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Faith, Works, and Interpretation · Relish: a Christian podcast

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  Music.
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  To flavor, to be pleased or gratified by, enjoy.
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  We are hoping that what we bring to your table today might add some spice to your life.
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  Good morning, Rowan. Morning, Don. How are you doing? I'm doing well. Yourself?
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  So far, so good. I got through the holidays and I didn't gain that much weight.
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  That's good. Yeah. Yeah. I think I could say the same. Praise the Lord.
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  Yeah. But there was good food yeah very good
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  food it's not like i didn't have opportunity yeah all
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  right well we'll get right into it one of
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  the things i think of is like
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  defending your faith i think i like spending time thinking about that so part
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  of that is like understanding what others would say others would point out flaws
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  in your faith right so that's a good one of them yeah one of them is they say
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  there's contradictions in the Bible.
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  And so like, would you say there are any or, cause there's some two specific ones here. Right.
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  And so probably where I see the contradictions being pointed out most is,
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  it's by people who don't realize that that's speaking here and not in the whole of the Bible.
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  And so when you take that one aspect that looks like it's not agreeing with
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  the rest, And by itself, it would seem to be a discrepancy.
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  But when you take it in the whole of the Bible and realize, well,
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  it's talking to that one issue, then it's not a discrepancy.
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  Now, yeah, we did an episode earlier. I think it was been in the episode 160 or so about that.
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  And we got quite a bit of feedback on that one. So it's an active topic.
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  So let's see what your two are and let's see how we come out.
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  See what got done on this one. This is interesting because I went online to
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  find contradictions and I came across the American Atheists website.
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  And they have a full page of contradictions.
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  And like you mentioned, I kind of looked at them and I'm like,
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  okay, sure, you could maybe say.
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  But then, yeah, because they're just standalone verses. Then when you actually
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  hop into the context, then there's no- And some of them are that way because of the translation.
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  Yeah. Specifically. Yeah.
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  But you have two that aren't. Two of them were Ephesians 2, 8 through 9 says
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  you're saved by faith, or saved by grace through faith.
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  And then in James 2, 24, it says you're saved by works.
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  Oh. So- Yeah, but that's not exactly how James speaks.
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  James is talking about, so if you don't have any works, how's your faith?
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  We are saved by grace through faith. That's Paul. James then actually preceded Paul.
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  So if you go to dating the manuscripts, James would be one of the first books of the Bible written.
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  And so Paul might be more of a reaction to James than James' reaction to Paul.
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  Yeah. because James is pushing it down. So what good is it, brothers,
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  if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?
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  Can such a faith save him? So basically what James is talking about is what
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  condition is your faith?
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  What condition is your faith? And then if your faith moves you to do good deeds,
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  then your faith is solid.
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  In other words, it's really something.
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  Because faith alone, what is it? It's not really moving you to any action.
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  What's interesting then is, so the atheists didn't include verse 10 of Ephesians chapter 2,
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  because if they'd included verse 10 of chapter 2 of Ephesians,
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  they'd also notice that Paul said,
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  for we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
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  which God prepared in advance for us to do.
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  So even in the passage in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8, verses 9,
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  it's not by works so that no one can boast, but we are created as God's workmanship,
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  created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
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  So, even Paul is talking about the works.
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  The works that we do as faithful Christians are the proof of our faith,
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  rather than faith being a proof of its own. I like that.
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  So, yeah, that's not a discrepancy. James and Paul are saying the same thing.
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  They just put the emphasis in a different place.
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  And James puts the emphasis on the work, that if you have faith,
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  you're going to work. Yeah.
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  The other one is in Genesis 32, 30, where Jacob sees God, and it says he saw God.
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  Oh, with the hip thing. Yeah, with his wrestling.
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  Yes. And John 1.18 says, no man has ever seen God.
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  Yeah. The Gospel John 1.18? Yeah.
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  Just want to make sure we're on the right.
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  No one has ever seen God. Okay, 18E, Exodus 33, 28, John 6, 34, okay.
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  And so these would be other passages that say that no one has ever seen God.
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  John 6, 46, Colossians 1, 15, 1 Timothy 6, 16, 1 John 4, 12.
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  So the New Testament holds with the Old Testament that nobody's ever seen God.
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  So then when we get to Genesis 32, what really happened there?
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  Well, we have this wrestling match.
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  And this wrestling match has Jacob 33.
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  There we go.
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  I'm getting a new Bible. I can read it.
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  So Jacob called the name of the place of Peniel, saying, For I have seen God
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  face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.
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  Okay. Notice that that is Jacob's interpretation of the situation.
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  Yeah. It doesn't mean that he actually wrestled so much with God as he did of a presence of God.
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  Likely, I would probably interpret more being an angel.
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  He was left alone. A man wrestled with him till daybreak.
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  Well, Scripture is saying it's a man. But it is Jacob's interpretation in 28 that he saw God.
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  So it's possibly that Jacob was...
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  And he goes down in 30 and says the same, because I saw God face to face,
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  and yet my life was saved.
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  It is Jacob's interpretation that he wrestled directly with God.
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  Yeah. That's what my footnotes say. Likely he was wrestling with another personage of the heavenly court.
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  Of the unseen realm, if you want to go to Michael Heiser and talk about the unseen realm.
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  Nice. So there's no contradiction. I don't see those as contradictions.
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  I wouldn't either. Good questions, though.
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  Yeah, let's try to take it out of context and pin it against you.
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  Right. But if you were caught cold on that question, it'd be hard to answer it.
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  Yeah. Unless you knew those scriptures.
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  Yeah. And I always like to go to the scripture because sometimes even as a pastor,
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  I can get things mixed up.
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  Yeah. They also kind of mentioned how the Gospels aren't the same necessarily.
