*The Bible's Claims About Itself

It is almost impossible for a Christian to have a meeting of minds with an atheist on any subject anywhere in the neighborhood of religion. As soon as the "conversation" moves to the source of the Christian's belief, the Bible, the atheist summarily rejects what the Christian says. In an incredulous voice, he will say something like, "You're telling me that you believe what you read in a book that is thousands of years old over the findings of modern science?" When the Christian answers, "Of course!" the atheist will ask, "Why?"

The only proper response is, "Because it is the Word of God," and the conversation can logically go no further. The determined atheist will accept no argument based on Scripture, and the faithful Christian will accept nothing that contradicts it. The conversation must end unresolved and unsatisfying—unless God Himself intervenes to open the atheist's mind or the unprepared Christian withers under the other's arguments.

In one sense, Christianity begins and ends with the Bible. All we truly know about God is found in its pages, as it is the only permanent record of God's revelation of Himself to mankind. In it, we find all of our instruction on doctrine, law, and morality. It reveals the standards by which human beings can live in harmony. It shows the miserable depths of man's depravity and the incomparable heights of his potential—and how God can take him from the former to the latter. In reality, a converted Christian bases every aspect of life on the words written in it.

Billions have seen the need to own this book we call the Holy Bible. It continues year after year to be the world's bestselling book, and millions of free copies are distributed around the globe. One would think that, with the Bible so accessible, humanity's moral fiber would be strong, but just the opposite is true. What a paradox! A major key to successful and abundant life lies in our hands, yet most reject it as quaint, outdated, and invalid for our times! The fact is, few people really study it, much less believe it. When polled, many give it lip-service, but increasingly, people do not consider it authoritative—it is just another possibility among many.

Accepting the Bible on faith may be noble, but God instructs us through the apostle Paul, "Test all things; hold fast what is good" (I Thessalonians 5:21). We must challenge the Bible to verify its claims, and conversely, we must take up the challenge to put its instructions to the test in our lives. We must make proving God's Word a personal matter that will forever erase all doubts about its validity. This takes time and work. It also takes the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit to open our minds to its richness and truth (I Corinthians 2:6-16; John 14:16-17, 26; 16:13-14). Only then can we really understand and believe.

New Bible students are struck by the Bible's authoritative claims about itself. For instance, Paul writes in II Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." The phrase "inspiration of God" is in Greek theopneustos, literally "God-breathed." Scripture, then, is a direct product of God's mind and being. The words "all Scripture" (pasa graphe) can be rendered "every text," "every scripture," "the whole scripture," "all the writings," etc., meaning the whole canon of Scripture. In other words, nothing crept into the Bible that God did not want there, and conversely, nothing He wanted to be in it has been left out.

This is backed up by II Peter 1:21: ". . . for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." God employed His Spirit to inspire His servants, the prophets and apostles. At some point, they wrote down what God had revealed through them, passing His Word on to successive generations.

Hebrews 1:1-2 informs us that God's inspiration occurred in a number of ways: "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by His Son." God is not limited to revealing Himself in any one manner. Sometimes, He spoke directly (see Genesis 12:7; 16:7; Exodus 3:2; etc.). At other times, He spoke in visions and dreams (see Isaiah 1:1; Ezekiel 1:1; Daniel 2:1, 19; Acts 10:10; Revelation 1:10; etc.). He once even spoke through a donkey (Numbers 22:28)! On one occasion, He spoke through the casting of lots (Acts 1:23-26), much as He did through the Urim and Thummim to Israel (Numbers 27:21).

Most importantly, He spoke through His Son, Jesus Christ, who came to reveal the Father (see John 1:18; 14:7-11; 17:25-26). He is uniquely qualified to speak for God because, as the apostle John describes Him in John 1:1-2, 14, 17, He is God! As the Word (Greek logos), He is the Spokesman for God, communicating to humanity, and specifically to His people, the will of God and the way to live in a relationship with Him.

