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EPISODE 129: Q&A

Date: 9/27/2022

Questions

What are your thoughts on what is going on in Gen 6:1-4 when the “sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful and they married”? I’ve read a few explanations but am curious to know what you think. Can you explain the Nephilim? Giants?  Fallen angels? 1/2 angels?

      • I thought we’d begin with an underwhelming answer to our listeners’ questions. 
      • I have no idea what the Nephilim are. I’ve read similar explanations that the questioner mentions and still don’t have a real opinion on which explanation is best.
      • But a mystery like this — or an unanswerable question — shouldn’t cause us to doubt our faith or God’s Word. This is a historical narrative being recorded — not a theological truth that’s essential to our faith. What we can understand is the big picture of what’s happening at this point in history (lots and lots of sin) and God’s judgment of wickedness.

      Can you explain the wedding parable that is found in Mathew 22:1-14?  It seems to me that because the man was invited to the banquet, he was chosen. But due to his surprise at the kings’ reaction to him being there, it almost seems as if he believed in Jesus but was being rejected. If this is the case, then how can anyone have confidence in their salvation? If we cannot have confidence, then doesn’t that contradict all the verses that say we can be confident in our faith (such as Philippians 1:6).  Is it possible to genuinely believe you are saved (hungry for a relationship with God) and be blindsided when your time has come and you’re destined for hell?  That seems to contradict John 3:16. I am so confused by this man being turned out from the wedding he was invited to in this parable.

      1. First, verse 14 makes it clear that the man was not chosen. “For many are called, but few are chosen” is the punchline of this section of Scripture.
      2. Second, the man’s response is that of being speechless. The Hebrew has no leaning towards him being surprised, though. He’s just silent in response to the question. All that to say, be careful not to read into his response our assumptions (like he was surprised by the question).
      3. Which leads us to the most important question being asked: How can anyone have confidence in their salvation?
        1. The gospel call goes out as the Good News is proclaimed.
        2. The Spirit of God uses the proclamation of the gospel as the means by which an inward call takes place in the hearts of those who are chosen by God.
        3. This results in their new birth, conversion, justification, sanctification, and so on. What we call their salvation. This is all God’s doing — he’s saving us — we’re not saving ourselves.
        4. Which results in the one saved being part of the people of God — the church. Yet the visible church is a mixture of both believers and unbelievers. The call (gospel preaching) happens to all people in the church, but only the believers are the chosen. 
        5. To press this truth on people’s hearts — that all are called, but few are chosen —  we’re told to work out our faith in fear and trembling. To work out our salvation. We’re given tests throughout Scripture that we’re to use to examine, probe, and investigate our faith — to see if it’s genuine. 
        6. If we’re doing this, then there’s no surprise — no being blindsided — regardless if we’re chosen or not because the difference between believing in Jesus and not believing in him is drastic! We’ve forgotten this in recent history. We’ve confused good, moral behavior as the same as being a Christian. If you vote right, talk right, dress right, watch the right shows, listen to the right music, and so on…then you’re a Christian, right? Not at all! 
        7. But if we turn to Scripture and allow it to test our faith — we’ll find that the heart change expected of those who believe, which always results in God-honoring behavior — can’t be faked. We just don’t have it in ourselves to fake being a biblical Christian for very long.
        8. And the promise to us is that we can know if we believe if we use Scripture to test our hearts. We’ll be looking at this next year as we journey the First John together. With the whole point of John’s letter being, “That you may know that you have eternal life.”

        I recently did a Bible study on Galatians. The author said the sex between Abraham and Haggar which resulted in Ishmael was not consensual. So rape was implied. What is your opinion on that encounter between Abraham, Sarah and the maid servant?

