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Frequently Asked Questions in The New Testament.

1) Was Jesus Mistaken When He Said that His Disciples Would See Him Coming in His Kingdom (in Matthew 16.28; Mark 9.1; Luke 9.27)?

Answer: The word translated “Kingdom” is basileia which means more literally ‘kingly power’ (in those days kingdoms were not specific areas of land but wherever the king’s rule was acknowledged). All the Gospel writers link this with the transfiguration which immediately follows. Here the disciples did see Him come in His kingly power. John again saw Him coming in His kingly power as described in Revelation 1. He also came in kingly power after His resurrection when He declared “All authority is given to me in Heaven and earth” (Matthew 28.18). The point was that they would see Him as He really was, as the King with power over all, and not just as a teacher.

We must not mix this up with His second coming, when that kingship will be revealed as never before. When Jesus was here there were two things (among others) He wanted His followers to be aware of. The first was that the expected king was now here revealing His authority. It took them a long time to realise it, but it was necessary for them to realise it in the hearts and minds, rather than just be told it. The second was that one day He would come again to finalise His purposes. Both were vital aspects of His ministry. We are so used to the idea that the King was here that we take it for granted. For them it was an astounding new revelation, and the transfiguration, together with His authority and acts of power, served to demonstrate this to them.

2) Was Jesus Mistaken about the Time of His Coming? (Matthew 24.33 - 34; Mark 13.30; Luke 21.32.

Answer: While on earth Jesus quite clearly stated that while He was here He DID NOT KNOW the time of His coming (Mark 13.32). When he refers to ‘these things’ (see Matthew 24.3; Mark 13.4.; Luke 21.7 where ‘these things’ clearly refers to what Jesus had just been talking about) He is referring to the destruction of Jerusalem and the dreadful things that would come on the Jews. “These things” would be a sign that the end was ‘close by’ (Luke 21.34). Within a generation the things described happened. But the timing of the end itself was in God’s determination. Jesus did not know, while on earth, when that would be. He said so. You cannot be ‘wrong’ when you say you don’t know (even Atheists!). What He did know was that the apocalyptic events He described would take place within a generation, and He was right. Since that time His coming has ever been a possibility, and Christians are to see it as ‘near at hand’. But in the light of the millions of years of world history what are a mere two thousand to God?

3) Did Jesus Not Teach Us to Hate Our Parents (Luke 14.26)?

Answer: Of course the teaching of Jesus is intended to be read intelligently. Anyone can pick on metaphors and deliberately misinterpret them. But we do not know a single person of intelligence who does not recognise that when Jesus spoke of ‘hating father and mother’ He was using the usual method of Hebrew exaggeration to establish a point, as He often does elsewhere. He is basically saying, ‘God must come first, even if you have to disappoint your parents’. (He elsewhere makes it clear that we are to love father and mother). So He was not really suggesting that we should actually hate our parents, but that when it comes to a question of choosing between God’s requirements and parental demands, God’s requirements must come first. You will note that He also said we must hate our own lives also. He was not teaching self-hatred but the need to put God first.

4) Jesus said that He Had Come to Set People Against Each Other, Didn’t He? How Can That Be Right? (e.g. Matthew 10.35)

Answer. When Jesus said that He had come to set people against each other He was accurately reading human nature and describing what the effects would be of what He had come to do. He is saying that He had come to do something that would inevitably have that effect. He had come to teach righteous living, purity, compassion, honesty and goodness. These are things that men applaud in general until they begin to impinge on their own interests. Then how quickly they can change.

So when He describes what the effect of His coming and presence and teaching will be He is simply stating facts. They will produce division and hatred and betrayal because they interfere with men’s selfish demands. This is inevitable when good comes in to an evil world. The good must either bow down to the evil or speak and act against it and face persecution and hatred. Men hate no one more than those who make them aware that they are sinful. By teaching men to be good and exhorting men to follow God at any cost He knew that he would be thrusting them into ‘trouble’. Indeed, as He said, that was what He had come for. He had come to challenge evil and evil would not take it lying down. The world would hate his followers for it, but it was not He who would cause the hatred, it would be the evil in men’s hearts. All these passages would be literally true because of the evil that possesses man.

