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Some like to say that theology is the queen of the sciences. But I am beginning to think theology is not so much a science as it is a form of entertainment.

I mean, don’t these guys look like a barrel of laughs?

Seriously though, we theologians often take ourselves way too seriously.

But if historical theology and church tradition teach us anything at all, it is that many of the ideas we have held to most dearly have been the same ideas that have cost the church and the world most dearly.

So let all the shouting, yelling, and finger pointing cease. Let us all sit down and take a deep breath. Let us loosen our ties and untuck our shirts. Let us relaaax.

Then, let someone stand up and tell us a joke. Or a story.

Then let us all start laughing more, and not just laughing, but laughing at ourselves. Let us remember how ludicrous our carefully packaged systems of theology really are.

When we teach and write about theology, we know next to nothing regarding the topic about which we speak, but we speak about it as if we know everything.

If you cannot laugh at your own hubris when you teach theology, you should not be teaching theology.

If God truly is as infinite as we claim, then all the compiled knowledge and ideas about God are nothing more than a speck of insight compared to the infinity of God. Yet we speak with such certainty and arrogance, as if we have all knowledge of God.

I am reminded of a parable about theology from Robert Farrar Capon in his book, Hunting the Divine Fox. Here it is for your enjoyment:

Once upon a time, in the mud at the bottom of a tidal pool, there lived an oyster. By oyster’s standards, he had a good life: the sea water was clean, and full of plankton, and the green warmth of the light at low tide made him grow and prosper.

Next to him lived a stone with whom he sometimes talked. It was very much the same size, shape and color as he, and was good, if undemanding, company. As a matter of fact, their conversations gave the oyster a definite feeling of superiority. He loved to dwell at length on the differences that underlay their apparent similarity. Rocks, he would say, are merely mineral. Oysters may be mineral on the outside; but inside, they are bona fide members of the animal kingdom.

One day, however the stone surprised him by coming up with a rejoinder. It pointed out that there were nonetheless some advantages to being further down the evolutionary scale. Rocks have fewer enemies than oysters. Starfish and oyster drills, it observed, were no threat to stones; to the oyster they were a matter of life and death. Furthermore, the stone told him, it was getting just a little tired of being put down by an oyster with airs. He might get a lesson in humility if he would listen to some of the things the starfish say about oysters — things which the oyster never heard because he was too busy being mortally afraid, but which the stone heard regularly, and with amusement.

Starfish, it seems, have a very low opinion of oysters. They eat them, but they always refer to them as ‘nothing more than a rock with a stomach.’ In fact, what passes as starfish humor…invariably has to do with how stupid it is to be an animal and not be able to move about. The worst thing one starfish can call another is ‘sessile creature.’

The oyster terminated the discussion huffily and went into a state of profound depression. To have everything he had been so proud of become the butt of underwater ethnic wisecracks made life not worth living. Existence, he concluded, was nothing but a cruel joke. All the faith he once had in a grand design of the evolutionary scheme forsook him. Better to believe in nothing than dignify this farce of a world with its pretensions of order. He became an anti-evolutionist, and stopped saying his prayers.

For a while, righteous indignation made the losing of his religion rather fun, as it always does; but as summer wore on into fall and the water began its slow progress to winter’s cold, he became merely sour- angry at the universe, but even more angry at himself for having let it turn him into a grouch. Finally, in desperation, he decided he would pray once again; but this time with a difference. No more mumbling of set pieties. He saw himself as a Job among oysters; he would open his shell and curse his day.

And the oyster spoke and said, “Let the day perish wherein I was spawned, and the night in which it was said, A seed oyster has appeared. Why is light given to him that is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul? Why do I live my days in doubt and darkness? O, that one would hear me, and tell me openly of the glories above. Behold, my desire is, that the Almighty would answer me.”

And, to his utter astonishment, a voice said, “All right, all right. But I have to make it short. It’s Friday afternoon.

