“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds…” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
A friend wrote something about the Bible’s authenticity on her Facebook page, causing someone else to leave a caustic reply..
After each statements the fellow left, all of them shallow and several insulting, my friend patiently responded with kindness and reason.
But nothing worked. Her “commenter” was determined to nail her to the wall.
He had found a contradiction in Scripture and knew this was the (ahem) unholy grail, the proof, the nail in the coffin of Jehovah God.
What was his “contradiction”?
“In one place the Bible says an eye for an eye and another place it says turn the other cheek. What do you say about such a contradiction?”
I wondered if this guy was serious. Any teenager in church could answer that.
Just so easily does this guy dismiss the living God, the Creator of the Universe.
Even if the Lord had such a fellow as that on His team, He wouldn’t have much. HIs ignorance is shallow and doubtless his faith would be just as worthless.
Before commenting on the subject of contradictions in the Word, let me respond to that guy, just in case any reader needs to know how those two scriptures line up.
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” was given to Israel as a principle for assessing punishment for crimes (Leviticus 24:20). This formula was light-years more lenient and merciful than the standard used in pagan countries–and to this day, in some backward nations–that dictated a life for an eye; a limb for a tooth.
Israel should make the punishment fit the crime. Whatever the bad guy did to his victim, do that to him and nothing more. Nothing could be fairer.
Our Lord Jesus addressed the two standards raised by our little critic in Matthew 5:38-39. “You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, turn the other cheek, etc.” So, instead of this critic having made a great discovery about the standards the Bible gives, He never noticed that Jesus answered him 2,000 years ago.
But then, expecting a willfully ignorant person to have read his Bible is asking a little much.
We need to say the “turn the other cheek” principle is not for everyone. Nor was it a standard for a court of law. In the fullest explanation of this principle, before issuing it, Jesus began with, “I say to you who hear….” (Luke 6:27). Not everyone hears spiritual things. Not everyone “gets” it. “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God” (I Corinthians 2:14).
Okay. Enough of that. Anyone finding a contradiction in those two statements deserves the appellation which Proverbs gives to the willfully ignorant. (I refer readers to statements such as Proverbs 12:1 “stupid”, 12:15 “fool”, and 13:1 “scoffer”. I didn’t say it. God did.)
A few thoughts about contradictions in the Christian life or the Bible itself….
–1. Everyone says and does contradictory things. It’s real life.
I loved my parents dearly. But they had contradictions in their lives. I loved my wife of 52 years. But she sometimes did contradictory things.
I’m as bad as they were. I will preach about caring for the body as God’s Temple, and yet I eat more Little Debbie cakes or ice cream than is wise. I urge people to spend time in God’s Word daily, and some days I do not open the Bible.
–2. Scientists often come upon contradictory realities in their studies.
When astronomers discover a planet or a star not conforming to the known laws, they do not automatically dismiss it. They do not say, “Having found a contradiction in the physical laws, I’m out of here. Look for me at the employment office.”
Instead, they wisely conclude “something is going on here which we do not understand” and “there is much more to the universe than what we know.” They keep digging, because they know they’re about to learn something valuable. It’s how great discoveries are made.
–3. God does not hesitate in placing before His children two seemingly opposite commands.
“Love your neighbor as yourself” and “deny yourself.” “Let your light shine before men” and “do not do your works before men to be seen of them.” “For God so loved the world” and “love not the world nor the things in it.” Or, one of my favorites: “Every one shall bear his own burdens,” and “Bear ye one another’s burdens.”
We could do this all day.
Jesus said, “He that loses his life shall find it.” He came into the world, He said, so that “those who see may be made blind.” He told the Pharisees that if they were blind, they would have no sin. “But now you say, ‘we see,’ therefore your sin remains.”
Only the willfully ignorant, those who think a “hard saying” in the Word (see John 6:60) automatically means God is contradicting Himself, packs up and leaves when they encounter such a paradoxical statement.
–4. God wants us to think!!
“…upon that law (the Word) does he meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:2).
–5. Some Scripture is indeed deep.
If Scripture is the message of the Creator of the Universe–I mean, the One responsible for the galaxies we now observe in the amazing space telescopes–doesn’t it make sense some of it might be profound and even hard to understand?
Where did the idea arise that if my tiny little mind finds an unsolvable conflict in Scripture then God’s existence is automatically disproved? What kind of nitwits are we to believe that, and to walk away from the living God for such a flimsy reason.
No wonder those internet scams continue. No wonder so many buy into internet scams and send money in response to the lying pleas from Nigeria. No wonder the cults still pack ’em in.
People are lazy and want everything made easy. And that is not going to happen.
Scripture says the “cowardly” and “timid” will lead the sad parade into hell (see Revelation 21:8). For my money, another group right in there with them will be the lazy, the unthinking. The willfully ignorant.
The fools.
Here is the full Ralph Waldo Emerson quote with which we began…
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do…. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton…. To be great is to be misunderstood.
After some abandoned Jesus because of His “hard sayings” (John 6:60), the Lord asked the disciples, “Well, how about you? Will you go away too?”
Simon Peter, gifted with the ability to say the wrong thing, this time got one right. “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life” (John 6:67-68).
We do not follow Jesus and we do not believe the Bible because the way is easy. We believe God’s word and follow the Lord Jesus because this is the only way. “Neither is there salvation in any other.” (Acts 4:12).