        1. Without knowing the Bible study material or the author, it’s hard to respond to what they’re saying as I don’t know how they defend their position.
        2. Here’s what I do know. The Bible — and the Old Testament — in particular does know how to describe rape. In fact, the same book — where the stories of Abraham and Haggar are found — Genesis — has other stories that include rape (Genesis 19; Genesis 34) and describe what happens as rape. 
        3. For example, the Hebrew words describing the abusive sexual acts in these other stories in Genesis is not the same as what we find in Abraham and Haggar’s story. Showing that the author of Genesis could have used the same language to describe Abraham and Hagar if he had wanted to, but he didn’t use rape language in their story.
        4. Now — by our standards today — was their relationship consensual or abusive? I’m not sure that’s the right question. The better lesson for us is that the entire narrative of their relationship indicates a moment when Abraham and Sarah did not trust God to fulfill his promise to them — that they’d have a son. They trusted their own means to make the promise happen. That — ultimately — is the most atrocious sin in their story: they fail to trust God. Which also leads to the ultimate ridiculous act of grace in their story. God fulfills his promise to them anyway, forgives them of this momentary lapse of trust, and even has written of Abraham, “Against hope Abraham believed in hope with the result that he became the father of many nations according to the pronouncement, “so will your descendants be.” 19 Without being weak in faith, he considered his own body as dead (because he was about one hundred years old) and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. 20 He did not waver in unbelief about the promise of God but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God. 21 He was fully convinced that what God promised he was also able to do. 22 So indeed it was credited to Abraham as righteousness.” (Romans 4:18-22 NET)
        5. That’s a reputation that Abraham didn’t deserve nor did he earn. But God — being gracious like he is — graces Abraham with this reputation.

          Psalm 11:5 says the wicked are those who love violence. In verse 7 it says the lord is righteous and he loves justice. Justice can at times include violence. How does God distinguish these two?

          1. Not sure if the Bible translation being used is the NIV, NLT or some other translation. But it’s definitely one with a translation philosophy of conveying the idea of the language rather than a more literal word for word translation. Often, Bible translations that are conveying the idea of the original text (and not word for word) don’t like repetition, so they’ll use different English words to translate the Hebrew, which loves repetition. 
          2. I say that because the ESV — a more literal translation — doesn’t have the word “justice” but instead has “righteous deeds.” So the word “righteous” — found in verses 5 and 7 — is married to  “righteous deeds” in verse 7.
          3. So here’s what the psalmist is saying. “The Lord tests the righteous” (those who are right with God). “The Lord is righteous” (God only does what is right). And “the Lord loves righteous deeds” (God loves actions that are right). 
          4. Now the question becomes “can doing the right action” include “violence”? And the answer must be no if we allow the Hebrew to define our terms (and not our modern definitions). The Hebrew word, translated as “violence” means “malicious wrongdoing”. So it’s not necessarily the act itself but the intent of the act that’s wrong. Someone, as the psalmist says, “whose heart loves malicious wrongdoing.” Someone who is righteous has a heart that loves God. Thus — even though an act may be similar, the intent and reason for doing it is not the same. 
          5. Thus God can command the Israelites to do things we’d define as violence, but the act is being done for a reason other than “being malicious.” The reason may be to “purge sin from among you” or “to defend yourself” or “to honor God’s name.” 
          6. A helpful reminder — and I say this not because I want folks to distrust their English Bibles, but because the translation process from one language to another is never as clean as we’d like it to be — when you find yourself asking a good question like the one this listener has sent in, a good first step is to think, “I wonder how a few other English Bible translations have translated this verse.” Especially if you don’t know the original languages or aren’t familiar with how to use language tools. A few good English Bible translations will usually point you in the right direction.
            1. Bible translations I always look at: ESV, NASB, NET, NIV, NLT, and MSG. 
            2. These cover a few that are word for word all the way across the translation spectrum to paraphrase type translations. 

            Currently reading through the book of John and in Chapter 7 verse 5 it says that even Jesus’ brothers didn’t believe in him. Why do you think that might be? Did Mary not tell them Jesus’ birth story to try to protect the family?

            1. Belief includes knowledge, but true belief in Christ does not happen solely because of knowing the right things.
            2. So Jesus’ brothers may have known everything about his birth — miracles and all. But without their own “new birth” (them first being given a new heart that believes) they could not believe that he was God.
            3. But once some of his siblings did experience the new birth, we know that some did in fact believe. And even became authors of Scripture (James and Jude).