“It’s all true. There are things you never even dreamed of. All kinds of stuff. And with moves you couldn’t imagine if you tried. As a matter of fact, that’s your problem. There you sit with a rock on one side and a starfish on the other. My apologies. It’s a limited field of vision, I admit, but in the evolutionary scale business, you’ve got to put a lot of things near the bottom. Spoils the effect if you don’t.

“Anyways, the moves. I’ll tell you a few. Basketball. College basketball, especially. The best ones are so flashy, they make you laugh for not being able to believe the guy actually made the shot. And squirrels going through trees. One of my best effects. You know the last time a squirrel missed his footing? I keep track of such things. It was May 3rd 1438. Definitely a record.

“And it’s not all slapdash, either. I’ve got creatures so graceful, they almost break your heart. When it comes to exquisite moves, my favorite maybe is girls’ knees. Lovely. Some people think that’s a funny thing to get excited about, but in my line of work, there’s no substitute for enthusiasm.

“Seriously. If you take the knee thing and really go all the way with it, you get my absolute favorite for loveliness, a prima ballerina. Talk about moves. It’s like Ernie DiGregorio, Marcel Marceau, and Squirrel Nutkin all rolled together- but as a girl, which makes it that much better. Terrific.

“Listen, though. It’s almost sundown, and I have to set a good example. As I said, your basic problem is your point of view. There really are all these great moves, but you unfortunately don’t know from motion. If you’re going into business as the world’s first philosophical oyster, its o.k. by me. But just so you shouldn’t get it all wrong, I’ll give you one piece of advice: Think very carefully. Remember that all this stuff really is, but it can’t possibly be the way you think. Or, to turn it around: The way you think about things will never be exactly the same as the way they are. But enough. I really have to run. Mazel tov.”

And with that, the voice ceased and the oyster was left alone with his thoughts. He felt both humbler and more elated than ever before. He resolved to philosophize no matter what the difficulties, and, in order to make the best use of the voice’s advice, he decided to put himself into a methodical frame of mind. What follows is a transcript of his train of thought.

1. There is motion. I, as an oyster, can distinguish two sorts. The first is being moved (e.g., both the stone and myself can be moved by oystermen). The second is moving on one’s own. The stone cannot do this at all. I can move the part of myself within my shell, but I cannot move my whole self from place to place. The starfish can move from place to place.

2. The voice was quite clear on the existence of more mobile creatures than the starfish. Let me see what I can say about the prima ballerina:

Starfish move; ballerinas move.
Starfish attack oysters.
Can starfish attack ballerinas?

This is problematical. Perhaps a tentative solution would be that since the ballerina’s motion is apparently far more eminent than the starfish’s, a ballerina would invariably move in such a way as to avoid starfish. There are unresolved difficulties, however:

a. I do not know whether starfish and ballerinas occupy the same medium.
b. I do not know whether starfish have any interest in attacking ballerinas.

3. Let me begin again:

Starfish move; ballerinas move.
Starfish are deadly to oysters.
Are ballerinas deadly to oysters?

One line of approach would seem to be that, since the voice says that ballerinas are his absolute favorite for loveliness, and since loveliness and deadliness do not seem to be compatible, the ballerina cannot be deadly to the oyster. (This depends, of course, on what is meant by loveliness and deadliness. It also might depend on whether a ballerina’s possible deadliness to the oyster proceeds out of her nature, as the starfish’s does, or out of some accidental or acquired taste, as it were. If the latter were true, then it might be that not every ballerina is deadly to oysters.) In any case, there is not enough evidence to resolve the question.

4. Even though the voice’s enthusiasm for the world of higher motion seems to have suspended my own doubts, it is disturbing to think how easily a skeptical oyster could argue from all this that ballerinas do not exist, but rather are nothing more than a distracting hypothesis invented by oysters who cannot face the grimness of existence without flinching.

5. Tentatively, I shall list the following as the chief properties of the prima ballerina:

a. Mobility (like the starfish’s, but better.
b. Invulnerability to starfish (likely).
c. Loveliness (on faith).
d. Deadliness (possible, but not certain).