Since He came to reveal the Father, Jesus must have been the God Being that the Israelites worshipped in Old Testament times, who spoke to them and led them. In this vein, John 1:3 specifically claims that the Word is also the Creator (see also Colossians 1:16; Ephesians 3:9). The Being, then, who made all that exists is the same One who inspired the words of Scripture! Since we owe our existence to Him, we also owe obedience to His Word in our Bibles.

As for its content, the Bible claims that it provides truth to humanity. Jesus Himself says in His great prayer to His Father on the night He was arrested, "Your word is truth" (John 17:17). This an echo of Psalm 119:160: "The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever." God considers every word He speaks or inspires to be true. It is His guarantee that we receive only the best instruction from Him. In fact, He would not be God if He spoke anything other than the truth (Numbers 23:19; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18).

The Bible also claims, "Every word of God is pure" (Proverbs 30:5). David writes in Psalm 12:6, "The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times" (see Psalm 19:8; 119:140). The Hebrew word behind "pure" means "tested," "refined," or "proven of the highest quality." Our God has given us only the best information to propel us along the path to His Kingdom. We can take great confidence in that.

Jesus comments on the authority of Scripture in Matthew 5:18: "For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled." The jot (iota) and the tittle (keraia, "little horn" or "point") are the smallest parts of written Hebrew. Christ was so sure of Scripture that He claimed that all of it would be fulfilled—down to the minutest parts. He affirms in John 10:35 that "the Scripture cannot be broken," which means its authority cannot be "loosened," "unbound," "destroyed," "annulled," or "taken away." Our Lord and Savior says that no one can diminish the authority of God's Word!

The Bible presents many proofs of its validity and authority; what we have seen so far only scratches the surface. The most convincing and most lasting proof, however, resides in the relationship we build and foster with God. In a way, we can say that our proving of Scripture extends throughout our Christian lives as we see God in action, working in and through us to bring us into His Kingdom. The real proof is in the doing.

RBV: Proverbs 29:12

"If a ruler pays attention to lies, all his servants become wicked.

—Proverbs 29:12

This proverb is the first of a set of three that runs through verse 14. The general theme concerns the integrity of government, while the middle proverb, verse 13, deals with the obvious fact that both ruler and ruled are equal in the sight of God. There is also a progression among the three verses from negative to positive, passing through the neutrality of verse 13. One can also see that wicked officials who become oppressors of the poor meet their match in a ruler who leads with integrity and truth.

Our concern, however, is with verse 12 specifically. A little understanding of the way a royal court works—in fact, any seat of leadership—will help explain how this happens. If the ruler bends an ear to gossip, insinuations, misrepresentations, unfounded assertions, manufactured "facts," or any other kind of falsehood, his administration will be founded on sand. His advisors and officials will soon learn that the easiest way to influence and power in the government is by telling the ruler what he wants to hear rather than what is actually true. That is how the game is played. In a very short time, the whole government will be corrupt. In other words, the underlings adjust themselves to their leader, and thus the Roman saying, Qualis rex, talis grex (“like king, like people”).

The New King James translates this verse as a conditional statement: "If ... [then]." However, the Hebrew makes a plain statement of fact, as the Contemporary English Version renders it: “A ruler who listens to lies will have corrupt officials.” Wherever they are found, hierarchies have this property: The whole governmental structure reflects that character—or lack thereof—of the leader at the top. As American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson puts it, "Every institution is but the lengthened shadow of some great man." This can be a wonderful asset when the man at the top possesses sterling character—and a terrible liability when he is corrupt, out of his depth, or a fool.

Parents need to be especially careful because of this fact of human nature. The children will not only reflect that attitudes, speech, and behaviors of their parents, but they will actively learn how to function under their parents leadership and manipulate them to get what they want. And this happens much earlier in the children's lives than most parents realize; toddlers may not be able to articulate what they are doing, but they know when tears or smiles or some other trick will make mom or dad do their bidding. Many a mother has told a friend about an incident with her child, "The baby was just so cute that I had to give in!" The baby had won and learned how to make the mother dance to his/her tune.

