1. To pull out a weed, you need to pull it out slowly.

If you pull it out too quickly, then the top will break off and the roots will be left in the ground.  The same is true with bad habits in our life.  You need to pull them out slowly.  Don’t expect yourself to change overnight.  Don’t expect to be healed instantly or for there to be a quick fix.  You may try to pull it out too quickly, only for the top to snap off in your hand, leaving you flat on your bottom.  Then you might give up, thinking that it’s impossible.  You need to be patient with your bad habits; healing comes slowly.

2. To pull out a weed, you need to get at the roots.

When weeding, the temptation is to decapitate the thing, leaving the roots in the soil.  You get rid of what you see, but leave the part of the plant that’s beneath the surface.  It’s quicker this way, but shortsighted and, ultimately, fruitless.  The best way to weed is to dig up the roots.  You’re right, this way is messier.  You’re often left with an unsightly hole in the ground, a scar on the soil.  But this is the only way.  Remember, the roots are the vital part of the plant.  If you leave the roots, then you leave half of the weed.  The same is true with weeding out bad habits: we must get at the roots.  This teaches us a profound truth about our bad habits: there is more to them than what we can see.  Bad habits look one way on the surface, but another way beneath the surface.  A bad habit may express itself as gossip on the surface, but its roots are envy.  A bad habit may express itself as low self-esteem on the surface, but its roots are really pride.  We will never be able to get rid of the bad habits in our life if we do not get to the heart.  They will keep growing back and attacking with a vengeance.  For every bad habit, try to identify the roots, even if takes some digging.

3. To pull out weeds, you need to do constant maintenance.

You cannot just weed once a year.  You need to stay on top of it.  The more you weed, the less you need to weed.  The less you weed, the more you need to weed.  Weeds multiply quickly.  As for bad habits, the more you stay on top of them, the better.  The more you weed them out, the less power they gain.  You shortchange their momentum.  Some of us just like to “take inventory” of our lives when a crisis arises.  That’s no way to weed!  Instead of waiting until your life falls apart for you to take care of yourself, it’s much better to be proactive.  Some people just get in touch with God when they are absolutely desperate, when things are too out of control.  But that’s no way to take care of your soul.  You and I need constant maintenance.  We need to go to God daily.  Sins multiply quickly, did you know that?

4. Remember, some weeds look like flowers.

It’s not always easy to discern weeds from plants.  In fact, some weeds have flowers on them!  They disguise themselves so that you’ll leave them alone.  You think that they are supposed to be there.  You think they look pretty.  But, watch out!  They are really weeds!  Some of our sins and bad habits present themselves as flowers.  In fact, we like them!  They look good to us.  We say, “Oh, that’s just my personality…” or “That’s just how I was raised…” or “I’m a guy, so what do you expect?”  As if our weeds were good things!  We fall in love with the flowers on our bad habits; that’s what keeps us attracted to them.  But that’s like falling in love with a corpse.  It might be a princess on the outside, but it’s rotting on the inside!  It’s like tasting poison that’s sweet on the tongue, but lethal in the stomach.  Don’t let the flowers on your weeds keep you from rooting them out.  Don’t let them keep you from seeing the poison that you are handling.

5. When pulling out weeds, you will need help.

Some weeds are so big, that you need another set of hands to get them.  Their roots are so strong, that you can’t get them by yourself.  Or, there may be so many weeds, that there is no way that you can get them all yourself: you need some friends.  Or, you may not be able to discern the weeds from the plants, so you need someone who knows more than you do.  Each of these applies to our efforts to weed our hearts.  We cannot weed alone.  We need others to help us, either because the roots are too strong, there are too many for us to handle, or we just don’t know where to begin.  You cannot fight your bad habits on your own.  You need a community to be effective.  I know this may run against your grain, but you and I need someone to point out our sins to us.  We can’t see them, we are blind to some of them, so we need others to help us see what we cannot see.  I remember when I first became a Christian, another Christian pointed out my pride.  At first, I thought, “Pride?  That looks good to me!  Pride is supposed to be there!  What’s wrong with my pride?”  Only later have I realized what a deadly weed that pride is, choking out every good thing.

6. Keep in mind that when you’re weeding, there’s not just one weed.

There is never just one weed.  There are always more.  As it relates to our souls, if we think that we just have one or two bad habits, then we are desperately deceived.  Sins are never alone.  There is a network of roots beneath the surface, knotted around our souls, keeping them in a stranglehold.  So don’t just go after one sin, you must go after them all.  Sometimes we just work on certain sins, but leave the others alone.  No, we must work on all of them, not just the ones that are displeasing to us.  All of them are displeasing to God, and we must see our souls as he does.

7. Know that weeds kill the good plants around them.

Not only are weeds unattractive, but also they take over an ecosystem, devastating diversity.  Their roots steal the nutrients away from the good plants.  Their leaves grow up to block the sunlight from the good plants.  Their stems tangle up in the good plants, strangling them to death.  Weeds are violent, in other words.  Never think that your bad habits are peaceful or have good intentions; our sins are violent like weeds.  Our bad habits seek to steal from us, block our hope, and strangle us to death.  They seek to take over our lives, so that no individual personality remains.  We might be prone to think that eventually, our goodness will win out.  This is false!  So long as weeds are growing alongside your good deeds, you are in danger.  Sins will kill our goodness—it’s just a matter of time.  You cannot place all of your hope on your own goodness, without dealing with your sin.  Your sins hate you and will find a way to destroy you, turning you into an ugly monster.

8. Know that weeds are our default.

Weeds come naturally, even if you don’t want them to.  You might not have planted them there, but they are there!  Even if you wish them away, they won’t go away.  If left untended, the ground will turn to weeds.  That’s the way it is with our souls: if left untended, they will turn to weeds.  Our souls are not naturally good of beautiful, but corrupt.  This means that in order to flourish in life, you must do the hard work of taking care of your soul, which includes removing the weeds.  If you stop taking care of your soul, expect weeds to show up.  We can’t slack for one day.  Put another way, if you’re being slowly killed by the weeds right now, it’s probably because you’ve been neglecting yourself.

9. Be humbled by weeds.

It’s very humbling to weed.  No matter how long I spend out in the garden or in a flowerbed, I can never get ahead.  I can’t get them all.  Even if I do, they will just come back in the morning.  Then just think of all the dirt and all the weeds in the world—there is no way that we can root them all out.  In a real sense, the weed problem is too big for us to handle on our own.  I stand before a tiny weed, humbled.  I cannot conquer them, even though they are flimsy, small, and unintelligent.  They always have the last say.  When it comes to your soul and its bad habits, you must find a posture of humility.  I am very serious about this.  Neither you nor I will ever be able to deal with our sin problem on our own.  It is just too big for us to handle.  We can pull out weeds all that we want, but at the end of the day, they will still be there in the morning.  We cannot conquer our bad habits in this life, on our own.  We are humbled in the presence of our own sin—it is too great for us.  This points us to a theological truth that is a part of the Christian faith: God is the Gardner who stepped into our weedy earth in order to do what we could not do on our own.  Most supremely, he pulled the weed of death, taking it clear out by the roots, and planted eternal life in its place.  Only when we rely on the work of the true Gardener can our souls begin to blossom.