There is a good deal unresolved here. Perhaps it would be useful to consider next what ballerinas are for. This is fascinating but tiring. At least, though, the seawater seems refreshing again.

I love this parable from Robert Farrar Capon (and everything he writes) for it perfectly represents human theology.

We are the oyster. The Bible is God’s revelation to us about ballerinas. And our theology is like the oyster’s methodical philosophizing about the nature and character of ballerinas.

This is why we must never take our theology too seriously. Sure, it is enjoyable. It can be fun. It is a healthy pastime. It can even be entertaining.

But we must remember that this is all theology is. Some people play basketball. Some people plant gardens. Some people watch TV. Some people discuss God.

As soon as we begin to think that we have figured out God and the mysteries of the universe, we are just like this oyster who thinks he has figured out a few things about ballerinas, but really, knows absolutely nothing about them.

When we approach theology this way, theology can be an enjoyable pursuit, and even a healthy pastime. But as soon as we take our methodical philosophizing too seriously and start demanding that everyone else agree with what we have figure out about God, well, that’s when theology is not longer healthy, good, or enjoyable.

So do you like theology? Great! So do I. Let’s talk about ballerina knees a bit.

Forget the balanced life. Embrace your madness for Jesus.

By Jeremy Myers

26 Comments

It is popular to talk about living balanced. Everywhere you turn, people are talking about the balanced life.

We need to have balanced diets, balanced budgets, balanced work life, balanced emotions, and balanced families.

I am not opposed to any of that, I suppose, but recently I have begun to wonder if our lives as followers of Jesus are supposed to balanced?

I suspect not.

There are a couple things that got me thinking about this.

The Unbalanced Life

The first thing that got me thinking about the unbalanced life is my own life as a follower of Jesus, especially in comparison to my wife’s life as a follower of Jesus. My wife, Wendy, is a lover and a server. I am a thinker and a reader.

For many years in our marriage, my wife felt guilty that she did not spend as much time “in the Word” and reading theology as I did. I, on the other hand, always felt guilty that I did not spend enough time getting to know our neighbors, taking baked-goods over to friends, or playing with children down at the park the way my wife did.

But recently, we have both come to the realization that God made us who we are, and rather than fight who God made us to be, we must revel in it.

Wendy shines when we have people over to our house. She almost literally glows, especially when the company includes children. She is specially gifted by God to love and serve others with her whole being. She bakes, cooks, talks, serves, and loves people in a way I have never seen matched by anybody.

When there are people in our house, especially when they are young people, visible light and energy almost radiate from my wife.

I, on the other hand, can sit for hours with my nose in a pile of books, chasing down insights into various Greek words, information about the historical background of a biblical event, and ideas about how to understand a particular text.

Wendy looks at me and says, “How can you sit and study so long?” I look at her and say, “How can you love to bake and entertain children so often?”

If someone told Wendy that she needs to “be more balanced” and spend less time cooking and with children and more time reading books, she wouldn’t do so well. She likes to read, but she prefers to be with people.

If, on the other hand, someone told me that I need to “be more balanced” and spend less time thinking and studying and more time talking with others, I wouldn’t so well. I like to talk with people, play with kids, and cook the occasional … hot dog … but all the while, my mind will be on the ideas and insights that are running through my head.

Neither one of us lives “balanced” very well, and I am beginning to think that maybe we are not supposed to.

Don’t Live the Balanced Life

God made us who we are, and we need to embrace our giftings, interests, desires, and abilities, and throw caution to the wind, flinging ourselves into these full-bore, with wild abandon.

Of course, since we are married, I will be helping Wendy cook and clean and enjoying many conversations with friends and neighbors. And Wendy will be hearing some of my ideas and insights into Scripture as we discuss what is going on inside my head.

So as different as we are, we need each other, and we help each other do things that we could not do on our own.

I need her to lead me in practical ways to put my ideas into practice, and she needs me to help theologically affirm and encourage her actions in loving others.