The overall lesson is that a person in authority must lead by seeking the truth in all matters that come before him. It is foolish to decide a matter based on initial reports or only one side of a dispute, even if it sounds right. He should not act before taking the time and the effort to discover independently whether matters are as they have been presented. If a leader takes this prudent path, those under him will soon learn that it does not pay to tell falsehoods that will be found out, leading to their ouster. In an atmosphere of truth, corruption finds it much harder to gain a foothold, and everyone under such an administration of integrity has a greater opportunity to be satisfied.

*Hold Tightly to Revelation

The Bible is not against what we might call scholarship or intellectual pursuit. From all that history can tell us, the apostle Paul may have been one of the most intellectual men who have ever lived. II Peter 3:15-16 warns believers that Paul's epistles contain instruction so hard to understand that false teachers can easily twist them to say wrong and harmful things. Members of the church, made up of the weak of the world (I Corinthians 1:26-29), can be especially gullible when it comes to intellectualism, and some stumble.

Even so, Scripture displays no animosity toward the use of the intellect, nor is it against rational arguments and dispassionate reasoning. When used properly, these things are good. God Himself gave us these skills, and we must use these tools to understand God's way of life. In fact, He wants us to use them in our ongoing pursuit of the truth of God. The true teachings of God that we understand and believe have all undergone deep scrutiny by these means and methods—scholarship, rational arguments, and dispassionate reasoning—and they pass muster on all counts. The doctrines that we in the churches of God agree on are sound and biblically based.

While not condemned by any means, human reason, scholarship, logic, and abundant research must take a back seat to two important elements, both of which are given directly by God: divine revelation and the Holy Spirit. These two pieces must be present before the rest of the puzzle will fall into place. Revelation is God's gift to us of His truth through His Word, and the Holy Spirit must be used to understand it properly. Once we have this initial understanding, we can apply scholarship, rational arguments, and dispassionate reasoning to glean further understanding. The important thing is that divine revelation and God's Spirit must come first.

We tend to forget about divine revelation because it is right in our Bibles, right under our noses, and we take it for granted. Of course, we study it frequently, but we rarely think about how the words and the truths they form got there in the first place. They are there because God revealed them, they were recorded by willing minds, and transmitted down through the centuries, guided and protected by God Himself. That is an awesome thing to consider.

We need to be careful to understand that the revelation we interact with in our Bibles is not direct revelation, as experienced by the apostles and prophets in visions, dreams, and the actual appearance by angels or even God Himself from time to time (Hebrews 1:1). Direct revelation is exceedingly rare. What we have in reading God's Word can be called "general revelation." It is what is available to everyone generally.

Scripture contains all that we need to know about our salvation, about God's Plan, and about our parts in it. If it is not in the Book, we can be sure that whatever it may be is not necessary for us to know in terms of salvation. If a fact does not appear in Scripture, it probably does not have much bearing on our calling and our future in the Kingdom of God. Extra-biblical knowledge may be occasionally helpful, and it may even add depth to our understanding. However, when it comes to a conclusion about whether something is spiritually true or not, the words of the Bible itself must be the final arbiter short of a direct appearance from God.

Another way of putting it is that general revelation—what is contained in God's Word—trumps every other source of information available—even church of God publications. Many people have taken Herbert W. Armstrong's booklets and made them into the equivalent of the Epistles of Herbert, metaphorically stapling them at the backs of their Bibles. We should understand that, though inspired by God's Spirit, his writings are not Scripture (see Isaiah 8:16; the canon of Scripture was finished with the death of Christ's disciples, the original twelve apostles). While his works contain quotations from Scripture, they also contain a great deal of material that was simply his explanations of various topics. They should be accorded respect but not veneration.

The only real source of divine revelation that we have access to, then, is the Bible. Certainly, it is more conclusive a source than any Bible resource help, such as concordances, lexicons, commentaries, and Bible dictionaries. Those books can be helpful, adding information and perspective, but they are not the final word on a given topic or doctrine. That is the Bible's job.

In the same way, the Bible is more authoritative than Jewish sources like the Talmud, the Mishna, the Targums, or any Jewish tradition. It is far more trustworthy than any opinion from a sage, rabbi, priest, or historian. The Bible is simply the last word on any matter of true Christian doctrine or practice.