10. Conquer weeds by growing plants.

The best way to conquer weeds is by growing plants.  Try to put as many good plants in your flowerbed as possible.  Then give them water, sunlight, and good soil.  If you take care of and feed the good plants, then this goes a long way in slowing the growth of weeds.  The same is true with our souls.  The best defense is a good offense.  Plant good desires, deeds, and thoughts in your soul.  Then feed them.  Whatever we feed will grow.  Yes, you will still have to remove the weeds, but allow the good plants to become strong, so that the weeds lose their grip.  In other words, don’t just work on removing your bad habits, but cultivate new, good ones.  Then be sure to take time to feed your good habits, so that they become stronger than your bad ones.

I know this has been a rather long post, but I hope I’ve given you plenty to meditate on.  My advice is that you take this list slowly, putting just one at a time into practice.  However, in order to be a good gardener of your soul, you’ll have to develop all of these habits.  Most of all, only by sinking our roots into the love of God can we truly be saved from the weeds.

I would love to hear your thoughts about weeding!

© Samuel Kee, 2013

The next major strategy in how to overcome bad habits is to recognize where they begin.  If we just focus on the bad action, then we’ll never overcome, for we’re not going to the source of the problem.  In Christian terms, we’ll call these bad habits sins; sin, as Jesus said, comes from the human heart (see Matthew 15:19).  The heart is the dark pool from which sin gushes out, like a river from a mountain lake.  In order to get rid of a sin, it will do little good just trying to refrain from the sinful action itself.  You need to get to the origin of the problem, just like killing a weed is best done by pulling out its roots, rather than just cutting off its flower.

So how do you get to the roots?  Just under “action” is “emotion.”  Action or “behavior” is what we see on the surface.  Fueling action is emotion.  To simplify things, quite often our emotions determine our actions, though they don’t have to.  Just realizing this, however, gets us further into the process of defeating sin.  If I feel the emotion of anger, then I might act out in vengeful behavior.  If I feel the emotion of envy, then I might act out in slander against another.  If I feel the emotion of despair, then I might act out by harming myself.  You get the idea.  A lot of the time, we use our emotions prescriptively.  That is to say, just like a doctor prescribes a course of treatment for a sick patient, we allow our emotions to prescribe our actions.  We let our emotions determine how we behave.

But there is another way to use your emotions: descriptively.  Instead of allowing your emotions to determine your behavior, use your emotions to inform your behavior.  Your emotions are better used as a counselor, letting your know the state of things within your heart.  Use your emotions to describe, rather than prescribe.  When you are angry, use these emotions as a thermometer, helping you to see what the state of your heart is, so that you know which course of action to take.  By using your emotions descriptively, you are better able to decide which course of action to take based on something deeper still.

What is deeper than both action and emotion?  Reason.  Humans use their minds in order to process and make decisions about life.  Human reason is informed by the truth.  Right and wrong.  But how do you discern the truth?  There are two ways.  First, by listening to your conscience.  God has placed your conscience within you to act as a custodian.  Whenever you choose to sin, your conscience blows the whistle.  Even if you’re not a religious person, you have a whistle-blowing conscience.  It’s how God made you.  Some people are at war with themselves, because they are not listening to their conscience.  Whenever you don’t listen to your conscience, the result is despair, as Soren Kierkegaard observed.  Your conscience will help you to see the truth.  The second way to know the truth is by digesting God’s revealed word.  God has revealed the truth to us in the Bible.  This is the supreme source of truth, helping us know right from wrong and wisdom from folly.  The Bible teaches us the grand purpose of our lives, our origins, and our destiny.  In order to shape your emotion, you need to rely on the truth, which will inform your reason.

Even though Descartes thought that human reason was a sufficient tool for getting along in this world, it is not the deepest thing about us.  There’s something deeper, which trumps even human reason.  In order to change our unwanted behavior, we must discover what this deepest thing is.  Keep in mind the links in our chain so far, being Action (wanted and unwanted), Emotion (descriptive and prescriptive), and Reason (conscience and truth).

The deepest thing about us is imagination.  The imagination is the doorway to the mind and heart.  Pascal recognized how much more persuasive imagination is than reason.  He said, “Put the world’s greatest philosopher on a plank that is wider than need be; if there is a precipice below, although his reason may convince him that he is safe, his imagination will prevail!”  Our imagination trumps our reason.  Just think of anxiety: most of the time we’re full of anxiety not because anything has actually gone wrong yet, but because we imagine what life would be like if it did.  Or we imagine what another person must be thinking, so we get either happy or sad.  Or we imagine what we would feel like if we obtained an object of our desire; or we imagine what we would feel like if we didn’t.

Put two reasonable truths down side-by-side and which one will you choose?  The one your imagination takes a hold of!  When your imagination takes a hold of something, it makes it more real.  It brings it to life.  It makes it more substantial, more attractive, more hopeful—long before you act, feel, or reason.  For example, let’s say you are confronted with two simultaneous thoughts:

1. I will repay that person for the wrong he did to me!
2. I will obey God’s command not to take vengeance.

Which thought will you obey?  Which course of action will you take?  Answer: whichever one your imagination grabs hold of and makes more real.  You begin to imagine the results of taking action #1.  Then you imagine the results of taking action #2.  One becomes better to you, even though they contradict each other.  As a result, you act on one and not the other.

So here we get to the conclusion of the matter: in order to change your unwanted behavior, open your imagination.  It’s not enough to focus on your emotions.  Nor is it enough to focus on reason alone.  Imagination is the doorway through which you must enter.  Take the truths you learn from God’s word and your conscience and trust them.  Imagine them to be true.  Imagine that there is a God out there who created you, who loves you, even though you’ve sinned against him.  Imagine that God is always with you, watching over you, guiding you, caring for you, and providing for you.  Imagine yourself getting it right, doing what you know is good, becoming the kind of person that God is calling you to be.  Imagine victory, hope, and peace.

When you imagine a world like this, your mind, emotions, and actions will soon catch up.

© Samuel Kee, 2013

When Odysseus wanted to go for a walk, she protested, “Just stay with me!”  When he wanted to practice his archery, she called out, “Kiss me!”  When he wanted to build a raft (no doubt to escape!), she said, “Just lay in my arms—don’t you love me?”  She wanted nothing more than to lounge around with him, kiss him, and whisper sweet-nothings in his ears.  He ended up getting out of shape, dull, and quite frustrated.  Odysseus couldn’t help but think of his wife Penelope and how different she was than Calypso.  Penelope, whom he was desperately trying to get home to, challenged him.  She talked with him about matters of state and culture, she helped him with his plans, and she pushed him to be all that he could be.  Unlike Calypso, her love was not mushy.