Ironically, my wife (the lover) is the one who helped me (the thinker) see and understand this. For my entire life, I have always been … how can I say it? … more comfortable in a book than in a crowd. It is not that I mind crowds; it is just that they wear me out. Quickly. Books and thinking, however, invigorate and excite me. I am an internal person. Much of my life takes place inside my head.

For a long time, I used to feel guilty about this. I used to think that a “true” follower of Jesus, an “on-fire” Christian, a passionate disciple, would be out volunteering at the soup-kitchen, chatting with the neighbors about tomato-growing tips, and learning the names of the children down at the local park. I used to think that a “true” follower of Jesus would go about with a spirit and attitude of prayer and grace as they spend their days washing, serving, scrubbing, praying, befriending, and talking.

That was never me. Not ever.

I tried.

As a pastor, I tried.

As a seminarian, I tried.

Having left seminary, I tried.

In my current place of work, I tried.

Part of the difficulty is that my wife was so good at all these things. Within a week of moving into a new neighborhood, she has taken fresh-baked loaves of bread and cookies to our neighbors and has had hour-long conversations with all of them, learning about their dogs, their jobs, and their children.

Me? When I talk to the neighbors, I can barely talk about anything more than the weather. I fear going to get the mail, because I am afraid I will meet a neighbor and forget their name or what we talked about last week. I dread running into a coworker at Wal-Mart because I will probably forget their name or not know what to say.

If Wendy goes to the local park, she will have a crowd of children around her in ten minutes, all of them laughing, cheering, and giggling. In a few minutes more, she will know their names. She will know their dog’s names. They even ask her when she is coming back to the park. I call her a modern-day Pied Piper (but in a good way).

Me? I sometimes think I scare kids. I am pretty sure I scare their parents. Last time I tried to talk to a kid in the park, I didn’t get through half a sentence before the parents yelled out, “OK, Tommy, time to go home!” I am not making this up.

When Wendy stands in line at the Supermarket, people just talk to her about things. She sometimes strikes up conversations with them, but more often than not, they start conversations with her.

Me? Nobody ever starts a conversation with me. I have tried to start a conversation with others, and they usually look at me like I’m some sort of freak. I mean, who talks to strangers these days?

I discovered though, that my wife often felt guilty for not spending more time reading and studying books. She saw me doing this, and despite how easily she could talk with people and build relationships with them, she often felt that she wasn’t spending enough time “in the Word” or reading theology. She went to Bible college too, and she was taught (along with the rest of us) that “disciple” means “student, pupil, learner” and so she always thought that if she was a fully-committed disciple, she needed to be studying and learning.

Recently, though she has realized (and I concur) that both of us are who God made us to be. We need to accept who God made us, and rather than fight it, revel in it.

It is like Eric Liddell saying, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” My wife feels God’s pleasure when she bakes for other people, plays with children, ministers to the neighbor, and laughs with friends. Me? I feel God’s pleasure when I discover something new about a certain Greek word in Luke 4:18 which I can then share with others through teaching or writing.

My wife is not me, and she shouldn’t try to be me. Similarly, I am not my wife, and shouldn’t try to be her. Yet we both need each other. I do the studying for her and she learns from me. She does the love and service and helps me make friends and love others in ways I could never do on my own.

This is a long and roundabout way of saying this:

It’s the same with the church.

Rather than a bunch of clones running around who all look, act, and talk like the pastor, each person is to be as fully themselves as they can possibly be. Only then does the Body of Christ develop in healthy and beautiful ways.

If we can talk about “biblical balance” it is not found so much in the lives of individual Christians, but rather in our ability to let others be who God made them to be while we seek to be who God made us to be. We must be who we are while rejoicing in who others are. I must not expect others to tirelessly read and study, and they must not expect me to be invigorated by baking a cake or listening to our neighbor talk about his dog.