The Bible itself claims this position. Jesus, for instance, in John 17:17, while praying to His Father just before His arrest, says plainly, "Sanctify them [His disciples, including us] by Your truth. Your word is truth." In reality, we need to look no further for the truth—those truths that have to do with our salvation and future in the Kingdom are in God's Word. Our Savior said so.

In II Timothy 3:14-17, Paul instructs the younger Timothy on what is to be the basis for his ministry and preaching:

But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Timothy had learned the truth from Paul, who had learned them from Christ. There was a direct line of descent of truth from the Source. That same truth has been preserved and made available to us in our Bibles. In a larger respect, Paul tells us that the Bible—the instruction that we have received from the prophets, apostles, and Jesus Christ Himself—is all that we need to equip us completely for the Kingdom of God.

So, beyond learning and applying these things, what is our responsibility to the revelation given to us? In II Thessalonians 2:13-15, Paul answers this question:

God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth . . . for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle.

The apostle warns that difficult times are coming, times of apostasy, so we must hang on to the revealed truths we have been taught, including the godly traditions we have learned. The revelation of God is precious and should not be sold for a bowl of soup. Do not let cunning arguments or even rational discussions, which may be completely bogus, take us off track. Stick to the pure words of the Book.

RBV: Proverbs 1:22

“How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? For scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge."

—Proverbs 1:22

These are the first lines of the cry of Wisdom addressing those "in the open squares," "in the chief concourses," and "at the openings of the gates in the city," meaning mankind in general. We can read into her words a touch of incredulity or even of despair, as if she cannot believe how dull and thick-headed people are for failing to grasp that their behavior is frankly stupid, foolish, and self-destructive.

Wisdom calls these people "simple ones," and the Hebrew word, pě·ṯî, suggests foolishness, naivete, and a lack of sound judgment. As the Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Hebrew (Old Testament) explains, this word "pertain[s] to persons that are easily deceived or persuaded, showing lack of wisdom and understanding, yet having some capacity to change this condition." She, then, is speaking to ordinary people—mentally sound individuals—who have allowed themselves to be convinced, contrary to the evidence, that their lifestyles are good and profitable. "Scorners" and "fools," though technically different groups, are included in the whole mass of "simple ones."

Put even more simply, Wisdom is telling these people that they cannot fall back on the claim of ignorance as an excuse because they should know better! If nothing else, they should be able to see that the results of the way they live are harmful, ending in misery and death. On the other hand, God's way of abundant life and blessing is readily available and accessible in His Word, in natural law, and in the lives of those who follow His instruction.

So the obvious question must be, "If the right way to live is so abundantly clear, why do they not change?" Wisdom answers this in the last half of the verse: "For scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge." In other words, their foolishness is deliberate; in fact, there is a kind of perverse stubbornness and rebellion in their refusal to change. They enjoy mocking and criticizing God, His ways, and His people, and they utterly despise truth. The apostle Paul summarizes this attitude in Romans 8:7, writing, "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be."

Solomon, then, is addressing unconverted humanity under the sway of "the prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2), who has defiled their natures with sin and rebellion and hatred of God. The godly way of living, as revealed in God's Word, is readily available, but the vast majority of mankind rejects it because they have allowed themselves to become convinced that their own way is better—not because the facts are on their side but because they simply do not want to submit.

This is why conversion is a matter of changing the heart, not overcoming ignorance. God must step in personally and by grace soften the heart of stone (Ezekiel 36:26) to accept His way of life.

A Christian's Information Filter

We live in the Information Age. News hits us from the four corners of the earth, making the journey in mere minutes. Images flash before us on the screens of televisions, computers, and phones. The Internet hums and thrums in and out of our lives many hours every day, bringing us data on a million subjects, major, minor, serious, absurd, useful, and useless. We have access to more timely information than we know what to do with.

It is becoming harder to remember what it was like before this incessant glut of information enveloped the world. Children and even some young adults have lived their entire lives "plugged in" to the digital universe, facts and figures and fun at their fingertips at any time, day or night. To them, using all the new gadgets and gizmos is as natural as running and jumping. How many grandparents call their grandchildren to help them when the computer or DVR "acts up"? Today's technology is intuitive to them, almost organic and simple.