4)When Jesus Commended the Woman for Pouring Expensive Ointment on Him, Was He not Just Being Selfish?

Answer: Are we to describe Jesus as selfish because He defended the woman’s action? I think we should say He was gracious. He did not ask for the ointment to be poured over Him. Indeed had the woman come to Him and said ‘what shall I do with this valuable commodity?’ He would undoubtedly have said ‘sell it and give it to those in need’. But once she had performed her act of love Jesus rightly commended it because He saw that it sprang from the love in her heart. Indeed her act had comforted Him. Could He then condemn it? If someone did something extravagant to show their love for you and others were censorious, what would you do? If you would not do what Jesus did then you should question the depths of your own compassion. Right must always be tinged with compassion.

5). How Could Jesus Tell Us To Drink His Blood When The Drinking of Blood Was Forbidden? See Matthew 26.28 and parallels.

Answer: It is quite corrct that the drinking of blood is forbidden. But Jesus did not ask anyone literally to drink blood, He asked them to drink wine. At the Passover a participant would take the unleavened bread and the cup of wine and would liken them (saying ‘this is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate ---’) to the bread and wine drunk when the children of Israel were delivered from Egypt. No one thought that the bread and wine had literally become that eaten and drunk by the first Israelites at the Passover in Egypt. They knew that ‘this is’ meant ‘this is symbolic or representative of ’. Jesus changed the words to show that a new Passover had arrived. Handing them the WINE he said , ‘this is my blood of the new Covenant which is shed for you and for many’. As any sensible person knows it was figurative. The wine is representative of the blood that He will shed. It could not be His blood. His blood was still in His body. No so-called miracle could have turned it into His blood. (No theological wrangling can get round that point). The disciples are to drink the wine to show that they are participating in the benefits of His coming death and are committing themselves to the new covenant resulting from it. We also can do the same. But there is no justification for suggesting that we are actually drinking blood.

Some would try to argue that Jesus as a Jew would not have used language like this, but they are completely wrong. This was typical Jewish language. In the Old Testament the expression ‘drinking blood’ was used as a vivid way of describing the act of killing someone (see Isaiah 49.26; Zechariah 9.15 in Hebrew; 2 Samuel 23.17). So when in John 6 Jesus tells the Pharisees that they must drink His blood in order to find life He is simply prophesying that they would put him to death, and indeed that this was necessary if men were to find life. Amazingly through this very act they, if they were prepared to do so, would be able to find new life. In the same way when we drink the wine we are committing ourselves again to participation in the death of Christ, not as a continuing sacrifice, but as one completed once for all when He died for us (Hebrews 7.27). It is not the sacrifice that continues but our participation in it. So we must not allow vivid Hebrew metaphor to lead us astray. We are to use our minds and brains when reading anything.

6) How can Jesus Be God When He Gave Up Hope When He Was On The Cross? (see Matthew 27.46 and parallels).

Answer: The fact is that Jesus did not give up hope. When He cried, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’ He was applying to Himself the words of the psalmist in Psalm 22.1. In the same way when He said ‘It is finished’ He was applying to His situation the last words of the same Psalm. In other words he knew that He was experiencing similar desolation of soul to what the psalmist had faced and used the psalmists words to comfort Himself. Knowing the Psalm He knew that it ended in triumph, and He thus found comfort from the Word of God in the midst of His desolation.We can never know the desolation that He went through as He bore our sin on the cross. But these words expressed the agony of His soul and the certainty that He would come triumphantly through it. They were words of confidence in the midst of unspeakable desolation.

7) Why Did Jesus Ask Men Not To Acknowledge His Miracles?

Answer: He sensibly asked people not to talk about His miracles. He did not want people to come to Him because He did miracles - the crowds were getting so large that He was being hindered in His work. He wanted men to come to Him to seek God, not in order to see miracles. What is wrong with that? He certainly healed all who came to Him but He did not want their attention to be on the miracles. We need to seriously ask why people today use ‘miracles’ as a means of converting people. This was not Jesus’ way. Miracles are a work of compassion but they are dangerous when given a place of prime importance, for they turn attention away from what is central, response to the teaching of Jesus, and of course to Jesus Himself.

