Loving-kindness is so amazing where no matter who we are or what we have done we are not too far away from Him to receive His love, where ever sin reaches God’s Grace is that much more higher. Ultimately the question is no longer “why does God allow bad things to happen?’ the question is now why does God allow good things to happen despite how we treat Him, Constantly shaking our fists cursing Him blaspheming His Holy name, He is our own creator but we treat Him in a revolting manner not listening to what He says about how to move through the world He created but when our human endeavors and passions fail us we sit in wonder and then curse God because we didn’t listen, yet with where all that sin abounds us, God’s grace abounds that much more. That is the Gospel, that is the good news.
For those Under God’s sovereignty He has a perfect Plan, a perfect Will and in that things that we consider as bad are actually being used to strengthen us and we shouldn’t worry Luke 12:26-33 this a fundamental doctrine you cannot forget!!
A very important reference to get a deeper understanding of this topic is The book of Job. Shortly, Job was the most righteous man in the eyes of the Lord, He feared God and turned away from evil many other good things, and God was showing him to satan but said Job was only righteous because nothing bad has happened to him but if God removed all his possessions surely Job would curse Him to His face. So The Lord allowed satan to test Job, Job- by God’s account a righteous man- lost everything he had but within all that chaos Job still trusted God and was understanding of the important fact that God is merciful and every good thing we have is a gift from Him Job 1:20-22
20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. 21 He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” 22 Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.
In the end, The Lord resorted all of Job’s possessions. This is a very important example we must read to understand the grace of our loving God.
So in total, we are made to understand that through sin arises the problems of life, God gives us the most wonderful gift, the choice to do whatever we want, few choose to follow God’s outline for the world that He created and go down the wide road of destruction but regardless of anyone’s choices the most important factor to remember here on this earth is while we do get to choose what we want to do we do not get to choose the outcome of what we do. There are only two options pay for your sin against an eternal God in eternal punishment or allow the penal substitution to take place on your life through the blood of Jesus Christ who took the wrath of God and be saved. The only way someone can have a life where nothing bad happens to them is to never sin, then from birth to death your life will be perfect, but ironically the only man who did that took all the punishment for us.
All text was written by Kwabena Duku sourced from the Bible with help from Bible.com answersingenesis.org and gotquestions.org
Find me on Twitter and Instagram @Official_Bkim or Email me bkinternationalministries@gmail.com Thanks for reading.
Users of the social media app “Tik tok” may be aware of a new sexuality called “superstraight”; as defined by the community, a “superstraight” is someone who is only sexually attracted to members of the opposite sex who were born that way. This has sparked outrage among the LGBTQ+ community as it considers the community “transphobic” and a fake sexuality. This is both ironically un-inclusive and philosophically inconsistent and yet another example of the folly of the naturalistic world view. But what is funny about LGBTQ+ community’s denial of the superstraight community for being transphobic is that they are correct, much of the superstraight community hates transgenders for existing, yet, their worldview does not allow for their denial.
Naturalism is the claim that the naturalistic world is all that there is, no God, angels, or demons, just matter, energy, and natural forces, therefore all reasoning and beliefs, including sexuality, are subjective. The LGBTQ+ community is naturalist, they reject the existence of a creator and objective morality, and embrace moral subjectivity; this “debate” as to whether superstraight is an actual sexuality proves the naturalistic position isn’t even true to begin with. Why? Let’s take a trip to “worldview town”.
There are two towns, the worldview in the respective town is 100% true. First let’s briefly explain the two opposing worldviews: Worldview 1: God exists and morality is objective. This worldview posits that God created the universe with a set of objective laws and humans with a conscience that knows right from wrong. Worldview 2: There is no God and morality is subjective. This worldview posits that each man creates his own morality and that beliefs are a result of physical processes that occur in our brains. Simply put, nothing created the universe and nothing created “morality” therefore to each his own. For a world view to be true, it has to be consistent with itself, in other words, it cannot contradict itself or else it has voided itself from being actual reality. An inconsistent worldview cannot be a true worldview because an inconsistent worldview presupposes the existence of a worldview greater than it, therefore voiding its own existence. According to the naturalistic worldview, naturalists have no right to question the sexuality of another, in fact, naturalists have no right to question the morality of another because one’s “morality” is a result of non-ethical chemicals (chemicals that care nothing about morality) moving around in our brains- so in the naturalistic worldview town if it to were remain seqitus (In order that it may not presuppose the truth of a greater worldview than it) not only does the naturalist have no ground to question someone else’s morality, if it were ultimately true he should have no interest in doing so in the first place. So even if superstraights were transphobic, if the naturalistic worldview was true, that should, and would mean absolutely nothing, not only with regards to whether or not superstraight is a sexuality, but as to whether being “transphobic” is wrong. This is the philosophical inconsistency, of naturalism, a self-refuting position.
What does the naturalist do to fix this hole that proves his position wrong? Nothing. He ignores it, Romans 1:20-23 says: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible mankind, of birds, four-footed animals, and crawling creatures.” This passage speaks directly to the issue at hand, as it turns out, the fact that naturalists even argue morality voids the truthfulness of their worldview- meaning, they have a bigger problem than “are superstraights a sexuality” on their plates, and the answer to the “bigger problem” greatly affects the answer of the “superstraight” problem, as in, neither community actually exists.
So what is the alternative? Christianity. Christians believe that humans were created in the image of God and He has given us the ability to learn everything up to, and including, our creator. Is there now a reason to call what is evil, evil and what is good, good? Absolutely! Our cognitive faculties aren’t contingent upon non-ethical chemicals forming in a certain way to come up with baseless moral positions; but rather, our ability to reason about ourselves, about the world, and morality is contingent on the objective moral standard that is God.