What would the church be like if everybody just loved and served others, and nobody studied or learned? Well, for one thing, we wouldn’t have any English translations of the Bible. In fact, we wouldn’t have any Bible at all, for the work of writing and transmitting the Bible through the centuries was painstakingly carried out by committed and dedicated scholars.

But think what Christianity would be like if everybody was a scholar, and nobody loved or served? If that were the case, Christianity would have become just another philosophy and probably would not have lasted more than a century or two before it was replaced by something else.

So the truth is that we need each other. The hands-on Christians keep Christianity moving forward (usually). The heads-on Christians keep us moving in the right direction (mostly).

Where is the balance? There is no balance. Forget about balance. Don’t try to be balanced. Know you are are, and who God made you to be, and run after that with all your energy. Be the best “You” that you can be, for you cannot be anyone else, and nobody else can be “You” either.

God created you to do something, so go do it! Don’t turn to the left or the right by pious-sounding talk about “balance.”

Find your divine spark of “madness” and fully embrace it until it turns into a raging inferno. Then people will come from miles away just to watch you burn.

The beauty of Christianity is not that we are all the same or that we are all “balanced,” but instead, that we are all so dissimilar and opposite, and that in Christ, we are unified and can celebrate the differences and insanities of others rather than calling them to “become like us.”

What is your particular insanity?

Did you know you are insane? Yes. And it’s a good thing. Embrace it. Enjoy it. Live it.

If you are not sure where your particular insanity lies, ask yourself what causes people to look at you and say, “Try to be more balanced”?

In this post, I have only talked about loving others (my wife) and studying books (me), but I imagine there are other passions and interests that some of you might have. What are they? How can you fling yourself into these whole-heartedly for your own personal satisfaction and ultimately for the glory of God?

Possible Ways to Live the UN-Balanced Christian Life

Here is a list of possible areas that you can pour yourself into wholeheartedly without expecting all other Christians to do the same: (Note: you might have more than one area. That’s fine!)

Loving your friends and neighbors (like my wife)
Taking care of children
Cooking, baking, and hospitality
Ministry to prostitutes
Loving the homeless
Serving the elderly
Conservation of nature
Caring for animals
Political activism
Studying and Teaching Scripture
Learning and researching theology
Helping others live a healthy life
Financial stewardship

This, obviously, is not a comprehensive list. But as you let God make you more like the “you” that you were meant to be, He will show you your particular “insanity,” the are of special madness that nobody else can replicate because it belongs to you alone.

Does God want us to live a balanced life? I am not so sure. God made each of us insanely unique, so maybe He want us to reveal in our insanity.

Do you know what your madness is? Have you embraced it? Share in the comments below!

[#05] Genesis 1:5 – The First Day of Creation

By Jeremy Myers

11 Comments

Do you think the world was created over millions and billions of years? Or do you think that everything that exists was created in six 24-hour periods?

In this episode of the One Verse podcast, we will look at Genesis 1:5, I will share my view.

And just as a fair warning, if you hold strongly to one view or the other, you will probably be somewhat offended by what I say.

The text of Genesis 1:5

Genesis 1:5. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

In this discussion of Genesis 1:5 we look at:

Why Moses borrowed from Pagan Creation Myths to tell the story of Creation
The truth about why and how God redeems the darkness
The theological importance of “naming”
Whether the days of creation were 24-hour days or not.

Resources:

Logos Bible Software
Free Book of the Month at Logos
Sailhamer on Genesis – Buy it on Amazon or at CBD
Victor Hamilton on Genesis – Buy it on Amazon or at CBD
Gordon Wenham on Genesis – Buy it on Amazon or at CBD
Read The Enuma Elish for yourself
Compare Creation Accounts from other religions
My New Categories for Theology
Subscribe and Leave a Review on iTunes

Downloadable Podcast Resources

Those who are part of my online discipleship group may download the MP3 audio file for this podcast and view the podcast transcript below.

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I was recently having a discussion with an atheist who had grown up in a Christian family and had gone to church for the first twenty years of her life. But she became an atheist in her 20s.

