Category: Random

Why the Long Lists Of Names in the Bible?

One of the things that stump first time Bible readers is the long list of names, genealogies, places and temple articles found in some parts of the Bible. Some people think they’re useless information. Who cares about names of people who are long dead? What difference does it make if we knew who begat whom?

D. James Kennedy, in his book “Why I Believe,” gave this insightful explanation:

[The] plethora of details were [like] watermarks in paper which bear indelible evidence of the time and plan of manufacture. As a detective can ascertain from a watermark many things about the paper- its source, for instance- the science of archaeology has uncovered from these details a vast wealth of information about the Scripture.

In a courtroom, lawyers frequently ask witnesses many detailed questions that do not seem to bear directly on the issue at hand. They are attempting to establish in all sorts of corroborative ways whether the witness is telling the truth or is lying.

According to one historian, it is impossible to establish a lie in the midst of a well-known history. As the details are brought out and confirmed or denied, so the truth of the story also is confirmed or denied. One scholar states: “To my mind, absolute truth and local details (a thing which cannot possibly be invented when it is spread over a history covering many centuries) give proof almost absolute as to the truth of the thing related. Such proof we have for every part of the Bible.”

Source: D. James Kennedy, Why I Believe (Thomas Nelson; Revised edition, 1979)

Sunday Scribbles

A few random thoughts before I go to bed tonight:

Pastor Gilbert preached from John 9 today. It’s about Jesus healing a blind man by dabbling mud made of spit and soil on the blind guy’s eyes. Yuck. Disgusting. I couldn’t even get anywhere near someone who sneezed, let alone allow anyone to put mud on my eyes. But maybe that’s one of the reasons why we don’t receive much from God. We are too icky about a lot of things that much of what God would have done are hindered.

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There are two things that could hinder God from performing a miracle in your life. First is when you think that knowing everything about God is a requisite to receiving miracles. It’s not. Second is when you simply know too much. The Pharisees thought they already figured God out. They didn’t have room for God to do something new. That’s why they were scandalized when Jesus did something good on a Sabbath.

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Christian-bashing

In modern America, Judeo-Christian beliefs are often held up to ridicule and disdain by the media. How ironic that the free speech forum that they utilize is ultimately a gift of Christianity- a fact that you could easily miss on Larry King, David Letterman or Oprah.

If you went to Saudi Arabia, you’d never hear a talk show discussing whether Muhammad was really the prophet of Allah. Muslim converts to Christianity are summarily executed in Muslim lands. At last check, Salman Rushdie (author of Satanic Verses) was still in hiding.

If you went to Israel, you wouldn’t hear a broadcast discussing whether Jesus was the Christ (Messiah). Messianic Jews (who believe Jesus is the Christ) have even been expelled or threatened to be expelled from Israel.

If you were in India, you wouldn’t hear an open discussion on whether sacred cows should be eaten. And if you were in China, with its atheistic base, you wouldn’t hear a discussion on whether citizens should be allowed to leave or return to China at will.

We enjoy free speech and other civil liberties precisely because of our Christian heritage.

Source: D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (Thomas Nelson, 2005)

Of Suicide and Proper Biblical Context

Always be mindful of reading the Bible in its proper context.

There is an old joke I heard years ago about a person who desperately wanted to know the will of God for his life. He closed his eyes, opened his Bible at random and pointed his finger on the page. He believed that he will know God’s will from the three verses that he will read at random.

The verses he picked were Luke 22: 4, Acts 1: 18 and the other half of Luke 10: 37. Taken together, this is what he got:

“And Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus.”

“With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out.”

“Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.””

One Solitary Life

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He never went to college. He never visited a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself.

He was only thirty-three when the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.

While He was dying, His executioners gambled for His garments, the only property He had on earth. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is the central figure of the human race.

All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one solitary life.

Source: James Allan Francis, The Real Jesus and Other Sermons (Philadelphia et al.: The Judson Press, 1926), p. 123.

The Only Prejudice We Tolerate

We live in an age in which only one prejudice is tolerated– anti-Christian bigotry. Michael Novak, the eminent columnist, once said that today you can no longer hold up to public pillorying and ridicule groups such as African-Americans or Native Americans or women or homosexuals or Poles, and so on. Today, the only group you can hold up to public mockery is Christians. Attacks on the Church and Christianity are common. As Pat Buchanan once put it, “Christian-bashing is a popular indoor sport.”

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