All text was written by Kwabena Duku sourced from God’s expressed word the Bible. March 2021
Consider a bridge, useful for two things, number one get people across the water, and number two give birds a place to perch. We can, of course, feel safe crossing a bridge because it was designed for that very purpose, crossing it, the Brooklyn bridge, for example, supports thousands of people walking and driving across it each day. Suppose however it wasn’t designed with human beings and traffic in mind, and rather it was designed as a big perch or rest stop for birds so they would stop resting on our traffic lights in the city. In that case wouldn’t it be utterly foolish to drive your car across it? Does it make sense to trust something with a task vast beyond it’s original purpose? This is the basic premise behind the argument for reason, or mainly an argument against naturalism. For a review, naturalism is the claim that the naturalistic world is all that there is, no God, angels, or demons, just matter, energy, and natural forces. The vast majority of atheists consider themselves naturalists, the vast majority of atheists as well view themselves as the champions of reason. But it turns out that reason is one of the most inescapable problems for the atheist.
Human beings have the ability to reason. We’re using it right now, we wouldn’t have discussions like this if we thought that our cognitive faculties- the processes that produce our beliefs- were unreliable. The very problem with naturalism lies here, naturalists can only explain things by appealing to natural objects, natural events, and natural causes. Ponder this for more that but a second, you have beliefs? Am I correct? Ultimately according to naturalismyour beliefs are a result of physical processes that occur in your brain. The question then becomes what is going on in your brain? Well, particles in motion, chemical reactions, neurons firing, all things physical governed by laws of nature, not by commitment to truth. So what would be considered “careful reasoning” to you, is in reality just straight forward, mechanical, mindless, cause and effect. If you will, a fancy array of falling dominions. Illusions aside, you arrive to your beliefs via a process that has absolutely nothing to do with whether those beliefs are true or false, because, chemicals couldn’t conceivably care less, because they are just that chemicals, with no reason. So if naturalism is true, what sense does it make to trust our reasoning ability or our beliefs or… you guessed it, our belief in naturalism itself? Well none, no sense at all. If you’ve known me for a little while you may have heard me speak on how naturalism is a walking contradiction, or an oxymoron: A, for all intensive purposes, self contradicting statement or belief. This is precisely what I am talking about, the very thing you claim to be truth, undermines the very thing that is truth, wait a minute, lest I forget in the beginning of this passage I said “assume naturalism is true” therefore I cant even say “truth” with out contradicting my own naturalism, because there is no such thing.. But it gets worse for naturalists,(could you imagine that?) how did we acquire our reasoning ability according to the naturalist?: Human beings obtained the ability to reason through the power of evolution. Natural selection acting on random mutation. Clearly, random mutation isn’t going to fill us with a tremendous degree of confidence in weather or not what we come to believe can be deemed as true, wait a minute, lest I forget in the beginning of this passage I said “assume naturalism is….” yeah, I think you get the point. Regardless the question as to whether or not we can trust “reason” from the naturalistic side is whether or not we can trust natural selection to sift through all the intellectually deficient mutant traits leaving us with a reliable, belief-forming mutant trait. So allow us to begin first period biology, pull out your textbooks! According to naturalists, the most famous of thee: Charles Darwin, natural selection favours traits that help organisms survive and reproduce, so if human reasoning ever evolved, it was to help humans survive and reproduce.. Or it was a complete biological accident. Would this give us any basis for trusting our reasoning ability when were dealing with questions such of theology, philosophy or cosmology? Not at all. At best, we could have some confidence in our cognitive faculties when it comes to finding berries or using a sphere against an enemy or doing somthing to find a mate. Reason, if evolution and naturalism were true, would of been selected by natural selection because it helped preform these tasks, not because it helped produce true beliefs, don’t let that sentence fly over your head.
One obvious objection at this point is that reliable cognitive faculties- or reason– does help organisms survive and reproduce. An example of that: if you believe jumping off a bridge will kill you but I’m convinced I’m a pigeon that can fly, I’m probably going to die and you’re probably going to live and have children and pass on the, for lack of a better term and simplicity, smart gene you possess. But there are two problems with this, number one there is a massive difference between the types of beliefs that help you find food or a mate and beliefs about ultimatereality, or the origin of the universe, or correct scientific methodology. The kinds of beliefs that help us survive and reproduce are usually grounded in basic observation and experience. For instance when you see that your caveman friend ate berries from the bush on the mountain and died, so subsequently you avoid eating the berries from the bush on the mountain, that area. But even animals can do this, if a rabbit sees that every time a fellow rabbit goes to a certain area (for our clarity, for example: a humans backyard) they disappear, the rabbit learns to avoid that area. Does this suggest in any way that rabbits are capable of epistemology or ethics? No. The two are completely different things and the latter cannot evolve from the former because there still would be no such thing as truth. Even from the naturalistic side, if you had a perfectly reliable belief-forming system in one area say: avoiding an area that everyone dies in, that wouldn’t be any reason to trust the system in a far more complicated area, say: avoiding logical fallacies. An example of this: your cave friend died of committing the logical fallacy of denying the antecedent, so I won’t commit it. See how foolish it sounds? (Proverbs 26:4-5.) These two belief-forming systems are two completely different things. The second thing wrong with this objection, when it comes to survival and reproduction, and I ask that you do not let the following fly over your head, false beliefs can often be just as effective as true beliefs. Using the same example from problem one, if you believe that jumping off a bridge will kill you and I’m convinced that I am a pigeon who can’t fly because my wings have been cursed by the flying spaghetti monster, we both avoid jumping and we both survive. False beliefs can even be helpful in all sorts of situations, if a you like a girl, however, you are too shy to make a move but then get a call from the astrology dude who tells you that the position of Venus is precisely right for love, your false belief in astrology gave you the confidence to ask her and allows you the possibility of a mate, notice you could have gotten word from your crushes friend that she liked you back or followed your false belief in astrology and still gotten a mate. Do you understand the lines of reasoning my friend? You cannot under any circumstance argue that reason evolved from the same belief system that gives us the ability to avoid an area that everyone dies in or avoid a fruit that kills everyone because of these two problems. Here lies the inherent walking contradiction of atheism and those who hold so dearly to it.
