Tag Archives: Bible

Commentary

How should Christians understand the Old Testament laws?

10 Comments

I found this post by Aaron Brake at Apologetics Junkie.

Excerpt:

Perhaps no area of the Old Testament is more foreign and confusing to modern-day Christians than the Mosaic Law. When reading through the Pentateuch, many believers breeze through the narrative of Genesis only to hit a roadblock when confronted with the overwhelming number of commandments, statutes, and ordinances in the last half of Exodus (not to mention the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).

Yes, this is why you have to be careful when telling people to read the Bible, because not all parts of the Bible are good for new Christians! Not only are some parts pretty difficult to read, but the new reader has no framework to interpret what they are reading! I had a non-Christian guy in my office who was starting to read the Bible and he got bogged down in the Old Testament and had no idea whether these laws applied today. It’s a major problem, which is why I recommend everybody start with John instead, then maybe Luke and Acts.

There are two ways of solving this problem that are pretty popular. One way is the covenant model and the other is the dispensation model. I think that Aaron is presenting the covenant model. In the covenant model, the Old Testament laws were part of a covenant made between God and the people of Israel.

Aaron writes:

The Law in ancient Israel served three distinct purposes: relational, instructional, and structural. The Law was given to Israel in order to form a covenant or relational agreement between Yahweh and His people… the Law functioned as a constitution which provided internal structure for the nation as a whole. It provided objective standards by which the Israelites could maintain appropriate boundaries with one another as well as neighboring nations.

Jesus formed a new covenant with a new group of people who believed in his identity as the Messiah and that his death was an atonement for sin. So only the parts of the old covenant that are explicitly carried over to the new covenant still apply to our conduct as Christians.

Aaron writes:

Therefore, the primary interpretive question readers should approach the text with is this: “What does this passage tell us about God and His holiness, about Israel and her sin, and about how Israel needed to obey in order to maintain her covenant relationship with God?” Also ask, “What specific areas of life does God expect holiness and transformation within His people?”

I recommend reading the whole post. I think this is something that should be communicated to people who are coming at the Bible from a non-Christian perspective. Maybe we should have some scholars created an optimal ordering of the books of the Bible so as not to scare people away?

Note: I haven’t really looked into this problem in detail, but the covenant model makes more sense to me.

Podcasts

Audio and video from the recent Licona vs Carrier debate

3 Comments

Mike Licona just e-mailed me about his re-match with internet infidel Richard Carrier, who takes an extremely skeptical view of the New Testament.

The audio and video are linked here on 4truth.net.

Details:

On February 11, 2010, Michael Licona and Richard Carrier faced each other in debate for a second time. Topic: Did Jesus rise from the dead? The debate occurred at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas in front of an estimated audience of 750. There are two video segments. The first is the main part of the debate (opening statements and six inquiry periods lasting 10 minutes each). The second is the audience Q & A.

Links:

UPDATE: Brian Auten writes:

The full MP3 (debate and q/a) can be found here. The MP3 links at 4truth are not actual MP3s as of this moment.

This is a cross-examination debate, so it should be very fun to watch/hear.

News

If someone says they are a Christian… it may not mean what you think

23 Comments

From Birds of the Air. (H/T Neil Simpson)

Excerpt:

I think, however, that he was accurate and that “self-identified Christian” does not necessarily classify one as actually Christian. Consider the following facts. According to a 2009 Barna survey of “self-described Christians”, 22% believe things contradictory to Christianity about God, such as “everyone is god, god refers to the realization of human potential,” and so on. Did you read that? These are people who call themselves “Christian”. And it doesn’t get better when you ask more questions. Some 59% don’t believe that Satan is real. Nor do 58% believe the Holy Spirit is real. They do believe that evil spirits and supernatural forces exist, just not that Satan or the Holy Spirit are actual beings. When asked about Jesus (remember, “Christian” means “follower of Christ”), 39% believe that Jesus sinned in His lifetime. If this were true, Christianity would be nullified because Jesus would neither have been God Incarnate nor would He have been able to pay for sins. It is no wonder, then, that 38% believe that their beliefs have not transformed their lives much. Oddly, while denying so much essential to Christianity, 89% hold that their main goal in life is to “love God with all their heart, mind, strength and soul.” It begs the question, doesn’t it? “What God?”

The Bible itself is problematic to Christians. In this survey, a majority (63%) believe the Bible is accurate in what it teaches, but 39% think the Koran and the Book of Mormon are just as accurate, that they teach the same principles as the Bible. In another study, there is a sharp decline in how reliable they think the Bible is. Only 30% of 18-to-25-year-olds think the Bible is accurate contrasted with 58% of the 64-plus group. The fear of the Barna group is that “the Bible will continue to lose hold on the next generation.”

Regarding that last point about the Bible, as long as Christians insulate the claims of the Bible from testing against the external world, then yes, it will just be about opinions. If there is no way to test something because we don’t allow the text to be tested, then you just take it or leave if you like it. Personal preference. We need to get away from Christianity as blind faith, and make Christianity something you can know to be true without any leaps of faith.