When you think of God’s love, is it mushy?  Do you think that God is like Calypso, following you around like a puppy, obsessed with whom you are at the moment, not caring if you get fat from inactivity?  Some of us think that God is just all mush, a puddle in our arms, ready to love us whenever we need a fix.  But nobody wants to be in a relationship like that.  Even more, God’s love is not mere sentimentality.  No wonder some people think that God might be boring.

Rather, God is more like Penelope, who challenges us.  He is devoted to us, but he wants what’s best for us, even if it causes us pain.  Yes, God accepts us just how we are, but he doesn’t want to leave us how we are.  He wants us to grow, mature, and become better.  He wants us to become pure, so that we deal with bad habits and get rid of the evils that ensnare us.  Mushy love cannot do this.

If you find yourself being challenged by God right now and are surprised that God is not being more like Calypso, know that God offers you better love than that.  God’s love will repair and improve you; it won’t leave you how you are.  While God’s love might accept you as you are, stranded on the island and all, it will not leave you there.  God’s love will push you out into the sea, where new adventures are waiting for you.  God never leaves us stranded on an island of our own comfort.

© Samuel Kee, 2013

“I want nothing more than to come back to you, Father.”

He said just one more thing before kissing me goodbye. “Is there anything that you need?”

I paused and then said to him, “I will need two things, Father. First, I will need Someone to show me the way back to you, for I will never be able to find the way back to this place on my own. Second, I will need Dissatisfaction.”

He said to me, “Why Dissatisfaction?”

I replied, “If I am satisfied with that world, then I won’t want to return to yours. If I am full there, then I won’t be hungry for heaven. Father, give me weakness, keep me longing, and grant me desperation. Allow me to have a thorn, so that day and night I will call upon you for help. Then I will not lose sight of my true home.”

Smiling as only a father can smile, he said, “Then I will send Someone to show you the way, and I will give you the gift of Dissatisfaction.”

© Samuel Kee, 2013

He also didn’t have a sword. As it so happened, one of the priests was able to find a sword for David at just the right time (1 Samuel 21:8-9). The sword had belonged to Goliath. David took the sword and continued his flight to the city of Gath.

There are two encouragements that I see in this little episode. First, we learn that God provides for us along the way, just when we need it. When David needed a meal earlier in the chapter, God provided him with bread. When David needed a weapon, God provided him with a sword. Yes, David was desperate, but God was faithful. And notice the subtle reminder: the sword belonged to Goliath. Goliath was the mighty warrior whom David had defeated earlier in his life. The only way that David defeated Goliath was with the Lord’s help. God is now saying to David, “Do you remember how I was faithful to you in the past in your fight with Goliath? Just so you know, I will continue to be faithful to you in your trial with Saul.” It’s easy to forget how much God has already done for us when we are in the midst of a fresh trial. But we must try hard to remember all that God has done for us, the ways he has been faithful. On one level, the sword represented God’s faithfulness in the past and his promise to be faithful in the future.

But I believe the sword has a deeper meaning. Think about the purpose of a sword: a sword is used to fight against enemies. Nothing glamorous about it. What is God saying here? God is giving us realistic expectations. “Just because you’re my child,” God says to us, “does not mean that life will be easy—it won’t! Life will be full of battles, for which you will need a sword!” Out of all the things that God could have provided for David, he chose to leave him a sword. Think about that. God could have struck Saul dead or given David deliverance in some other way; instead, God left David with something to fight with.

Expectations are everything. Let’s say that your friends mistreat you, you’ll probably be crushed. But now let’s say that your enemies mistreat you; you will probably think nothing of it. What’s the difference? Expectations! We expect our friends to behave one way and our enemies to behave another. Our ability to endure mistreatment is tied to our expectations. What do you expect from life? What do you expect from God? Do you expect God to give you an easy life or do you expect for God to leave you a sword?

Sometimes, we’ll stop believing in God, just because we have to go through hardship. But maybe trials are not a sign that God has left you; maybe trials are a sign to start looking for what God has left you! Use your trials to start using what God has provided for you already. God has given everything you need to get through your trial. You may say, “But I only have some bread and a sword!” To which God responds, “And that is enough.”

When we go through trials, we’re tempted to look for the things that God has not left for us. We think we need something else to get through them. We think we need the situation to change. However, perhaps God has given you exactly what you need to get through it. We just need to open our eyes to see what he has left us. Then we need to be prepared to fight the fight of faith. After all, maybe it’s not the situation that needs to change, but maybe it’s me that needs to change.

Who has God put in your life? Maybe they’re the ones you need right now. What abilities and opportunities has God left you? Perhaps you’re not using them to their full extent. What situation does God keep putting you in? Maybe this is the battle you need to fight right now.

You can do amazing things with the resources that God has put in your life already, as you depend on him. Having anything more might actually be less.

© Samuel Kee, 2013

I love the 1991 movie

Bob is afraid of death, which is what drives him to obsessive behaviors.  He is afraid that his heart might suddenly stop beating or—as he puts it—his bladder will explode.  He is paralyzed by fear, to the point that he is terrified of elevators, busses, water, or any public place.  It seems that his fear of death is the thing that’s causing him to be “insane.”

But Bob is not the only insane one in the movie.  Bob is afraid of death, but so is Leo.  However, Leo’s tremendous fear of death expresses itself differently.  While Bob seeks to deny his own death by controlling and cleaning everything, Leo seeks to deny his own death by becoming immortal.  Have you ever noticed that about the movie?  It’s really not a movie that’s just about Bob—what about Leo?  Leo is just as fearful as Bob is.  Leo is just as crazy as Bob is.  Leo has an overblown ego and longs to be on par with Sigmund Freud.  Leo wants to be world-renown, legendary, and a household name.  How does Leo cope with the thought of his own mortality?  By becoming immortal, having a name that goes on forever in the history books.  Bob has his coping mechanisms, but so does Leo.

The movie is really asking us to identify with either Bob or Leo.  We all, along with Bob and Leo, have something in common: the fear of death.  Ernest Becker’s 1974 book Denial of Death, helps us to understand this.  Becker argues that human personality is shaped by one’s own method of denying the fact that you’re going to die.  Everyone is afraid of death; everyone seeks to suppress his or her own mortality.  We can’t stand the fact that we’re just “fancy worm food.”  No human should have to live with the knowledge that one day, slimy, defecating worms will win.  That’s madness.  The more you meditate on that fact alone, the more that it’ll drive you insane.  Humans seem so strong and so dignified, yet, not matter who you are, in the end, the worms win.