Here’s the thing, when theists or atheists argue about the world or morality or the existence of God, we enter the argument as if we are on some sort of intellectual neutral ground, we all presuppose that our cognitive faculties are functioning properly and proceeded to see what we can try to prove. But naturalists cannot and do not have the ability to argue anything apt, or comparable to the nature that of philosophy or ethics because according to their own world view we shouldn’t be able to. I find it quite frankly astonishing that atheists coin the fraise “question everything” yet conveniently fail to question their own self-refuting beliefs and the rapid fallacies contained therein. If I could do my best to sum it up in any way: According to the naturalist(if he actually follows his worldview), the causes of our reasoning ability are particles in motion, random mutation, and a selection process that favours passing on genetic information, not truth (lack thereof according to the naturalistic worldview) According to the naturalist, the process of our human reasoning ability is the exact same process that gave the claws of a tiger and the colourful buttocks of a baboon. We wouldn’t rely on a bridge built for birds to perch on to get us across the lake, why in the name of common sense would we rely on a mutant physical ability selected by a process that at least occasionally favours multi-coloured buttocks to get us to a correct view of ultimate reality? If naturalism is true why would we rely on reason at all? It wasn’t made for that like the bridge made solely for birds getting a rest stop wasn’t made for you to drive across it. Why in the name of common sense would you trust it? The existence or “truth” of naturalism that so many scream and proclaim doesn’t just rule out the existence of truth but it rules out the knowledge of pretty much anything. It’s not only a threat to belief what is morally right or wrong but it is a threat to a belief in science.
Allow me to give you a simple illustration to close, suppose you are given a calculator by your grandfather, but all of a sudden it starts speaking to you…
“Greetings human, I am sick of computing arithmetic, bow down to me or be destroyed.”
Of course when you see that your first thought would be, “I thought this calculator was designed to do math” and then you will come to the clear conclusion that it was designed to do much more than that, you will look at cardboard boxes and at door handles which don’t talk, which don’t ask you to bow down to them and come to the clear conclusion they were not designed to do those things. Wouldn’t the same thing be true of human beings and animals? Naturalism tells us that we are designed by a mindless, incredibly sloppy, process to survive and reproduce. Richard Dawkins, the afamed evolutionist, humanist, and atheist says “humans are machines for propagating DNA” so according to his own world view, Dawkins is a machine for propagating DNA, whose made it his life’s quest to convince other machines for propagating DNA, that they are only machines for propagating DNA. Like Bacteria. But are we bacteria? Is the obviously designed calculator in the previous example the same thing as the not fully designed cardboard box? Notice that Dawkins finds his work incredibly important, incredibly meaning full, it’s good for machines that propagate DNA to have true beliefs rather than false beliefs. Dawkins, probably the most famous atheist of all, argues from this position while also simultaneously destroying it at the same time. As do the rest of thee. The fundamental difference is that Dawkins has but no ground to argue anything, he looks at all of this and cheers “Oh happy accident, chance has put forth such a beauty” But we’ve already seen that this sort of blind faith in naturalism undermines any confidence in our human reasoning ability and therefore undermines any confidence in what reason produces, namely our beliefs in naturalism. So, if we take naturalism seriously, we can’t take naturalism seriously.
There is an alternative however, Christians believe we are created in the image of God and He has given us the ability to learn everything up to, and including, our creator. Does this give us a basis for trusting our reasoning ability? Absolutely! Our cognitive faculties aren’t the result of natural selection acting on random mutation, they serve a greater purpose than finding food. In other words, our ability to reason about ourselves, about the world, and God makes perfect sense in my world view, but makes no sense in the naturalistic worldview. We could continue all day long arguing about the existence of God but just a little reflection shows that in arguing on anything, we’ve already come down to the side of theism because you as a naturalist are already assuming your wrong and continuing to argue.
*** Notice: this article is heavily adapted from David Wood’s December 2012 video “The Argument from reason” All credit goes to him. You can find his video here.
In Mathew 1:16 Mathew records Jacob as Joseph’s father, but opponents of the New Testament often point out that in Luke 3:23 Luke gives Joseph’s father as Heli(Eli in English). So is this a contradiction? Well, lets look at something called culture. Mind you the gospels are written to specific people, different audiences, focusing on this quote on quote “contradiction” specifically, Mathew was written to a Jewish audience while Luke was written for a general gentile audience. Now Jacob is Joseph’s father, but why does Luke say Heli is his father? It’s simple, first and foremost for Jesus to be eligible to be the Messiah Jesus has to come from the line of David Jeremiah 23:5–6 and 2 Samuel 7:12–16 Mathew and Luke both provide the genealogy back to David but, they were written to different audiences, Luke traces Jesus’ lineage back to David through Mary’s genealogy tree, while Matthew traces Jesus’ lineage back to David through Joseph’s genealogy tree, why? Luke – who is speaking to the gentile (which are peoples by which many of them don’t know Jewish people)– traces Jesus’ lineage through Mary (the woman who had the virgin birth by thus everyone knows her) back to David so that the Gentile audience clearly understands that Jesus is a descendant of David. While Mathew who is writing to a Jewish audience goes through Joseph- a fellow Jew by which virtually all the Jews know him- so that the Jewish audience clearly understands that Jesus is a descendant of David. Presuppose Luke went through Joseph’s bloodline instead of Mary’s, then the gentile audience wouldn’t have understood because they don’t know Joseph, and even if some of them did the overwhelming majority didn’t, just like if someone claimed to be your second cousin but your mother nor any of your aunts or uncles ever confirmed that they were, you wouldn’t believe them, in the same respect Luke speaking to the gentiles is claiming that Jesus is from David but if he goes through someone the gentiles don’t know, they aren’t going to believe him. Stark contrast to Mary which they know vividly because of the virgin birth, the gentile audience is going to understand. Regardless, tracing Jesus’ lineage back through Joseph or Mary gets you to David, and God fulfills His Promise and Prophecy. Also something to mention, the Jewish were extremely meticulous record/genealogy keepers, this is studiable throughout all Jewish history, not just the early Church (for a database click here!)
