I hit a passage in Jeremiah this afternoon that made my head hurt. It seems to contradict several passages in the New Testament, but it can’t.
I chased down several passages and could not resolve the problem. So I turned to some commentaries that I trust – no help. They were not even dealing with the issue superficially. I found a journal article that dealt with the passage but the suggested answer did not cover all of the aspects of the challenges I saw.
I called a close friend who is an excellent teacher and Bible student and we talked it over for about 30 minutes, his solutions were not compelling either.
The problem is that there seems to be conflicting data. If one accepts the New Testament passages at face value it appears that God reneged on a covenant that He declared to be unbreakable. Since God is immutable that cannot be the answer.
So the basic ground rule is if there seems to be a conflict I am missing something and, or not understanding something correctly. It is me that is wrong, not the Word that is in conflict.
There are many heresies present in the Body today. It is my belief that most of them emerge from not dealing well with situations like this. Primarily forgetting the ground rule. The Word is not in conflict, I am not reading the data correctly.
I called a close friend who is an excellent teacher and Bible student and we talked it over for about 30 minutes, his solutions were not compelling either.
The problem is that there seems to be conflicting data. If one accepts the New Testament passages at face value it appears that God reneged on a covenant that He declared to be unbreakable. Since God is immutable that cannot be the answer.
So the basic ground rule is if there seems to be a conflict I am missing something and, or not understanding something correctly. It is me that is wrong, not the Word that is in conflict.
There are many heresies present in the Body today. It is my belief that most of them emerge from not dealing well with situations like this. Primarily forgetting the ground rule. The Word is not in conflict, I am not reading the data correctly.
I recall Prof said he had many questions on the margins of his Bible. Some God has answered over the time, some remain. "God is not in business of satisfying our curiosity", he said.
ReplyDeleteI agree the Word of God can't conflict with itself. There must be our understanding that fails, or lack of data, or translation into English (Russian in my case).
I appreciate your efforts to dig deep to resolve that what bothers you, Mike, -- a good example to follow.
By the way, what is the passage? Let me chew on it, too.
Good question I will send it to you via email
ReplyDelete