That’s what Bob knew, which is what makes him not so crazy after all.  In fact, by the end of the movie, Bob is the sane one and someone else takes his spot in insanity—Dr. Leo Marvin.  By recognizing his own mortality, not hiding from it, but laying it out on the table, Bob is healed.  By denying his mortality, Leo goes insane.  The movie is making a powerful statement, isn’t it?  Those who are humble and own up to their own creatureliness will be saved; but those who are arrogant and persist in narcissism will be lost.  (Those who seek to be like God will be kicked out of Paradise!)

But there’s another reason why Leo goes crazy and Bob finds health.  From the first moment of the movie, Bob seeks help for his problems.  Leo does not.  Leo seeks fame; Leo seeks escape; Leo seeks only those things that will add to his resume.  He doesn’t want to help anyone, but himself.  At the same time, Bob confesses his struggles, seeks help from those around him, and doesn’t stop finding ways to help those who are in need.  Again, Bob finds help and Leo goes insane.

The fastest way to madness is to make this world all about you.  That’s what we learn from Bob and Leo.  The route to healing is to confess your shortcomings and seek help from outside yourself.  By the end of the movie, not only has Leo’s narcissism caused him to become mad, but also, it caused him to blow up his own house.  Bob’s behavior, on the other hand, led him to emotional health, a wedding, and a successful career.

Some people say that faith is just another coping mechanism; they say that God is a crutch.  But this is simply not true.  A coping mechanism is something that you do to deal with your fears by hiding them (denying them).  So you drink, shop, seek fame, seek pleasure, seek control, and so forth, as a way of denying your death.  You hide your fears with the help of the coping mechanism.  Coping mechanisms are used to ward off the worms.  But this is ridiculous, because nothing within our own resources can make death go away.  Who are we fooling?

Faith, on the other hand, hides nothing!  Faith actually requires the opposite.  To have faith is to be honest and express the truth about yourself.  Faith gets it all out into the open.  So you confess that you are just fancy worm food; you own up to the fact that you don’t have what it takes; you recognize that you’ve fallen short; you don’t deny that you’re scared, hurt, lonely, and lacking.  To have faith is to be authentic with yourself and others.  Most of all, to have faith is to seek help from outside of yourself, something that coping mechanisms will not allow.  Coping mechanisms depend on individual strategy and self-maintenance.  Faith says, “I don’t have what it takes and I need help.”  Like Bob, faith depends on the resources that come from outside the self.  Or you could say that atheism is proud and faith is humble.

Just read the Psalms in the Bible sometime.  The Psalms are brutally honest about life.  “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity” (Psalm 32:5).  “Darkness is my closest friend” (Psalm 88:18).  “Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me; all day long an attacker oppresses me; my enemies trample on me all day long” (Psalm 56:1-2).  “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:4).  Scriptures like these feel real to us, don’t they?  They express how we often feel, they hide nothing.  They know me.

The one who has faith makes the pivotal turn: he rolls his fears over onto God.  He seeks help from outside of himself and from outside the dismal human condition.

In order to regain your sanity, you have to become like Bob.  You have to lose your life in order to find it.  One of the most healing things that you can do is truly to experience your anxieties and fears and then give them over to the Lord.

Just to focus on your problems and not on the Lord (and get help from outside of yourself) is “depression.”  Just to focus on the Lord and not acknowledge your problems is “denial.”  To roll one over onto the other is “faith.”

There’s a kind of madness that leads to life and a kind of madness that doesn’t.

© Samuel Kee, 2013

My “epiphany” was this: We travel to manhood on a road paved with our own failures.

Let me start by saying that I have a very keen sense of my own failure.  I’ve always been this way.  From the time I was a boy, I’ve beat myself up.  And the beating hasn’t stopped to this day.  It’s safe to say that my soul is black-and-blue.  I hate failing and am so aware of when it happens.  Walking by the yellow Ferrari parked at Starbucks this morning, I felt that familiar feeling of failure once again.  I peeked into the glass-covered engine compartment.  I looked at the plush interior.  I traced the immaculate fenders with my finger.  Whoever owns this Ferrari, I thought, is a success.  Oh yeah, and since I don’t own one, then that makes me a failure.  The car didn’t say anything.  It just sat there, condemning me.

When you look into a mirror, what do you see?  You see two things at once: both a failure and someone who has had some successes.  You see a person who has been built up by his share of victories, supporters, encouragers; and you see someone who knows it’s all a sham.  On the surface of the mirror, you see all the things that make you a man.  Maybe someone told you that you were a man.  Maybe you’ve had some accomplishments.  Maybe you’re tough, own a Ferrari, or have no trouble getting a girlfriend.  Maybe you fit all the cultural stereotypes of what it means to be a man.

However, below the surface, you see something else, which scares the giblets out of you.  You see flesh and bones.  You see blood and organs.  You see a tragedy waiting to happen.  You see your sick soul, your tormented heart, and your imminent destiny.  Soon you will die.  Soon you will become food for worms.  In fact, as Ernest Becker wrote in 1974, humans are just “fancy worm food.”  Becker should know, for he died later that year.  The Pulitzer Prize he won for that book could not save him.  As we stare into the mirror, we have to come to grips with reality that we’re just fancy, complicated, and rich worm food.

Nothing we do and nothing we own can stop us from dying.  They guy with the yellow Ferrari will die.  The tough guy will die, so will the traitor.  So will I—so will you.  The mirror reveals the secret that we’ve been trying to stuff down: we’re not as manly as we thought.

The Apostle Paul understood this, having had the same glance in the mirror.  He was able to see below the surface, at the worms beneath.  But he didn’t stop there.  He was also able to see the way out.  He was able to travel to manhood on a road paved with his own failures.

He realized that success is actually a trap, and failure is actually a catapult.

First, we learn that success is a trap.  More vividly, success leads to mutilation.  Philippians 3:2 says, “Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.”  Those who mutilate the flesh are those who take pride in performing religious rituals, like circumcision.  They believe that their sense of worth comes from success, appearance, doing the right thing, being better than others.  But Paul knows the truth: putting confidence in the flesh is just another form of mutilation.  He calls it for what it is.  “We…put no confidence in the flesh” (3).  No matter what you do, you’ll still end up as worm food.  Neither our actions nor our flesh can save us.

He goes on to tell us about what he saw on the surface when he looked into the mirror.  “Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also.  If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” (3:4-6).

In those days and in that crowd, the things that Paul had accomplished were to be envied.  That’s what it took to be somebody.  Paul had it all and he knew it.

But he came to realize that none of that could save him from the stupid, mute, defecating worms.  None of his “righteousness” was real.  It couldn’t save him; it couldn’t justify his existence.  He soon saw that he was a failure.  And that’s a huge step.