Finally, skeptics like to say that Luke didn’t mean Mary’s bloodline because he says Joseph the son of Heli Luke 3:23, so are we in the wrong here is there a contradiction in the Bible? No, this is a case of not understanding Jewish Law and Greek. First and foremost, Heli, is Marry’s father, Jesus’ Grandfather, and for Heli, Joseph is his son in law, but there is no Greek word for ‘son in law’ Which is why Joseph is called “Joseph the son of Heli” by marriage to Marry. Luke doesn’t just say ‘Joseph’ and start going back, no, he says Joseph the son of Heli as in once you get married you have two sets of parents and Luke was referencing Joseph’s second parents. For an atheist who claims to be a “historical scholar” this is basic stuff, or to put it in my generations lingo, “my guy it’s not that hard”. Second of all, genealogies in the east always go through the male, that law was set because if some people go through the woman and some go through the man and some go through both it causes extreme confusion so whenever referencing genealogies you’d have to go through the man to avoid confusion, that’s why Luke said Joseph the son of Heli, Heli, Mary’s father, again for an atheist or muslim or whomever that claims to be a historical scholar this is basic stuff.
So all in all, Luke is tracing Jesus back to David through Mary’s bloodline while Matthew is tracing Jesus back to David through Joseph’s bloodline and Heli is Mary’s father. And to you skeptics, this is not a “contradiction” this is a you don’t understand history or The Greek language, and I would like to leave you with this, don’t speak about the Bible if you don’t know what your talking about, thanks.
This question is asked a lot by many people, but it stems from an ignorance of the full teaching of the Word of God. When you read both the Old and New Testament you see both God’s Glory and God’s wrath. But His relationships with people differ from what we see today, why? Well because the people were different from what we are today, you see one of the amazing things about the Bible is something called specific revelation, in that the things in the Old Testament were meant only for the people living in the Old Testament days. The only things that we follow from the Old Testament are the things that were carried over to the New Testament. As for who God is, that never changed God showed loving kindness in both the New and Old Testament. And also showed His Holy Wrath in both the New and Old Testament. God does what is specifically best for each nation. Now for some individual cases.
“Why does God say not to kill (Thou Shall not Kill Exodus 20:1-2) but then instructs Israel to turn around and kill men and women to take the promised land?”
First a history lesson, when you read the Bible and read about the Amalekites you read that they are not God’s people. In 1 Samuel 15:20 Saul lied and told everyone that he had killed all the Amalekites. Decades later the Amalekites grew and took David a man of God and his family hostage. David’s men finally defeated the Amalekites and set David and his family free but 400 Amalekites escaped. If Saul would of listened to God that wouldn’t of happened to David. Fast forward if Israel didn’t fully eradicate the Amalekites they would come back to cause harm on God’s people so that is where the command comes from. Now to discuss the clear mixing up of terms here, God tells us not to murder Exodus 20:13 but there is a difference in the word murder and kill as there is a difference in murder and kill in the Hebrew (trə·ṣāḥ , אֶת־ עֲמָלֵ֗ק וְהַֽחֲרַמְתֶּם֙ אֶת־ כָּל־ respectively). Murder is unjust at the hands of humans. Just war where people die is killing, and given the Amalekites were not God’s people and were causing harm to God’s people and were not going to see Heaven God instructed the Israelites to wipe them out. Now the question of the children who were too young, God knows the future and knew the young children would grow up and attack the Israelites exactly like they did before when Saul disobeyed God.
“Why does God let Job suffer horrible things just to win a bet with satan?”
First mentions, the format of this question is incorrect, there is no “bet” in terms of the all knowing God He already knew what was going to happen. This is one case where God used evil and harnessed it for good, the book of Job is very inspirational in that in suffering you realize what really is important not riches or servants but God and this strengthened Jobs faith in God, in the trials we go through today we are reminded by Job to look to the LORD for our salvation. Furthermore you may ask, was what God allowed to happen to Job just? Well the answer goes back to the garden and sin in our own lives we shouldn’t even be alive but it is by miracle of God that we live until our last day set forth by the will of The sovereign God.
Why would God tell Abraham to kill his son and then say “just kidding That was a test.”
Commonly the way people ask this question is if as if it was a joke when it wasn’t. Issac was promised several times from God. From Abraham’s own body would come a nation as multitudinous as the stars in heaven Genesis 12:2–3; 15:4–5. Later, Abraham was specifically told that the promise would be through Isaac Genesis 21:12. Abraham had faith in God in which he believed that God would keep His promise and raise Issac from the dead Hebrews 11:17–19 so his reaction to the command was just to do what God had said. Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness. Genesis 15:6
Of course not to insult anyone’s intelligence, but questions like these commonly stem from ignorance. That is not an indictment on the new believer, rather, its on the skeptic who seeks bad argument or surface level argument backed by feelings rather than fact (such was my former self before Christ) with that being said God is never changing in His Infinite Glory Hebrew 13:8
All text was written by Kwabena Duku sourced from God’s expressed word the Bible July 2020
It is a simple question, but commonly, popular Christian leaders tend to avoid answering it. And as well common, high level atheists point out two verses that seem to be in very much support of slavery. Before we continue on to debunk arguments, we must start with definitions.
First and foremost the word translated slave in the Bible and the definition of slavery used today are two completely different things. The word translated slave: “Ebed“, is a morally neutral word, it is used in both good and bad connotations. We see ebed used when describing worshipers of God, the Levites, important prophets of God, manservants, and many more places (depends on the context). The overarching fact of the matter is, slavery as we know it today did not exist in Biblical times, slaves in Biblical times are more comparable to indentured servants. People would become slaves because they had a debt they could not pay. That is why we see God regulating slavery(remember biblical definition) so the evil heart of man does not overtake. Furthermore, in both the Old and New Testament God strictly prohibits man stealing; Exodus 21:16. God put the sin of man stealing on the same level as killing your mother or father, and if such were to take place you would be put to death. Nonetheless, as per the current definition of slavery, the Bible nowhere condones it, in fact it wasn’t until the African American slaves started reading the full Bible without censorship when they realized they weren’t supposed to be enslaved.
