Apparent Contradictions & Why we need rules to live by

Context context context.  You cannot take any verse out of scripture and say it’s true.  It must ALWAYS be held in context or it’s almost guaranteed to be misused and/or misunderstood. 

Who among you has not started a comment and been interrupted by another who tries to finish your thought or rebut your statement before you’ve finished. 

Thus you must either interrupt that person (rude) or wait for them to give you the floor back so you can say “I wasn’t finished talking”. 

For example say you are listening to a long political speech or other sensitive social issue and you begin with “I agree”.., and before you can finish your statement someone bites your head off and counters your statement with “how can you say that”.  Not realizing you had not finished your comment and were about to say “BUT not all if it” or you were going to clarify your agreement etc. 

Let’s take the most popular verse in all of scripture and analyze it under this supposition:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

The key is to determine what “believeth in Him” means.  The whosoever and the everlasting life are pretty clear.  Exactly what the believeth in Him means is the issue.

More scripture (redemptive revelation) is required to determine exactly who the son is and what “believeth on Him” means.   And as we all can clearly see from society and testimony in the scriptures that even those living in the day of Jesus denied him and did not believe so it’s no wonder we have skeptics to this day despite the wonders of creation and the fact that God’s laws are written of all men’s hearts. 

Life’s circumstances are not fair and God never said they were., but what is fair is the CHOICE and Evidence we all have before us.  God has written the morale law on all men's hearts to know right and wrong.  If they choose despite their situation to seek the creator they WILL find him (Proverbs 8:17).  Those who despise the light and love darkness will eventually be given over to a reprobate mindset – but none the less as long as man has breath he can repent and turn to the Lord who is not far from any of us. 

Context is vital in all literature.  Take your favorite novel.  If you were to strip one key chapter out of the book having never read the rest of the book – you could and probably would totally misinterpret the chapter and it would have a totally different effect on you emotionally than it would have if you read it the way it was intended.  The Bible is no different – a chapter may not make much sense until you finish the entire book.  All the books of the bible were meant to be read in their entirety not a chapter here, a verse there. An of the 66 books of Scripture each one can help interpret the other.  Thus one author (God).  There is no other way to explain it. 

Take a mystery novel.  Who in their right mind would want to know the answer to the mystery before they begin.  If defeats the entire point.  The joy and purpose was to read and get into the characters and be intrigued by the mystery as it develops.  You try to solve it yourself as you read there are twists and turns you didn’t expect – emotions come out – you laugh and maybe get a tear in your eye.  Sometimes you get mad even.  Then by the end you may even love a character who you almost hated in the beginning, but if you had not read the book in proper order – it would have made no sense at all, because it was not in the proper time and place.  This is what the scripture calls WISDOM. 

Without truth everything is nonsense and irrelevant.  Can you imagine trying to measure a football field without any set standard of measurement?  Or selling and buying produce with no set standard of weight.  You get the picture – it would be chaos or confusing at the least.   If this seems like common sense then why when it comes to morals an ethical behavior people feel they should be able to do whatever feels right for them.  God has rules for living whether we agree with them or not.  When your loved one has to have a major operation do you want the doctor who went thru school cheating all the way and who is loose and fancy free with his technique and doesn’t follow routine sanitation etc. or do you want the doctor who uses the most clearly proven successful technique and thru hard work got his education and who was taught by the best doctors of our day and has a proven success rate.  Or when you fly in an airplane – do you want a drunkard who barely got his license and doesn’t know how all the instruments work or a seasoned pilot who is proud of his record and gets plenty of sleep and possibly served in the military and saved many lives during conflict and completes his safety checklist perfectly each time before takeoff and follows FHA rules and regulations or the guy whose fancy free and takes off when he feels like even if the tower said it’s not his turn.  Well you say that’s different – no it’s not.  These principles apply to every aspect of life.  Business, family, marriage, friendships, church, clubs, military, hospitals, sports, etc.  Can you imagine a championship game in any sport and players not following rules – not only would they lose, but it would be a joke and in the end no one would come to watch.  Its clear there must be rules and they must be followed.  Who better to make the rules than our creator, God.  The Holy Bible is that manual to live by.  We disregard God's rule book at our own risk and are held accountable for all people who we influence in a negative manner as we do what feels good in our own eyes.  A very sobering thought and it's true.  Matthew 12:36 "But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken."

Everyone has to ask themselves this question - Will God judge me on what I think is right and wrong or what He (God) thinks is right and wrong? You dare not answer this question wrong because the result would be grave indeed! 

You may say it's not right to scare people like this.  Well you judge which is worse.  Let people die in their ignorance and sin and end up in eternal hell away from God or to hear a scary sobering message yet respond to the truth and be saved thru Jesus and live in paradise forever.  

One more example then I’ll shut up:  Proverbs 1:28 says "Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me.”  AND Proverbs 8:17 says “I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.” 

So which is it?  Is Proverbs 1:28 correct or is Proverbs 8:17 correct?  That question is in error.  Both are correct and without context you will get nonsense and contradiction.  We all need to read the Bible for all it worth and mine its deep treasures.  This is exactly why Jesus said so many times “he who has ears to hear let him hear” and “he who has eyes to see, let him see”.  Your garden variety pagan will laugh and say “I can see I can see Praise the Lord” as they mock God all day long, but when a lost soul sincerely does see clearly and the scales drop from their eyes and the spirit reveals truths to them – they say things like how could I have been so blind all this time. And they cry and laugh and are filled with inner peace & joy that only God can give through trusting your entire life to Jesus Christ who died and gave his life a ransom for many.  Do you wish to be wise Saheeb?   Then seek Jesus starting today!