On the road to becoming a man, we can either progress on the pavement of our own failure, or we can stall in the prison of our own success.  Here’s what I mean.  When we’re growing up, we’re constantly looking for affirmation.  We’re afraid of being nobody, so we search for the things that make us somebody.  People will come in and out of our lives who affirm us.  We’ll have some accomplishments.  We’ll do good things.  We’ll begin to think that we’re getting somewhere.  After all, so long as people are saying nice things about me and so long as I’m distracted by my good accomplishments, then I don’t have to face the fact that I’m fancy worm food.

I learn to live on borrowed power, as Becker puts it.  I am powerful because you say I’m powerful.  I think I’m a man because society says I’m a man.  After all, I own a Ferrari, have a girlfriend, do sports, and have a good job.  Or, in Paul’s language, “I am from the right people, have done the right rituals, have a spotless moral record, I fight against evil…”  But remember, none of these things can save us from our mortality.

They end up trapping us, so that we stay stalled in self-deception.  While we think we’re okay, we’re not.  Death will come and take us in an instant, and we’ll be left without the only thing that can save us.  You and I both know that there are grown men who have not matured past this stage.  They still think that being a man is about owning stuff, doing stuff, and avoiding stuff.  They are trapped, immature, and have stunted masculine growth.

I should know.  After all, I get hypnotized by Ferraris.

But Paul was not trapped like we are.  He saw through the shiny paint of self-righteousness.  “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss” (3:7).  Paul learned to look differently at his successes.  He learned to see them not as successes, but as losses.  That’s the true math of masculinity.  Gain is counted as loss.  The road to success is paved by our own failure.

He counted every accomplishment as a loss, for he knew that none of his accomplishments could rescue him.  They would get him nowhere.  If he held onto them, they would only trap him in immaturity and stunted growth.  He needed to throw them down, count them as loss, and find something that really mattered—that was real.  Once he found it, his failures would catapult him forward to manhood.

What did he find?  “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” (3:8).  He found Jesus Christ, the infinite Creator of all life, the One who has power over the worms.  In the light of Jesus Christ, he was able to see his successes for what they really were: rubbish.  In the Greek language, the word “rubbish” is much stronger, meaning something like a pile of crap.  The Ferrari was crap.  His religious career was crap.  His morality was crap.  (Sorry to be so blunt with my words—but the Greek is really quite blunt!  Paul was trying to get a point across.)

Paul was more than willing to calculate all of his successes as loss, so he could get out from under the pile of crap.  That was the only way that he could gain Christ.  He threw everything down, trampled on it, turned it into pavement, and walked out of immaturity, to maturity, toward Jesus Christ.

Paul was man enough to do this.  Are you?

He was man enough not to depend on the affirmation of others.  He did not need to be a leech and live off of their power, thinking he was somebody because someone told him so.  In order to become a man, he admitted that he was a failure, that nothing he did could change that fact, and latched on to a true source of power.

Where did he get this power?  “Faith in Christ” (3:9).  Here’s Paul’s desire, “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection” (10).  True power is found in Jesus Christ and his resurrection.  Paul let go of his immature, imposter power in order to grasp this true power.

How was he connected to this true source of power?  By faith!  Faith is what connects us to this true source of power.  How does it work?  The first step of faith is to unlink yourself from the false power sources—the things you see on the surface in the mirror.  Let go of them.  Admit that you’re a failure.  Confess that you’re a sinner who’s going to die, be fed to the worms, and forgotten.  Then, after unlinking, you must relink.  Relink to Jesus Christ and the true power he offers.  To have faith is to unlink from self and relink to Savior.

In order to make faith possible, for it was not before, God had to become worm food.  He had to enter our world and find us in the rubbish heap.  He did this in the person of Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ went down into death and met us at our greatest need.  He became sin for us.  But he did not stay in death, for he rose on the third day.  That’s the power of the resurrection—that’s the offer of the resurrection.  To relink to the power source of Jesus, we allow him to grab hold of us, so that we can grab hold of him, and then we are pulled out of death by the power of the resurrection.  His life pulls us out of death, out of the grave, away from the worms.

Failure is a catapult, because by failing in our faith in ourselves, we relink to Jesus and allow the force of the resurrection to pull us out.

The road to manhood is paved by our own failures.  Don’t be trapped forever in immaturity, in the pursuit of only success.  Being successful is not the road to manhood.  Neither power, nor possessions, nor pleasure makes you a man, in fact the opposite is true.  Living for these things keeps you stuck in childhood.  We become men when we do two things: admit that we’re failures and hold onto Jesus Christ in faith.

Jesus is our righteousness; Jesus is our reason for living; Jesus is our true source of power and life.  Jesus is our freedom and passageway to manhood.

© Samuel Kee, 2013

This is “Papyrus 52,” containing the gospel of John

Over the last four posts, we’ve been discussing the question, “Can I take the Bible seriously?”  In order to come to a conclusion, we’ve been discussing five questions, the final one having to do with how to evaluate an ancient book.  In the last post, we discussed the authenticity of the Bible.  In this post, we’ll examine the reliability of the Bible.  Specifically, we’ll answer the question, “is the Bible just a fairytale?”  After all, the claims of the New Testament seem too good to be true, extravagant, etc.  Can the claims of the New Testament be trusted?  By using the Historical Research Method, we’ll seek to discover if the New Testament is a reliable ancient manuscript. 

There are three “checks” we’ll use to discern the reliability of the New Testament: internal consistency, external consistency, and other supportive evidences.

Check 1: Internal consistency

There are three things to look for to check the internal consistency of an ancient manuscript.  First, check to see if the author of a particular book in the Bible is consistent with himself.  Make sure that he does not contradict himself within the same book or in another book that he has written, i.e., make sure John does not contradict what he writes in John with what he writes in Revelation.

Second, check to see if the various eyewitnesses are consistent with each other, making sure that one biblical book does not contradict another.  In claiming that two books contradict each other, one is asserting that there is no possible/logical way for the two books to make sense together.  The writings of the apostle Paul are consistent with the writings of the apostle Peter, in other words.

Third, determine the amount and quality of claims an event has.  As far as the NT goes, the more witnesses there are to an event, the more credible it is.  For instance, the gospels provide four accounts to the life and events of Jesus’ life.  Such evidence bolsters the case for Christ.  In addition to these four accounts, books such as Acts, Paul’s letters, and Hebrews through Revelation also testify of Jesus.  Furthermore, this testimony is internally consistent.

In sum, the writings of the New Testament do not show any signs of fabrication or legendary development.  They are consistent and contain a coherent message.

Check 2: External consistency

In order to test for external consistency, we’ll look at five components.