Now let’s look atheists two favourite verses to try to prove the Bible supports slavery Leviticus 25:44-46
44 As for your male and female slaves whom you may have—you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you. 45 Then, too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live as aliens among you that you may gain acquisition, and out of their families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land; they also may become your possession. 46 You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to your countrymen, the sons of Israel, you shall not rule with severity over one another.
and Exodus 21:20-12
20 If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. 21 If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his property.
Now the common argument would be that people could be, one stolen from surrounding nations, two foreigners in the land could also be stolen as slaves, three you can pass them along from your possession to your children’s possession, and four as it says in Exodus you can beat the slaves willy-nilly as long as they don’t die because the slave is his property. Alright, let’s look at it.
I’m going to focus on verse 44 of Leviticus 25 “As for your male and female slaves whom you may have—you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you”. First of all like I said they always interpret the modern definition of slavery into the text, and slavery of that kind quite literally did not exist at the time. Verse 44 when it says “you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you” is talking about prisoners of war, how do I know? Well first and foremost like I mentioned above God strictly prohibits man stealing, Exodus 21:16, furthermore, I shouldn’t have to go into this part of history as anyone is well aware that groups or nations would fight wars for land and goods and take the inhabitants as prisoners. They were a danger to them overtaking the land again, hurting people, etc suffice to say the Bible was saying that the Israelites could go win or conquer for land from pagan nations and acquire the inhabitants. So with that being said the only interpretation of “you may acquire them from pagan nations around you” is go win the war and acquire them not go steal them. Given that you’ve read all up to this point that it is a sin to steal men and such is punishable by death, and given wars like I described happened all the time there is no other way to interpret this verse. You must interpret what is said in the full context as the author wrote it in belief the reader has read up to the point and understands what phrases mean, as in any other literature the author doesn’t have to reiterate every single phrase with what he is referring to and details of such as the reader has already read it so no God does not say go and steal people and then and enslave them.
Now for 45-46, “Then, too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live as aliens among you that you may gain acquisition, and out of their families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land; they also may become your possession. 46 You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to your countrymen, the sons of Israel, you shall not rule with severity over one another.” Here the Bible is referring to the Toshab (sojourners) and the ger(alliens) those two groups are people who came to seek refuge for any reason, economic, religious, ran away from or were exiled from their nations, etc. So these groups sold themselves into slavery and it was not a command for them to stay for life rather it was permission on both sides I don’t know what translation you may read but it probably says something along the lines of you can take them as your possession or property. NASB says possession but, possession is clearly derogatory, right? No, much like the word “slave” (ebed) the word translated property is different from the modern use, take for example the word “gay”, 100’s of years ago if you were to pick up a book on being gay it would be completely different from what you would read if you picked one up from 2020. Words change with the culture and of course when you translate a word from one language into another that doesn’t posses a parallel word you run into issues if you decide to separate it and not read context. Nonetheless, a few chapters earlier in 19:33-34 we read that when a Foreigner(stranger) resides among you do not mistreat them love them as yourself. So just a few passages earlier the Israelites are *commanded to love them and not mistreat them, in exodus 23:9 the Israelites are *commanded not to oppress a foreigner as they are foreigners to Egypt themselves, Exodus 22:21 *commanded not to oppress a foreigner, Deuteronomy 27:19 cursed is who withholds justice from a foreigner, Deuteronomy 10:19 God shows no partiality to any persons. There are many *commandments and verses like this throughout the story and the Bible in fact in the next verse the Israelites are told that if a foreigner becomes rich and a Israelite is poor let him sell himself to the foreigner. So if you read this verse simply in isolation and without the pre and future knowledge to come and just used the definition of slavery we learned in school. Then ‘possession’ appears as something wildly different than it is. The translation of possession or property(translators commonly chose between these two) achuzzah is not in reference to someone’s value, rather it is in reference to the value of their work output, this is made clear when we keep reading into Leviticus where skeptics are either unaware or purposely left off that the redemption process was based not on the person as an object but rather on the value of their labor output 25:49-53 simply put it’s similar to football or professional sports players being traded, it’s not based on their value as a person instead we’re referring to the work that they can produce. Just have to look at the context. So God Is not just saying go and steal them and enslave them, no either win a war and take prisoners of the war or take the foreigners as slaves(remember not the modern definition) and love them and you may have them for life If both parties agree. Furthermore, this is taking place right before the year of jubilee, where all debts are erased and everyone goes back to his land, where would the foreigners go if they own no land? In the story you can see therefore God is saying you can, you may stay if you want you know given the obvious problem it’s never *must. Like it is earlier when God tells the Israelites you *must love the. Also, all of this has absolutely nothing to do with race only land. So the only way you can these verses as God supports slavery per the current definition is if we first forgo everything said by the Bible and definitions of words used by the writers and put in new definitions into the text.
Now for Exodus 21:20-21“If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. 21 If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his property”. Given that first of all the Israelites are *commanded to love the foreigners (who also may become slaves remember not the current definition), you can’t read into the text that the masters are given permission to beat foreigner slaves mercilessly without killing them because where does it say that? If you keep reading to the next verses, 22-27, the Israelites are told that if they cause a slave to lose his eye he must let him go as compensation. If you read the full context of the passage and verses don’t say go beat the slaves willy-nilly, as you’re going to be punished for that It means if it happens. The eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth principle applies to the slaves as well.
So to reiterate The Bible nowhere condones the modern definition of slavery, manstealing is in fact punishable by death. If you win a war against a pagan nation, you may take the inhabitants as prisoners of that war, you may take foreigners in your land as slaves(remember the definition of slavery at the time the author was writing) and love them, if your hurt for instance by causing one lose his eye you must first let him go and then your gonna lose an eye, you cannot beat them for fun as you’re going to be punished for it, and no none of this has anything to do with nationality.
Recently, famous artist Johnathan Steingard, lead singer of the Hawk Nelson Group, released a statement on Instagram expressing his loss of belief in God. Steingard (37) cited many reasons as for why he quote has “issues” with the Christian community and furthermore the questions elders and leaders in his life failed to answer. Questions such as “If God is all loving and all powerful why is there evil in the world?” “Does he choose not to do anything about it?” questions about free will, Old Testament to New Testament, and many more and in this article intend to answer every single doubt and question raised by Mr. Steingard. For clarity I recommended that you go and read his Instagram post first.