When I asked her why she became an atheist, she said, “I started reading the Bible.”

We Christians often tell people that if they would only read the Bible, they would come to see that God is real and that He loves them. We hear testimony after testimony about how drug addicts and hookers were considering suicide but somehow got a Bible and started reading it and ended up giving their life to Christ.

I am not in any way denying such accounts or stories.

But I think it is also time to admit that while many people decided to follow Jesus as a result of reading the Bible, there are many others who turned away from God after reading the Bible.

Part of this, I am convinced, is because we Christians have said that the entire Bible is the Word of God, but then we sort of ignore, gloss over, conveniently forget, or are simply dishonest about some of the more troubling portions of Scripture.

And there are many troubling portions of Scripture! (If you don’t believe me, read this book: Drunk with Blood).

I call these troubling texts “Atheist Maker Verses.” They are verses that do not point people to God, but lead people away from Him instead. Here are a few of the more blatant Atheist Maker Verses:

Genesis 19:8

“See now, I have two daughters who have not known a man; please, let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you wish; only do nothing to these men, since this is the reason they have come under the shadow of my roof.”

As a father of three daughters myself, I cannot imagine offering my daughters to get raped so that I could protect the strangers under my roof.

And yes, I have heard the Christian explanation of this text that this was how the ancient Middle Eastern people valued hospitality. But how does that make it okay? It doesn’t.

Rather than trying to explain away Lot’s behavior according to “hospitality laws” we must condemn his behavior as horribly barbaric.

Exodus 21:20-21

“And if a man beats his male or female servant with a rod, so that he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he remains alive a day or two, he shall not be punished; for he is his property.

This was a favorite verse of slave-owners during the period of slavery in our country. In fact, all of Exodus 21 talks about the rules for treating slaves.

And apparently, you can beat your slave all you want, even within an inch of their life, because the slave is your property.

Of course, even if you kill your slave, you won’t be put to death yourself, but only punished.

This sort of verse about slaves has caused many people to turn away from God and Christianity.

Leviticus 25:44-45

And as for your male and female slaves whom you may have– from the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves. Moreover you may buy the children of the strangers who dwell among you, and their families who are with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall become your property.

This is another verse about slaves, but this one includes the children. According to God, it is okay to buy and sell children. So apparently, everybody today who is trying to raise awareness about the human trafficking of children just needs to shut up. Apparently, God’s in favor of it.

Note as well that it is not just the Old Testament which says these sorts of things. Here is a quote from 1 Peter:

1 Peter 2:18

Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh.

So if you are a slave, and your master beats you harshly, the slave should just accept it. After all, fear of your master is a good thing.

As a little side note, what I find most interesting about the numerous verses all over the Bible about slavery is that modern Christians almost unanimously condemn the practice of slavery, even though the Bible condones and accepts in in numerous places.

And yet when the Bible condemns homosexuality in three verses, Christians are divided over whether or not we should follow these verses. “God’s Word said it; that settles it!” we are told. My response is, “Really? So can I meet your slaves?”

But the Bible is not just wrong about slaves. Certain texts about women are also quite appalling.

Deuteronomy 22:20-21

But if the thing is true, and evidences of virginity are not found for the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel, to play the harlot in her father’s house. So you shall put away the evil from among you.

So if a woman has pre-marital sex, she should be stoned. Other texts lay guilt on the man as well, but the guilty male gets less attention than the guilty female.

Deuteronomy 23:1

“He who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the LORD.

So if your penis is cut off or your balls are crushed, God does not accept your worship. God only accepts worship from people whose genitals are in good condition (minus the foreskin of course … that sort of mutilation is required by God).

The thing that gets me about such verses is how people knew who could go in to worship God and who couldn’t.

Did they have a little “inspection station” at the front door? And we complain about the TSA groping us when we get on a plane…

Deuteronomy 25:11-12

If two men fight together, and the wife of one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of the one attacking him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; your eye shall not pity her.