First, there are ancient historians who testify to Jesus’ life and the events of the New Testament.  When we crack open the history books, do we find historians that refer to biblical characters?  Yes!  Josephus, who was not a Christian, references to the deaths of John the Baptist and James, the relative of Jesus.  Even more, Josephus writes about Jesus:

“At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus.  His conduct was good, and [he] was known to be virtuous.  And many people from among the Jews and other nations became his disciples.  Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die.  But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship.  They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders” (from “Testimonium” by Agapius, as found in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Scott, p. 394).

Second, there are church authorities who testify to the life of Jesus.  These early church founders provide external evidence of Jesus’ life when they write about biblical events in their works.  For example, certain church fathers make reference to the fact that they actually knew a disciple of Jesus (Polycarp knew John).

Third, archaeology confirms the biblical record, over and over again.  For instance, modern archaeology has excavated the house of Peter, the synagogue build by the centurion in Luke 7, and a first century church in Capernaum.  Further, in 1992, the burial grounds of Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest mentioned in John, and his family were found buried in Jerusalem.

Fourth, the strategy for using eyewitnesses is consistent with other ancient writings.  Richard Bauckham’s book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses describes how history was written in ancient times.  Unlike today, history in New Testament times was written from eyewitness accounts.  Today, we’re comfortable relying on second, third, and fourth hand accounts.  But ancient people did not write history this way.  They did their research by utilizing first (and maybe second) hand witnesses.  You had to have seen the event in order to be a reliable witness.  Then, when the historian was recording the event, he would mention the name of a witness as a way of supporting his claim.  The names mentioned in Scripture, such as Rufus, Simon, and Tabitha, were the names of real first hand witnesses, who could be called up on at any time to verify the claims.  That’s why their names were mentioned by the New Testament writers.  Their names were like modern day “footnotes.”  If anyone reading one of the New Testament books questioned the claims, then one of the “footnotes” could be personally consulted.  That was the purpose of mentioning the names of the eyewitnesses.  In addition, when it comes to the New Testament, females witnesses were used when supporting the claims of the resurrection.  Since female testimony held no authority in a court of law, it is highly unlikely that the gospel writers “made up” their stories.  Were they wanting to convince their readers that the resurrection were true, then they would have “made up” male witnesses, whose testimony was considered credible in ancient times.  The only reason that female witnesses were used, therefore, is because that’s exactly the way it happened: Jesus rose from the dead and some females were the first witnesses of it.  That is not the mark of a legend or a myth, but of real history.

Fifth, the New Testament books do not contain the marks of typical ancient fiction (legends or myths), and this is a sure indication that they are not works of fiction.  Many scholars have noted the vast difference between the New Testament accounts and the accounts of ancient fiction.  Ancient fiction did not use detail, as the New Testament does.  In the New Testament, we’re told many details within the writing.  For instance, we learn in John 21 that 153 fish were caught.  We learn specific hours of the day when event happened.  We learn locations and professions, etc.  Works of legend or myth do not provide this kind of detail—nowhere in ancient fiction do you find the kind of detail that is given in the New Testament.  This can only mean that the New Testament is not a work of fiction or legend, but of truth.  Again, the New Testament does not have the marks of a legend or myth, which develops centuries after the lives of the people concerned, in order to fool the ignorant reader.  The New Testament is not written to fool anyone, but through its use of eyewitnesses and historical, geographical, and social detail, seeks to bolster the reader’s confidence in the reliability of the claims and the events behind them.  The New Testament is completely vulnerable and honest, often including details that make its heroes (Jesus and the disciples) look like weaklings or fools, rather than compromise the truth.  This can only be because the New Testament writers were not interested in creating a legend, but communicating the truth.  An honest reading of the New Testament will convince you of this.  It has nothing to hide.

Check 3: Other supportive evidence

In our final check, we’ll look at other supportive evidences: the uniqueness of Scripture, the affect that Scripture has on people’s lives, and the predictive power of Scripture.  Each of these evidences further builds the reliability of the Bible (along with the other checks, of course).

First, the uniqueness of Scripture is another evidence of its reliability.  Even though there are many biblical authors over thousands of years, the testimony of the Bible remains uniform: how to get sinners into a relationship with a Holy God.

Second, the affect that Scripture has on people’s lives is quite astounding.  The disciples and many Christians after them have been transformed by the Bible.  Christians have had an unwavering witness of God’s word, even to death.

Third, the predictive power of the Bible is another evidence.  Just consider the Messianic prophecies, alone.  There are about 300 Old Testament predictions that were literally fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ.  These OT writings point to Jesus, the great Treasure of the Bible. 

• Born of a woman (Gen 3:15; Gal 4:4)
• Born of a virgin (Isa 7:14; Matt 1:18-25)
• Descendant of Abraham (Gen 12:1-3; Matt 1:1)
• From the tribe of Judah (Gen 49:10; Lk 2:23, 33)
• Of the house of David (2 Sam 7:12; Matt 1:1)
• Born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2; Matt 2:1)
• Time of his appearance and death (Dan 9:24-27; Lk 19:44)
• Betrayal price (Zech 11:12-13; Matt 26:15)
• Isa 52:13-53:12 (written 700 years before Jesus’ birth) speaks of the suffering servant, who would be sinless, a substitute, scourged, pierced through, placed in a rich man’s grave, lifted up after death, and exalted.

Other passages in the Bible predict these things about the Messiah:

• Abandoned by his disciples
• Silent before his accusers
• Beaten and spat upon
• Mocked
• Hands and feet pierced
• Crucified with transgressors
• Lots cast for his garments
• Cry from the cross
• No bones broken
• Pierced in his side
• Ascension into heaven
• Seated at the right hand of God

Other remarkable OT prophecies include details about the overthrow of Nineveh, Babylon, Ammon and Moab, Philistia, Edom, Memphis and Thebes, and Palestine.  It is safe to say that no other book ever written has this kind of prophetic power.

Is It For Me?

This brings us to our final question of the Historical Research Method—a personal one.  You might not think that it’s appropriate to introduce a personal question within a scientific framework.  But for our purposes, I believe it is.  The nature of the Bible demands this question.  Any piece of literature seeks to communicate and the Bible is no different.  However, the Bible is different in that it claims to communicate the very words of God.  As I’ve written before, the Bible is the word of God in the words of humans.  God wants to say something to us: he loves us and has forgiven us.

Jesus believed the biblical texts to be the truth (John 17:17, “Your word is truth.”).  Paul claims that all scripture is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16-17).  As we have discovered through the Historical Research Method, the case for the truthfulness of the Bible has become strong.  The Bible is a book to be trusted.  We are to build our lives on it, rather than on the foundations that will crumble like sand (Matthew 7:24-27).  If this Bible is true and accurate, then we must consider what it has to say.  We would be foolish to ignore it.