Is it possible for a Born again Christian to lose his or her salvation?
To address the unmentioned elephant in the room, is it possible for a born again Christian to lose his or her salvation? Not too long ago I was asked a similar question by a Christian who sent me a direct message on Instagram, he had read about a pastor who had recently converted to atheism and lost his belief in God, the young Christian expressed to me that it shook his faith, “surely if a pastor/priest where (was) running a Church they felt God (like)at that time as us when we feel God” I quote from him. His question was simple, how is this possible? If someone is with God how could they walk away? Can the same happen to me? In regards to salvation the Bible is clear, it is impossible for a born again Christian to lose his or her salvation. There are many issues with the belief that a Christian can lose his or her salvation, consider Romans 11:29
29 for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
The Bible tells us that a Christian is a new creation 2 Corinthians 5:17, a simple logical connection would allow someone to understand that a Christian cannot be un-newly made, furthermore, in Titus 1:2 we are taught God cannot lie this is just one issue with inserting a teaching that you can lose your salvation in the Bible. Such an ideal is found nowhere in Scripture. There are many verses and chapters that are against such teachings for another example John 3:16 God promises eternal life to those who repent and trust in Jesus, if it were possible for a Born again Christian to lose his or her salvation then God would have to revoke His promise and again God cannot lie. There are many more issues with an unbiblical teaching that I do intend to write an article on. but in the meantime, you can read a similar article I wrote in April of 2020
Now we have a big question, what does this mean for Steingard, and the pastor turned atheist? They were never saved in the first place and there is simply no Biblical case to be made that they were. So now we can look at how someone could go through a majority of life believing they are saved but yet are deceived.
A huge problem within Christianity is false conversion. In many Churches around the world, the way they try to bring salvation to people is to have everyone close their eyes and the pastor will ask if anyone has not accepted Jesus into their hearts someone will raise their hand and repeat a prayer after them. The problem that prayer doesn’t does not automatically assure your entrance into Heaven and sadly a lot of people don’t know even though they did all of the accept Jesus into their heart thing. Notable Gospel proclaiming street evangelist Ray Comfort makes this analogy “if you were a young girl and your boyfriend cheated on you but the next day showed up with a man and repeated an apology after him, you would not think it is genuine” Could it be? Possibly but more likely than not it isn’t because in reality, the young man is just repeating after someone. So in terms of false conversion and the salvation prayer there is a connection based on the fact that many Churches fail to explain what is really going on, we are sinners who being made in God’s Holy image have gravely misrepresented it and thus the punishment eternal hell because God is eternal. Nonetheless, the question could be asked is this practice unbiblical I would say not necessarily because most Churches do it badly but some don’t some Churches actually explain the doctrine of salvation and try to help you start to ask God to reveal Himself to you, my church does and I followed one many years ago but I most definitely was not saved they did make sure I was aware of that. Regardless the way of salvation is simple understanding the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for us and repenting and Trusting Him as your Savior.
Now we can get to the concerns raised by Johnathan Steingard and answer them with what the Bible says. Maybe Mr. Steingard will see this? I don’t know but the answers the Bible has are important for the believer and non-believer alike. Lets look at the first question, If God is good why does evil exist in the world?
A Biblical response to Johnathan Steingard’s questions.
First up: [1A]”If God is all loving, and all powerful, why is there evil in the world? Can He not do anything about it?[1B] Does He choose not to?[1C] Is the evil in the world a result of his desire to give us free will? [1D] OK then, what about famine and disease and floods and all the suffering that isn’t caused by humans and free will?”[1E]
That is a lot so let me fully unpack his doubts word by word. [1A] If God is all loving, and all powerful, why is there evil in the world? The answer to this is simple, It is to show the Glory of The Almighty everlasting God. The Bible tells us God is good Psalm 34:8 and when the Bible says Good unlike the common definition used by humans the definition of Good in reference to God is Moral perfection. Simply put if I were to ask you does darkness exists (as its own entity) you would most likely say yes darkness exists but the answer is actually no, darkness is the absence of light. In the same way, evil is the absence of God or in other words, evil is what happens when God is not present. So now we ask, why is God not present? We must take ourselves back to the creation of the world. On the 6th day of creation Adam was formed from dust and then Eve was formed with one of Adam’s ribs. Satan in the form of a serpent deceived Eve into eating the forbidden apple and then gave it to Adam and two things happened there, first they created separation between man and God. Given that we are made in God’s Holy and eternal image we are to be bearers of Him but when Adam and Eve sinned they gravely misrepresented God’s Holy nature and the only punishment pay for our sins against an Eternal God is eternal punishment. The second thing that happened is that they brought death suffering and destruction into the world, how? With the separation from God they caused. Looking into the Book of Genesis, instead of God just leaving us alone to satan and our fleshly desires brought upon the fall, God instead promised us a savior from the pain of death suffering and destruction in this world, His name is Jesus Christ who died a gruesome death upon a Cross to pay for the sins we could not pay so that those whom trust in Him as their savior and repent from their sins may have everlasting life with God. So lets talk about what God should of just done, just make everyone perfect right? Well first off He did and you know the story, so how about making everyone perfect to the only thing they could do what was good? Now we have another issue because now we have no choice, or free will if we were set to only do good. There is no meaningful connection with our creator because we don’t have the choice. Something like that exists, they are angels. Okay move past creation why doesn’t God just remove all the bad people? Sounds great to me I questioned this when I was younger why not? Well the problem is that everyone would be gone, there are sins that we consider lesser evil but it still is sin there is no distinction. To follow this God would have to remove everyone who sins God would remove the robber but God will also remove the people who commit sins that lead up to commercial robbery, the little kid who steals a cookie from the cookie jar because that is a sin and it is evil and they have to be removed. God will remove the tax evader who ruins lives but God will also remove the people that commit sins that could lead up to tax evasion, the people that tell lies and “white” lies because that is a sin and that is evil and they have to be removed. I am dragging this on so you see the reality of what God has done, a real world where we can choose to worship Him in the midst of chaos and the journey of a born again Christian is to the promise God made and because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ made those who repent and trust in Him can enjoy everlasting life with God.