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  I like to point that one out time after time again. So like, what does that mean?
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  And like, are they actually not the same or?
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  Well, textual criticism would say that there was another source that we know
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  that Luke used a different source than Matthew did.
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  Mark used a different source than Luke did.
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  But it could be that Matthew used the same source as Mark.
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  And the reason we call Matthew, Mark, and Luke synoptic gospels is because they
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  use almost the same timeline, cover nearly the same stories.
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  Uniquely, John sort of goes on his own bend.
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  And so there are stories in there that aren't in the other Gospels,
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  and there are stories missed in John's Gospels that are included in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
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  So that would be one piece the second
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  thing is have you better ever been in a traffic
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  accident i hope not i've seen i've seen
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  i've seen them happen but yeah and so oh
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  common pov point of
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  view yeah and so people you're
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  sitting there and i'm sitting here and we put an object out here and you see
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  it from your point of view i see it from this point of view and so we see it
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  differently What we do know is that Matthew would come to the writing of his
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  Gospels with a Jewish point of view of Jesus,
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  and he was communicating it to Jews, so they'd be looking for that point of view.
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  Luke was writing for Theophilus.
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  And so it is taking a Jewish context and bringing it to a Greek ear, Greek-speaking ear.
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  Luke has some of the most technical Greek between Luke and Acts that we have in the New Testament.
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  Of course, he was a doctor, so he was knowledgeable. So, you add those pieces
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  to the fact that Mark is the shortest and probably was the first written,
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  but he wanted to make sure he got something down.
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  And so, maybe Mark was used by Luke and Matthew, and maybe that's part of the
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  similarity, but also Matthew and Luke might have had more material.
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  Well, the nativity narrative in Luke's gospel almost leaves us to think he had either Mary's ear,
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  so he had talked to her personally, because there's a lot of her personal stuff,
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  especially in those first two chapters, with her family and Elizabeth,
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  and then also her experience with the angel.
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  That's not in Mark, and it's not in Matthew. you.
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  So that's why I think it's critical that all four gospels got in there.
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  Oh, and then John's gospel.
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  John's gospel comes almost from a John the Baptist point of view.
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  It's almost as if the disciple wrote it himself. And that's why it includes,
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  like Peter, like chapter 21, it includes that dialogue between Jesus and Peter
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  when Peter was reinstated.
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  We call him reinstated. He was It's forgiven by the Lord.
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  It's also much more emotional. It also talks a lot about the person of Jesus
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  and his following God's lead. So it's very personal.
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  There are differences, but I think those differences ought to be seen by the
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  fact that they add so much when they're taken together to each other and to
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  our understanding of who Jesus is rather than, oh, well,
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  that doesn't say it the same way this does, so we just throw them both out.
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  What other book would people do that? I mean, you wouldn't do that with a science book.
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  You wouldn't do that with a history book. You wouldn't do that with an English book.
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  You'd say, okay, they say it differently. Let's weigh out why and take the best from both.
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  But it seems like when they come to the Bible, then, oh, different. Yeah.
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  Throw it out. Yeah. I've heard the same thing.
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  Like, if you have two people go watch a basketball game, for example,
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  and then they- Especially on different sides. Yeah.
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  Different sides, especially. Then, yeah, like different points of view.
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  The rest are never good. Yeah. It doesn't matter which side of the court you're on.
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  Yeah. But there's no chance that they're just going to have the exact same thing. Right. Exactly.
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  It's actually, I don't know how credible this is, but in the God's Not Dead
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  movie, they were trying to testify in court that Jesus was a historical figure,
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  because the teacher had taught it or said something about Jesus in class.
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  So they were trying to prove that Jesus existed historically.
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  And one of the things is they brought up how he can't be because all the gospels,
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  disagree with each other contradict each other they're all different and they had,
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  some guy witnessing or whatever, and he said, it's actually better that they're
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  all different and that they don't say the exact same thing because then it's
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  less reliable if they all say the exact same thing.
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  Exactly. It'd be much less reliable than it is having four different point of
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  views pointing to the same Jesus and coming out with the same attributes in all four Gospels.
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  It's not written the same but you get the same same thing
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  from all of them right so yeah exactly and
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  sort of like seeing an accent from four different point of views the truth comes
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  out between them yeah when you put all the points of view together yeah good
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  good question did we get a cut that i think yep okay that's all the american
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  atheists had to say we exhausted them Very good. That's what we needed to do.
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  Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's how you defend your faith.
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  That is. It's how you defend your faith. And I just really wish that we were
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  actively as Christian disciples today,
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  taking our faith so seriously that we would prepare ourselves for those kind
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  of arguments in the workplace,
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  our schools, and to be able to knowledgeably defend our faith. Yeah.
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  At any point. Yeah. Because I think a lot of people would have a hard time defending
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  their faith if they were put in a press position, like persecution.
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  They would have a hard time coming up with a, well, I believe this,
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  but boy, I sure don't know where I got it from.
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  And we need to be able to defend our faith today. Yeah.
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  Well, I think that might be our time, hey? Yep. The one, I guess one section
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  of question. What section?
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  Don just talked way too long on the wall.
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  Oh, but that's good. Thank you for your question. That was a long one.
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  It was good though. It was good. I agree.
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  Yeah. Well, God bless you this week. Take care.
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  Yeah. Thank you for joining us. Be sure to watch our previous videos.
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  Yeah. And keep coming out with more for you. We'll keep working on it. See you next time.
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  Lord. Thank you for joining us for this podcast. Feel free to become part of
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  this ministry by sharing it with others.
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  Our goal is to help each other grow deeper in our understanding of who God is
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  and His calling to us in our daily lives.
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  Thank you again for joining us, and may God bless your day.
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  Music.