The Bible claims that all humans have sinned and cannot be in a relationship with a perfect God by their own efforts.  The Bible claims that Jesus lived a perfect life, died unfairly for us sinners, and rose from the grave triumphantly.  He bore the punishment for our wrongs.  The Bible claims that if we believe in him, abandoning our lives to the cause of Christ and to his eternal glory, then we will be raised with Christ at the last day.  The Bible also warns those who do not give their lives to him of the judgment that is theirs.  Both blessing and warning come from the same book, and this book is true.

Is this book for you?  Perhaps your heart already knows the answer.  Start with the resurrection of Jesus and discover the compelling claims of Scripture.  Scripture makes plain what our consciences remind us of every day: there is no hope within this world (alone) and we need a Savior.  The Bible contains the solution that we have been longing to find.

© Samuel Kee, 2013

This is “Papyrus 52,” containing the gospel of John

If you’re just tuning in, we’ve been answering the question, “Can I take the Bible seriously” over the last three posts.  To determine this, we’ve been answering a series of questions:  1) Do you honestly believe that there is no truth?  2) Who is to say that you have the truth and others don’t?  3) What is the purpose of the Bible? and 4) Are you sure you’re interpreting it correctly?  We are now ready to answer our final question (which will take three posts to do!):

Are you sure you know how to evaluate the reliability of ancient books?

Even though pop culture has claimed a lot of things about the Bible’s origins, such that it was composed hundreds or thousands of years after the life of Jesus, was determined by power-hungry church councils, and that its contents are just myths or legends, there is a way to discover the truth.  It’s a method used by historians anytime they are trying to discern the authenticity and reliability of an ancient document.  It’s called the Historical Research Method.

By using the Historical Research Method, we have a way of determining if pop culture is right, or not.  This is an informed, intelligent approach to help you answer the question if you should take the Bible seriously.  Again, this is the way that most ancient document are evaluated, how we come to trust some and not others.  It’s a scientific approach to history.

The Historical Research Method asks two major questions of any document, but I will add a third.  First, Is it forged?  (In other words, is it authentic?)  Second, Is it a fairytale?  (In other words, is it reliable?)  The third question I will add is this, Is it for me?

Before we begin, we need to remember that the Bible is a historical book.  So the normal means of historical research can show whether or not it was a forged hoax.  While we will focus on the New Testament, for the brevity of this article, the Old Testament cold also be tested in the same ways.  In fact, the Old Testament would pass the tests a bit better in some areas than the New Testament.

Is It Forged?

We need to determine if the Bible was forged, or not.  Was it written at a later date, by imposters who claimed to be people who they were not?  To discover the truth, the Historical Research Method leads us through a series of four tests.  First, determine when it was written.  Second, determine what it really says.  Third, determine how certain we can be about what it says.  Fourth, determine who wrote it.  If a document “passes” these tests, then we can conclude that the Bible was not forged; therefore, it is authentic.  It is what it claims to be, the words of God in the words of humans.   Let me briefly walk you through the four tests.

Test 1: When was it written?

To determine when an ancient document was written, we have to look at three features of the document which will help us discover the time period.  Imagine if a person who lives two thousand years from now discovers the remains of your home.  How will they know what time period your home was from?  Suppose they found an iPhone 5 buried in the rubble.  After doing some research, they’ll be able to determine the general time period of your home, based on the time period of the iPhone 5.  This is roughly the idea of how historians discover when a document was written.

First, they look at the orthography.  This is the process of examining handwriting or scripts, what we might call “fonts.”  Certain styles and types of handwriting come out of certain time periods.  When looking at the handwriting of ancient Bible manuscripts, scientists are able to determine what time period they came from.  In fact, orthography has determined that the Bible’s New Testament manuscripts are very old, dating back within a couple decades of Jesus Christ.

Second, they look at the materials on which the early copies were written.  The New Testament documents were written on papyrus, while later copies were written on parchment or animal skins.  The kind of material an ancient document was written on helps to determine how old it is.  The oldest New Testament documents were not written in books, in other words, for books were not invented yet.

Third, they look at the earliest copies that have been discovered.  To date, the earliest copies of New Testament writings are fragments that scientists date as early as 68 AD (it’s a fragment of Mark 5:52-53).  Another very old fragment has been dated at 120 AD (of John 18:31-33).

Because of orthography, document materials, and document dating, the Historical Research Method shows us that the New Testament was not written hundreds of years after the life of Christ, but just a decade or so, during the lifetime of the disciples of Jesus.  This means that it could have been written by the disciples of Jesus, just as the documents themselves claim.  They were not later fabrications.

Test 2: What does it really say?

The second test is to determine what the New Testament really says, in its earliest versions.  I’ve heard so many people over the years say something like, “You can’t trust the Bible, because people have changed it so many times.  And you can never know what it originally said.”  Therefore, goes the conclusion, our modern Bibles are not authentic to the first writings of the disciples.  The Historical Research Method will help us to determine if these claims have any legitimacy.  We will look at language, the “witnesses,” the number of early copies, and then some other comparisons.

First, in order to discover what the earliest versions of the New Testament say, you have to understand the language.  The New Testament was written in Koine Greek.  Suppose that someone discovers a document that was not written in Koine Greek, then it would be safe to say that it is not an early version of the New Testament.  You have to know Koine Greek to determine what the earliest copies of the New Testament say.

Second, you have to look at all of the “witnesses.”  By witnesses, I mean all of the manuscripts that contain New Testament writings.  By gathering all of these together, we get a clearer picture of what the New Testament said in its original form.  This is like doing research at the library or online.  The more sources you can find that match up, the better your chances of discovering the truth.  In the case of the New Testament, since the original manuscripts (the ones written by the disciples) did not survive, we have to rely on these copies (or witnesses).  As you know, there were no printing presses back then!  Here are examples of the early witnesses, which fall into four types of manuscripts:

Papyri and Codices

These are Greek manuscripts of the NT books.  They exist as partial or complete copies.  One of the earliest known papyri is dated 120 A.D.  It is a fragment of the Gospel of John, a manuscript existing within a generation (about 40 years) of when John wrote the original.  Papyri were written on papyrus.  Codices are even larger portions of Greek scripture.

In sum, there is an incredible amount of these Greek manuscripts still in existence, totaling over 5,000 in all.  Such a large amount is ideal for trying to find out what the originals said.  To do this, the many copies are compared with each other.  In a complex process called “textual criticism,” the most logical copies win the vote.  With so many copies, we have greater confidence in determining what the original autographs said.

Early Versions

These are not written in Greek, but are early translations of the Greek into other languages throughout church history, such as Latin.  These early versions also serve as witnesses to what the original writings were, thereby increasing the authenticity of Scripture.

Quotes of Scripture

Just as happens today, the New Testament was quoted in the writing of others.  This is yet another way of discovering what the New Testament really said.  For instance, if Polycarp (an ancient friend of the apostle John) quotes a Bible verse from the Gospel of John, then we can compare his quotation to the Early Versions, Papyri, and Codices.  We have copies of these early quotations in books, letters, sermons, and notes.