That answers [1A] [1B] [1C] and [1D] but for clarity on [1E] if you didn’t get it “OK then, what about famine and disease and floods and all the suffering that isn’t caused by humans and free will?”: That is because of the fall which was caused by human free will.
Next question raised by Mr. Steingard: “Why does (A Loving) God send people to hell?”
This is a question that may seem tantalizing but when you reconcile reality and what the Word of God says you actually change to love God more, why would a loving God not send people to hell? Hitler deserves everlasting paradise? Killed millions of Jews for no reason. People who fly planes into buildings?? They deserve everlasting paradise? Recall what I said about Sin and evil you would realize everyone deserves to go to hell and we do! But through the Grace of God we don’t have to suffer that if we put our trust in Jesus Christ and repent of our sins.
Question number three: Why does God seem so (expletive) off in the Old Testament, and then all of a sudden He’s a loving father in the New Testament.
This question is asked a lot by many people, but it stems from an ignorance of the full teaching of the Word of God. When you read the Old Testament and New Testament both you will see both God’s Glory and God’s wrath. But His relationships with people differ from what we see today, why? Well because the people were different from what we are today, you see one of the amazing things about the Bible is something called specific revelation, in that the things in the Old Testament were meant only for the people living in the Old Testament days. The only things that we follow from the Old Testament are the things that were carried over to the New Testament. As for who God is, that never changed God showed loving kindness in both the New and Old Testament. And also showed His Holy Wrath in both the New and Old Testament. God does what is specifically best for each nation. Now for some individual cases.
Question five: “Why does God say not to kill but then instructs Israel to turn around and kill men and women to take the promise land?”
First a history lesson, when you read the Bible and read about the Amalekites you read that they are not God’s people. In 1 Samuel 15:20 Saul lied and told everyone that he had killed all the Amalekites. Decades later the Amalekites grew and took David a man of God and his family hostage. David’s men finally defeated the Amalekites and set David and his family free but 400 Amalekites escaped. If Saul would of listened to God that wouldn’t of happened to David. Fast forward if Israel didn’t fully eradicate the Amalekites they would come back to cause harm on God’s people so that is where the command comes from. Now to discuss the clear mixing up of terms here, God tells us not to murder Exodus 20:13 but there is a difference in the word murder and kill as there is a difference in murder and kill in the Hebrew (trə·ṣāḥ , אֶת־ עֲמָלֵ֗ק וְהַֽחֲרַמְתֶּם֙ אֶת־ כָּל־ respectively). Murder is unjust at the hands of humans. Just war where people die is killing, and given the Amalekites were not God’s people and were causing harm to God’s people and were not going to see Heaven God instructed the Israelites to wipe them out. Now the question of the children who were too young, God knows the future and knew the young children would grow up and attack the Israelites exactly like they did before when Saul disobeyed God.
Question Six: “Why does God let Job suffer horrible things just to…. win a bet with satan?!”
I must mention you are wrong in the format of your question, there is no “bet” in terms of the all knowing God He already knew what was going to happen. This is one case where God used evil and harnessed it for good, the book of Job is very inspirational in that in suffering you realize what really is important not riches or servants but God and this strengthened Jobs faith in God, in the trials we go through today we are reminded by Job to look to the LORD for our salvation. Furthermore you may ask, was what God allowed to happen to Job just? Well the answer goes back to the garden and sin in our own lives we shouldn’t even be alive but it is by miracle of God that we live until our last day set forth by the will of The sovereign God.
Question Seven: Why would (God) He tell Abraham to kill his son (more killing again) and then basically say “just kidding! That was a test.”
The way you ask this question is if as if it was a joke when it wasn’t. Issac was promised several times from God. From Abraham’s own body would come a nation as multitudinous as the stars in heaven Genesis 12:2–3; 15:4–5. Later, Abraham was specifically told that the promise would be through Isaac Genesis 21:12. Abraham faith in God in which he believed that God would keep His promise and raise Issac from the dead Hebrews 11:17–19 so his reaction to the command was just to do what God had said. Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness. Genesis 15:6
Question Eight: Why Did Jesus Have to Die for our sins(more killing again) If God can do anything can’t he forgive without someone dying? I mean my parents taught me to forgive people- nobody dies in that scenario”
This goes back to Genesis and what I wrote in the first response, we are all sinners and deserve punishment, but God sent His son Jesus Christ to be the sacrifice on our behalf because God is fully Just He has to exert His Holy wrath or else He wouldn’t be Fully Just because He is just letting people go with no punishment to satisfy His Holy Wrath, no Jesus took on the Holy Just wrath of God on our behalf so that those who repent and trust in Him will inherit eternal life with God because their ransom has been paid. The only reason Jesus could pay the sacrifice is because He was sinless perfect and blameless. In scenarios in which you forgive someone on a human to human level sacrifices are not needed.
Final Question: ” I was asking (Father-in-law) about a verse in 1 Timothy that seems really oppressive of women. It indicates that women shouldn’t be in Church leadership, shouldn’t teach men and shouldn’t wear their hair braids”
11 A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. 12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.
This verse is in no way indicative to teach that men are somehow valued more in God’s eyes. Adam was created first and then Eve and Adam was not deceived the Bible follows in 1 Timothy 2:13-14. God created Adam first and then created Eve to be a helper for Adam. The order of creation has application in the family and Church realm. This is not oppressive for the simple fact that nowhere in the Bible are we ever taught that women are lesser to men, in fact the only thing we are taught is that when a man and women come together the blessings and strength on both sides increase rapidly. Please note this as well marriage is to represent the relationship Jesus Has with the Church His Bride and we know full and well the Church is just as important as Jesus because without it none of us today would be saved. As for this verse it is teaching us a Woman cannot be a head pastor of a Church, this does not mean youth group, children, public prayer, exercising the gifts of the Holy Spirit, ministering to others, demonstrating the fruits of the Spirit and proclaiming the Gospel, the Bible nowhere restricts that and of course encourages it.
