Believe it

I had a long discussion over dinner the other night with a physicist. Hmmm What does a physicist do? I asked him and after he stammered around for a few minutes I am now convinced that maybe he is unsure. Anyway the conversation ranged all over the place.

I explained that I was sick of my satellite based Internet provider because it was so slow. He patiently explained that the satellite is 24,000 miles high and the signal has to travel to and from the satellite which is 48,000 miles and traveling at the speed of light which is 186,000 miles per second, one can easily see why there is a small delay. (Just think if my satellite was located on the sun it would take 8.3 minutes to travel one way.) Somehow this does not make me feel any better. When I click the mouse I want to see something other than little green bars slowly refreshing themselves.

Finally the conversation got around to the Bible. He is a Christian but wants doctrine to fit nicely with science. He feels that parts of the Bible have been flawed due to transcribing it from Hebrew, to Greek, to English as well as satanic influence on those who did the work on the Bible.

For example he said that people argued that the world was flat because it states in Revelation that four angels stood on the four corners of earth and they could only do that if the world was flat. Hmmm I made the argument that if one were to look at the earth from outer space, (perhaps from my Internet provider’s satellite), it would appear flat. When the Lord made His Revelation to John, perhaps He took Him to outer space or gave him a view from there when this part of the Revelation unfolded. I can visualize John observing an angel situated on each quadrant of the earth and it appearing as though the earth were flat. I certainly don’t think the Bible was stating the world was flat from this reference.

Of course they didn’t have satellites or space travel in Galileo’s time and it is easy to see how the theologians of the day could argue that point. I told my new friend that I believe the Bible to be the holy inspired word of God and I believe it. Parts of it will remain a mystery because we do not have the intellect to understand it. Not because it is flawed.

We disagreed on that point and he believes that it may indeed be flawed due to the factors previously mentioned. One part that he is particularly adamant about is how the Bible treats women. According to the Bible, women are precluded from being deacons, (his wife is a deacon in their church), or from becoming pastors. He thinks the Bible is written that way because old men wrote it. I think it is written that way because God created women to accomplish certain things in life and men to accomplish others. They are not created in the same manner or to accomplish the same purpose for Him.

This does not imply that women are inferior. It is to say that our Creator designed us all to accomplish different things according to His purpose. It is the same throughout all of nature. The male is significantly different from the female in every species and each fulfills a different role. I believe that God ordained that role. In my estimation God certainly did not demean women in any sense anywhere in the Bible including excluding them from assuming the ultimate leadership roles in His church. I can’t serve as a deacon because I was divorced when I was 20 years old and a non-christian. I accept it. Modern day women’s lippers see it differently to be sure, and nothing I could ever write will change that and I will not try.

When I wrote the chapter for my new book about reading the Bible for the first time I mentioned that I found parts of the Bible to be boring, hard to understand, impossible to understand, and other parts were absolutely riveting and fascinating. The Bible is written for different people at different times. We do not understand the references to the Amorites, because there aren’t any Amorites around today, but the references to them were crystal clear to the people of that day. As time moves forward things that were not understood at all by people in the past, become crystal clear to modern day readers, and parts that occurred 2000 years ago seem fuzzy. It is part of the mystery associated with a Bible that according to God is “living”.

I do not doubt the Bible and am solidly convinced that our all-powerful God would not allow a bunch of old men or powerful satanic influence to modify His only communiqu with His beloved children.

The Bible states that God does not change. It is one of the things I love the most about Him. Politicians change with the wind but God is the same today, as He was when He created the world billions of years ago, or will be 1000 years from now, and so is His holy Word. He is a solid rock and we can put our trust in Him and indeed submit our very lives to His care. He set up His kingdom and we can have fun debating and wondering what certain difficult passages mean, but not question His wisdom, laws, or just flat reject the parts of the Bible which seem to go against our fleshly “wisdom”.

All we can see right now is dim, at best, as the verse below assures. One day we will know more and it will be pretty cool to get the straight scoop directly from almighty God Creator of everything Oh yeah!

1 Cor. 13:12
For now we see in a mirror,
dimly, but then face to face. Now I know
in part, but then I shall know
just as I am known.