Lectionaries

These are copies of the New Testament in early church hymnals, again confirming what the original manuscripts said.

Third, let’s look at the number of copies.  Having examined the language of Koine Greek and sorted through all of the witnesses (papyri and codices, early versions, quotes of Scripture, and lectionaries), let’s add up everything we’ve got and then compare the results with other ancient documents.  When these four types of manuscripts are combined (papyri and codices, early versions, quotes of Scripture, and lectionaries), an astonishing 24,000 manuscripts of New Testament material is accumulated!  With such high numbers, the case for discerning the original, authentic writings becomes more likely.  Such as in a court of law, when many witnesses testify the same way to a specific event, doubt fades away.  In this way, the many New Testament witnesses compel the critical thinker to admit that the claims of the New Testament are authentic.  They are not products of tradition or legend, but have arrived to us directly from the pens of the original writers, those who have witnessed personally the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (i.e., Matthew, John, Paul, James and Peter).

Fourth, let’s take our research a step further and compare our findings to other ancient documents, to see how they fare.  Looking only at the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, which total over 5,000, we can compare its likely authenticity with other books from antiquity.  I hope you can see that no other ancient book possesses anywhere near the same abundance of early manuscripts (or witnesses) as does the NT.  Consider the following evidence:

Therefore, if one says that these other ancient authors and manuscripts are accurate, then we should also admit the authenticity of the New Testament.  If we believe without question the authenticity of Homer, then we also should believe the truth of the Bible.  If we believe the events of Julius Caesar’s life and death on the bases of only 10 witnesses, we have far more reasons and witnesses to support our belief in the life and death of Jesus.  We also have more reason to put our trust in His resurrection.

Test 3: How certain can we be?

With regard to the less than 1% discrepancies of NT writings, the scholars Wescott and Hort gave a statement about these minor differences.  They said that if one takes all of the variant readings of the New Testament and puts them all in one place, then they would only take up ½ of 1 page of a 550 page Greek New Testament; and of this half a page of variants, none of them would affect doctrine or practice.

Test 4: Who wrote it?

Early church tradition and outside witnesses help to verify that the traditional authors can be trusted.  I am not going to take the time to elaborate on this.

Conclusion

In conclusion, having examined the evidence through the four tests of authenticity, the Historical Research Method has helped us to answer our first question, “Is it forged?”  I know that this post has been very tedious (and if you’ve made it this far, please let me know!).  But my aim has been to address the scoffers, those who flippantly say things like, “The Bible has been altered so many times over the years, rewritten by people with agendas, and changed to meet certain needs.”  Every time I hear statements like this, I just want to scream, “You have no idea of what you are talking about!”  I am just a layman, not an expert, and even I can see that there is an abundant amount of scientific, historical research behind the Bible.  Men and women, experts in textual criticism, language, and archaeology, have poured their lives into figuring out what the Bible originally said.  And, based on my own research and observation, it has not changed over the years.  We can be confident that the Bibles we hold in our hands today, state what the original writers penned.  They are authentic, not forged.

That was the first of three questions behind the Historical Research Method.  The next question is “Is it a fairytale?”  Yes, the Bible is found to be authentic, but is it reliable?  Can it be trusted?  I will write about this in another post.

© Samuel Kee, 2013

The next question (4^th out of 5) is fairly straightforward.  It has to do with interpretation.  Most of the time (I mean this literally), when the people I talk to express lack of confidence, disgust, or disbelief in the Bible, it’s because they have misunderstood it.  The Bible is an ancient book, involving an unfamiliar context, culture, genre, and worldview.  The combination of these factors makes it very easy to misinterpret.  It’s hard to put ourselves in the shoes of the first readers, making it easy to misunderstand.

With that said, however, even though it’s an ancient book, written over the time span of thousands of years by a plethora of different authors, its message is remarkably clear and consistent.  Even better, instead of causing more confusion, the different books of the Bible actually help to clarify and explain each other.  As a whole, the canon of Scripture helps us understand the more confusing parts.  The intelligent reader has to keep this in mind when reading the Bible.

For instance, Genesis 1-2 were not meant to give a scientific explanation of the origins of the universe.  They were written by Moses as he was leading the nation of Israel out of slavery and into the Promised Land, where they would be confronted with other gods, legends, and so forth.  Genesis was written to re-introduce the disillusioned people of Israel, who had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years, to the true God.  Unlike the other gods to whom they would soon learn about, the true God was in complete control.  He did not squabble for control with other gods or humans.  He did not act out of necessity and no one forced his hand.  He created the universe one yom (the Hebrew word for “day”) at a time, both steady and in control.

The main purpose of Genesis 1-2 is to introduce us to the true Creator of all life, so that we can begin to learn about his character and about the goodness of the world he made.  We run into trouble when we read Genesis 1-2 as only a scientific explanation, thereby putting unnecessary obstacles in the way of trusting the Bible.  The same would be true if I read the phone book as a book of poetry—I would be sorely disappointed and would not think too highly of it.

We might easily read certain parts of the Old Testament and conclude that God is more like Zeus and less like Mr. Rodgers.  Again, we need to keep in mind the whole of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation.  (There’s a little of both Zeus and Mr. Rodgers in God—and a whole lot more!)  And, we need to keep in mind the end of the story.

Have you ever seen The Sixth Sense?  After you watch the end of this movie, you can never watch the rest of it the same way.  You watch the whole thing in light of the end.  The same is true with the Bible, which was meant to be read “in light of the end.”  In other words, we have always to keep in mind the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his return to establish his Kingdom.  If we fail to keep these in mind, then we’ll struggle.  The death, resurrection, and return of Jesus shed light on the whole thing.  That’s how God wants us to read it.  God wants us to read every command in the Old Testament in light of Jesus Christ, who has fulfilled every word of the law.  Whether promise, prophecy, or poetry, it’s all meant to be read in light of Jesus Christ.

Another serious point of misinterpretation has to do with the nature of God, himself.  One of my friends once said to me, “If I even step foot in a church, God would strike me dead.”  Another said, “God would never listen to my prayers, after all the bad I’ve done.”  In fact, I’d say that most people believe that this is what the Bible communicates.  But, they’re wrong.

John Calvin said that people will never come to God until they realize that God is beneficent toward them.  God is good toward you, did you know that?  God is a loving Father (not a sinful father), who is longing for you to return to him.  God is good and merciful, willing to put his own Son through hell in order to make room for you in Heaven.  God is deadly serious about you receiving his love.  God is not against sinners, but for sinners.  If you pray to him and seek him, then he will receive you with open and caring arms.

Read the Bible with that in mind.  A great place to start would be Luke 23:39-43.  This small story displays the tenor of the whole of the Bible.  Accurate interpretation starts here.