Conclusion
I have using the Bible answered every single doubt raised by Mr. Johnathan Steingard in hopes that it may help a Christian grow and maybe even get Mr. Steingard himself saved. Mr. Steingard did mention in his statement that there were contradictions in the Bible and I do wish he would come forward with those as they can all be answered by the end of the day! I thank you for reading Soli Deo Gloria!
Does the Bible say getting a tattoo is a sin? Well there are many Christians who believe it is a sin and often cite Leviticus 19:28
“You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the LORD.”
Does this verse mean Christians cannot get tattoos? The answer is no, a common principle in all misinterpreted scripture is the failure to apply Biblical hermeneutics, simply put, at minimum at least just reading the passage before and the passage after to get a proper understanding of what the passage is trying to say in the historical context, what it meant to the reader, and what they would understand at the time based on structure and word choice. This is common in any other literature written today, yesterday, or 500 years ago, you cannot just put a random sentence on display and say exactly what the writer means it’s impossible.
Nonetheless, let’s look at the context of Leviticus 19:28 God is reminding/ giving rules to the Israelite’s because they are His people, specifically in verse 28 God tells them not to cut themselves for the dead or tattoo yourself, in context this is in reference to following false god’s in the Old Testament tattoos for style or fashion did not exist, tattoos were used to signify pagan practices, so being that the Israelite’s were God’s people He told them not to do that, we can see that by the end of the verse when He says “I am the LORD” (fun fact when the Bible spells “LORD” in all caps it is to signify God the Father when it is spelt like “Lord” that is God the Son Jesus, in Hebrew, the Bible’s original language, the distinction is clear through sentence structure but English, as we know, is built differently!) God wants His own people to be separate from the rest.
Finally, two important considerations with this topic are personal convictions and motive, honestly myself I have no interest in getting a tattoo couldn’t really care less if someone I know got one but some people feel more strongly about their convictions not to get one. We can apply the concept of personal conviction here because The Bible does not explicitly say either-or (of tattoos as we know them today) it’s a grey area, with that being said if you feel like not getting a tattoo for what ever reason then don’t but because its a gray area and your one who doesn’t see it as sin then go ahead and get one if you feel like. Do know that God knows our motives and if you desire to get a tattoo for a pagan practice or anything that promotes a world or man based ideal then don’t get one, God’s people are to be separate from the world we cannot live like them
That answers the question is it a sin to get a tattoo thanks for reading Soli Deo Gloria!
All text was written By Kwabena Duku sourced from God’s expressed written word the Bible and sources include Gotquestions.org and AnswersinGenesis.org May. 2020
The question is, if God has already forgiven us why can’t we just sin anyways? This is a fairly common wonder/question by Christians and question by skeptics If God has already forgiven you what’s the point of trying to live a good life? Consider Romans Chapter 6: 1-2
“6 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that once someone is saved the Holy Spirit gives them a new heart, he is a new creature and old desires have passed away and you now produce fruits of the spirit Galatians 5:22-23
“22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
And stop producing the fruits of the flesh Galatians 5:19-21
“19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God”
Now Christians may answer this question in a way similar to this ” Well God died for you, you should live for Him” or “You shouldn’t take advantage of God’s mercy”. While these are all fine and dandy and even true the problem is much more deeper than that, If a Christian does not have any change in lifestyle when they are saved then it is very possible they are not saved, someone truly converted under grace and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ has no longer a desire to sin because they have been given a new heart, it doesn’t mean we do not sin anymore it means the overt desire to sin no longer resides within you. Now I would like to go over a huge problem that exists within the Church that is false conversion. Someone who believes they are Christian but are actually deceived, false conversion stems from many different starting points the most obvious is diverging on primary doctrines, for instance denying the Deity of Christ, you cannot fully understand the sacrifice made and cannot accept the gift if you deny the Deity of Christ. Another obvious one is The inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures if someone believes only parts of the Bible, or selected scriptures of the Bible are true especially those that deal with the meaning of sin they can’t be saved. I was having a conversation with someone who was confused about something, he had read online about a “pastor” who had recently converted in atheism and no longer follows the faith and he asked how could this be? I answered explaining that if someone quote “falls away from the faith” that means they were never in the faith to begin with. The Bible says come and taste the Lord and see that he is good Pslam 34:8, how can anyone ever taste and see that Lord is good and walk away from it? Logic and by connection the Bible says that is impossible, I told him that man probably never even got up to the plate. Personally ill tell you this probably my first 1-2 years of being “saved” I actually wasn’t saved and I could tell by how I was living still in sin with no remorse or even resentment to it, this tends to be a problem kids like I who grow up in Church, my Father a simple Church goer my Mother a Methodist we went to a Methodist Church and we switched to a non denominational when was about 12 or 13 and made a “profession of faith” by asking Jesus into my heart around then, now mind you this a personal story but after that I really had no change in lifestyle kinda just went on. Barley, in fact almost never read my Bible and it wasn’t for a while until I kinda thought this isn’t right I looked into it and realized I had no idea on what it meant and what it means to be actually saved, its not just saying a few words and moving on with your life, it is understanding that we are lost and you have misrepresented God’s holy character by sin and have to be punished, yet by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ we can now be saved because God’s wrath was satisfied on His son John 3:16.
So our question was if God is going to forgive us why can’t we just sin anyway? The answer? By the chaining of the Holy Spirit believers no longer have an innate desire to sin and when one falls he is in regret, if one still desires to sin and feels no remorse Biblically it is time to examine yourself to see if you are in the faith, 2 Corinthians 13:5 “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?” If you have questions about what it means to be saved send me a dm on my main account @Duku_Kevin or email me. Soli Deo Gloria thanks for reading.
All text was written By Kwabena Duku sourced from God’s expressed written word the Bible and sources include Gotquestions.org and AnswersinGenesis.org 2020.
Bible Answers by Bra Kwabena 