8) Why Did Jesus Break God’s Law as Revealed in the Old Testament?

Answer: He did not break God’s Law, he expanded it to bring out its inner meaning. He always exhorted men that they should observe the Law. What He did do was expand it and do away with false interpretations of it. He pointed out that the outward acts should never ignore the inner meaning. Men treated the Law in a way that was too literal, as though once they had done what it literally said they were in the clear. Jesus poined out that they must consider the spirit of the Law. They must ask, what was its inner purpose? That is the test of true righteousness.

9) Should Jesus have done Things Which Deliberately Fulfilled Prophecy Such as Entering Jerusalem on an Ass?

Answer: Why should He not arrange things to fit prophecy? He was the One prophesied about. What is wrong with that? He wanted people to see Who He was. But He never pointed to such things and said ‘see, I am fulfilling prohecy”. He taught by this means, as by other means, and left people to realise its significance for themselves. Thousands of people rode into Jerusalem on asses at the Passover and they were often welcomed by crowds revelling in the feast. Yet they were not seen as fulfilling the prophecy. Nor indeed was Jesus. The crowds welcomed Him as a popular preacher and yelled the same things as they yelled at many others at this time of rejoicing. It was only later that the disciples saw the deeper significance of what had happened (see John 12.16). The point of the prophecy was not that Messiah would enter on an ass, but that he would do so rather than on a prancing war horse. Jesus wanted it to be realised that He was here as the Prince of peace.

10) Why Does Jesus Say That John Was The Coming Elijah (Matthew 17.10-13) Whereas John Says He Was Not (John 1.21)?

Answer: The prophecy of the coming of 'Elijah' is found in Malachi 4.5. His purpose would be to change the hearts of men in readiness for the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. John the Baptiser came and fulfilled this very task, preparing men's hearts for the coming of Jesus and the destruction of Jerusalem. Jesus thus correctly stated that John was 'the coming Elijah', ie he was the one who came fulfilling the prophecy of restoration. When John, however, was asked, 'Are you Elijah?' he said 'No'. Which was of course literally true. He was not Elijah. (Some people thought that Elijah would literally come back. He was denying that this had happened).

But he did declare that he was the preparer of the way thus stating that he was the one sent before, which of course does link him to Malachi's prophecy. Had he been asked, ‘Are you the one promised by Malachi?’ he would almost certainly have given a different answer.

It is a matter of making a distinction between a literalistic interpretation (that John was ACTUALLY Elijah), which both Jesus and John clearly did not hold, and the spiritual interpretation that he was the promised forerunner. The Old Testament commonly uses this spiritual method when for example it describes the future expected king as 'the coming David', meaning that he would be a descendant of King David. Jesus was of the line of David. John was of the spiritual line of the prophets, of whom Elijah was representative (compare how he appears with Moses in the representation of the Law and the Prophets at the transfiguration). John was denying the literal interpretation, Jesus was putting forward the spiritual interpretation.

There are of course some today who hold the literal interpretation and actually believe that Elijah will yet come in person. However, we think that is unlikely, holding more to the spiritual interpretation.

11) Why Does Matthew tell us That Judas Hanged Himself While Luke Tells Us That He Fell Headlong and His Body Burst Open?

Answer: Mathew’s statement (27.5) that Judas went and hanged himself is a straightforward comment revealing his end in the tersest possible way. He is not trying to be descriptive. It is probable, however, that Luke obtained his information from an eyewitness, for the description is detailed and lurid, “he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his innards gushed out” (Acts 1.19). Now it is quite clear from this description that Judas did not just fall down by accident. He clearly threw himself off some high point. It makes good sense to suggest therefore that what happened was that he found a convenient tree at the edge of a drop, put a noose round his neck and threw himself off the cliff. The rope then possibly broke with the resulting unpleasant mess, which was looked on as a judgment on him to such an extent that it became a by-word.

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