So two men are fighting and a woman steps in to defend her man, and ends up grabbing the genitals of her husband’s opponent. Rather than discipline the men for fighting in the first place, the proper response in this case is to cut off the woman’s hand.

That sounds fair.

I also wonder how this law came about… Was it a common thing for women to grab the balls of their husband’s enemy when they were fighting?

Maybe this verse had something to do with the previous one about not getting to worship God if your balls are mangled. Maybe a man could no longer pray to God because some woman crushed his balls, and so they had to make a rule against that sort of thing.

Of course, now that the woman has no hand, she can’t worship God either, because God doesn’t allow deformed people into his presence either. On other hand, He doesn’t care too much for women either…

Of course, it’s not just women God hates. He is also not fond of dwarves and hunchbacks, people with eczema, and those who have a limb that is too long…

Leviticus 21:18-19

For any man who has a defect shall not approach: a man blind or lame, who has a marred face or any limb too long, a man who has a broken foot or broken hand, or is a hunchback or a dwarf, or a man who has a defect in his eye, or eczema or scab, or is a eunuch.

To approach God, you apparently had to be a perfect male specimen, with a working penis. Everybody else could not approach Him.

But it is not just the dwarves and the blind that God was against. He also was not a big fan of children.

Leviticus 20:9

For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall be upon him.

How is this even remotely justified? I don’t care if a kid cursed his parents with the worst curses ever uttered, does he deserve to get stoned to death for it?

Frankly, if a kid has parents who would be willing to stone him to death for cursing them, they probably deserved getting cursed.

But no, God, apparently, sides with the parents.

And it is no wonder that the #1 sin Christians are terrified of committing today is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I get dozens of emails about this sin every single week, and without fail, the people who think they have committed this sin feel that because they said something mean about God, God is going to burn them forever and ever in hell.

And where does such an idea come from? It comes (partly) from a verse like Leviticus 20:9 where God tells parents it is okay to kill their children if he curses them.

So sad.

But God doesn’t always have children killed by stoning them. Sometimes He kills them with bears!

2 Kings 2:23-24

Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up the road, some youths came from the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the LORD. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

Apparently, even though God doesn’t want people to worship him who are blind in one eye, or have a limb too long, or have eczema, He is a big fan of bald men!

These youths learned that lesson the hard way. Bald men shall not be mocked! Especially when that bald man is a prophet.

And when God cannot get children stoned or mauled by bears, He just pronounces blessings on those who bash babies’ heads against rocks.

Psalm 137:9

Happy the one who takes and dashes Your little ones against the rock!

Happy? The word here could also be translated as “blessed.”

But try to picture the scene. Was this like baby piñata day?

Imagine a soldier coming home from a day of baby-smashing. His wife greets him at the door with a kiss. “So how was your day, honey?” she says.

“Great! God was really at work in me today! I got to smash babies against a rock wall! We all praised God as we did it. The Spirit was really moving! I must have killed ten or twelve, but that Joash, he got over twenty! He’s a beast! The best part is that now we are going to be blessed because of all the babies we killed. I’m standing on the promises of God!”

How to Handle Atheist Maker Verses

I could go on and on with these sorts of verses.

But here’s the point: What are we to do with these sorts of “Atheist Maker Verses?”

There are three basic Christian responses.

1. We can stick our head in the sand.

Many Christians look at these difficult and troubling texts and say, “God is good all the time, and He gave us His Word to show us that He is good, and so while I don’t understand how these texts can reveal a good God, we know they must, and so I believe they do.”

It is this sort of response that does not help people at all.

In fact, I would say that, more than the verses themselves, it is this response that causes people to become atheists. Such a response is so irrational and ignorant, that most of the world simply cannot accept it.

Nor should they.

God cannot be both good, kind, and loving, while at the same time commanding genocide, praising the smashing of babies’ heads against walls, and sending bears to maul children because they made fun of a prophet’s baldness.

