DAY 183
CHALLENGE
How can you believe the Bible is the true word of God? It contains numerous accounts of people saying and doing horrible things.
DEFENSE
So does a typical newspaper.
A newspaper’s job is to report significant things that happened. That doesn’t mean it approves. Newspapers report rapes, murders, and crimes the paper does not approve of. They also report people saying things that the paper’s reporters and editors completely disagree with.
Similarly, just because Scripture records something doesn’t mean it endorses it. It does mean the biblical author thought the event was significant for his audience to know, but it doesn’t mean that he—or God—approved. Scripture records the words and actions of the devil, but the devil’s activities are strongly disapproved of.
Similarly, when Jephthah makes a rash vow that apparently leads to his daughter being sacrificed as a burnt offering (Judg. 11:30–40), the audience is meant to understand his action was barbarous and horrific. Jephthah is only one example of Scripture’s brutal honesty about the leaders of Israel, who were often deeply flawed. Even respected figures like David and Solomon have their blackest sins reported (cf. 2 Sam. 11, 1 Kings 11:1–13).
Consequently, one cannot simply note that Scripture reports someone saying or doing something abominable and conclude that it teaches something abominable. When evaluating such charges, one must ask whether the proposed evil is condemned.
Sometimes, there will be an explicit condemnation (thus the biblical author condemns Solomon’s idolatry; 1 Kings 11:9–10). Other times, the condemnation will be implicit, but clues in the text reveal the dis- approval (as when the daughters of Israel mourn what Jephthah did; Judges 11:39b–40). Or disapproval can be inferred because the action is condemned elsewhere in Scripture (e.g., even if David’s adultery wasn’t explicitly condemned in 2 Sam. 12, we would know his act was wrong because it violates the Ten Commandments; Exod. 20:14, Deut. 5:18).
Finally, our native moral sense can be a clue to the biblical author’s disapproval (e.g., even though David didn’t personally kill Uriah the Hittite, he engineered the man’s death, and even without the explicit condemnation in 2 Sam. 12, the audience would sense he violated the moral prohibition on killing). In general, when our moral sense tells us that something Scripture reports is problematic, it is a clue that Scrip- ture may disapprove too.