If Christians want people to see God as He truly as, as the God revealed in Jesus Christ, rather than sticking our heads in the sand, we must find some way to side with the world in condemning such texts of terror. This leads to the next two ways of responding to these texts.

2. Call them Errors in the Bible and be Done with It

Probably the simplest way to handle these troubling texts in the Bible is to handle them the same way we handle violent texts like this in Greek Mythology, in the Qu’ran, or in ancient historical documents.

How is that? We say that the people were flat-out wrong in what they did and the reasons they gave for doing it.

And while this approach is increasingly common with many Christians today, it makes many others quite uncomfortable, because then we are admitting that there are errors in Scripture, and that maybe God didn’t inspire it after all.

So while this helps explain the violence in Scripture, it does so at the expense of Scripture itself. We are left with something that, in my opinion, is less than Scripture.

This is why I prefer the third approach:

3. Realize that the purpose of the text IS condemnation

There is a way to both affirm inspiration and inerrancy while at the same time denying that God had anything to do with it.

I am working on writing a more thorough explanation for a future book on this subject, but the short explanation is that we can view the Bible as a divinely-inspired text which inerrantly reveals human error. In this way, we get a glimpse into our own hearts by reading Scripture.

We see ourselves on the pages. We see our tendency to demonize our enemies. We see our desire to take what is not ours. We see our addiction to blaming God for our own evil actions. We see our habit of scapegoating the outsider. We see how easy it is to excuse our own sin and turn a blind eye to our moral failures.

When we approach Scripture this way, we can agree with the Atheists about the moral repugnance of these violent texts, but then turn around and say that the reason God inspired these texts to be written in Scripture is not to justify such behavior and actions, but to challenge us to not do such things ourselves.

Study the Bible with Atheists

At least, this is the way I have been learning to read Scripture, but it is still something I am working on

How about you? How do you read these violent and gruesome texts? How do you understand them? What would you say to someone who has rejected God because of verses like these? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

A theological parable about oysters and ballerinas from Robert Farrar Capon

Forget the balanced life. Embrace your madness for Jesus.

The Unbalanced Life

Don’t Live the Balanced Life

It’s the same with the church.

What is your particular insanity?

Possible Ways to Live the UN-Balanced Christian Life

[#05] Genesis 1:5 – The First Day of Creation

The text of Genesis 1:5

In this discussion of Genesis 1:5 we look at:

Resources:

Downloadable Podcast Resources

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The Unbalanced Life

Don’t Live the Balanced Life

It’s the same with the church.

What is your particular insanity?

Possible Ways to Live the UN-Balanced Christian Life

The text of Genesis 1:5

In this discussion of Genesis 1:5 we look at:

Resources:

Downloadable Podcast Resources

Do you like learning about the Bible online?

The Unseen Realm

5 Awesome Pictures of Creation

My Exciting Announcement

How To Write an iTunes Review

What to Say in an iTunes Review

How to Review a Podcast on the iPhone or iPad

The Calling of Peter

The Confession of Peter

The Craving of Peter

The Violent Cause of Peter

The Cursing of Peter

The Contrition of Peter

The Conversion of Peter

The Text of Genesis 1:4

In this discussion of Genesis 1:4 we look at:

Resources:

Downloadable Podcast Resources

Do you like learning about the Bible online?

Genesis 19:8

Exodus 21:20-21

Leviticus 25:44-45

1 Peter 2:18

Deuteronomy 22:20-21

Deuteronomy 23:1

Deuteronomy 25:11-12

Leviticus 21:18-19

Leviticus 20:9

2 Kings 2:23-24

Psalm 137:9

How to Handle Atheist Maker Verses

1. We can stick our head in the sand.

2. Call them Errors in the Bible and be Done with It

3. Realize that the purpose of the text IS condemnation

Study the Bible with Atheists

1. We Give Credit to Satan

2.We Accept Satanic Offerings

3. We Diagnose Someone as Demon Possessed

4. We Engage in Satanic Accusations

5. We Commit Satanic Violence

The Glorification of Satan

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