Even so, it was not very long ago when we were doing things with paper and pencil. Perhaps the big corporations and learning institutions had mainframe computers to crunch heavy data and store important information, but most of us were still using rotary phones and real card catalogs. Many older folks have had a difficult time making the transition from analog to digital. Some refuse to conform at all, conceding only when they have to and only as much as they have to (some may have given up the corded phone but refuse to touch a cellphone). In any case, while the computing and communications industry giants urge us to purchase the newest and fastest technologies, not everyone is so eager to join the information revolution.

And it is no wonder. The level of information inundation is already higher than most people can handle. While the human brain is far superior to any computing device ever made or even imagined, because it is part of a conscious, critical, organic entity, it easily overloads. Unlike a computer, which uncomprehendingly stores all data as strings of ones and zeros, the human mind is aware to some extent of the value, ramifications, and usefulness of the information it receives. People make judgments—sometimes consciously, but probably more often unconsciously—about what goes into their minds, and this has an effect on them over time.

Speaking of good, helpful information—particularly, God's instruction—Solomon advises us about this in Proverbs 4:20-23:

My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.

Other proverbs bring out a similar thought, along with its opposite:

• "The mouth of the righteous is a well of life, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked" (Proverbs 10:11).
• "The words of the wicked are, 'Lie in wait for blood,' but the mouth of the upright will deliver them" (Proverbs 12:6).
• "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit" (Proverbs 18:21).

The principle that derives from such scriptures is that good words—good information, truth—has a beneficial effect, while bad words cause problems. The Bible, then, supports the well-known catchphrase, "Garbage in, garbage out." We have to make sure that the information we allow into our minds is true and good, while filtering out and rejecting what is false. This has probably never been more critical for Christians to do than in this information-heavy age of the world.

One reason that this is so vital to do is because we are required to make moral and ethical choices on a daily basis, and we make such decisions based on the information we have at hand—or, more correctly, in our minds. If we make a decision—a judgment—based on faulty data, it is probable that our decision will itself be flawed. If we are constantly hearing from the world that 2 + 2 = 5, and we have allowed that information to pass uncritically into our minds and thus into our daily life, then it will not be long before 2 x 2 = 10 and fifteen apples make a dozen.

Such a flawed judgment has happened in the recent mass murders in Newtown, Connecticut. A troubled young man, said to have been a social misfit and prone to rages, gunned down his mother with her own weapon and then proceeded to the local elementary school to kill six adults and twenty students. Hearing of this terrible and tragic event, the nation poured out its sympathy and its desire for justice. In the aftermath, the news has been full of debate about the Second Amendment to the Constitution and the need for stricter gun-control laws. Social media have been inundated by advocates on both sides of the issue, many of them stridently pushing their views on their friends.

It is clear that the American Constitution gives citizens the right to own and bear arms. The Second Amendment was specifically included in the Bill of Rights to allow citizens to fight against, and if successful, overthrow a tyrannical government. The Founders believed that an armed citizenry was the best deterrent against overreaching federal power. Of course, citizens could also own firearms for hunting, shooting, and collecting.

Into this fray have plunged a good many members of God's church, almost all of them on the side of gun and self-defense rights. Christians have the right and freedom to own guns, and many do, using them for hunting and shooting. There is no problem with that. However, some church members have no qualms about owning guns for self-defense, and it is at this point that some serious moral questions arise. If a Christian has a weapon for self-defense, and he and/or his family were attacked in some way, would he use it and would he be justified in doing so? How would God judge his actions, whether he killed the attacker or not? Is killing in self-defense willful murder? Unpremeditated murder? Voluntary manslaughter? Involuntary manslaughter?

Perhaps to begin answering these questions for ourselves, we first need to ask, "Have we ever truly considered what God thinks on the matter, or have we just absorbed what the world says about it?" On questions like these, we need to filter out all of the world's chatter on the subject and find out what information God has provided to us in His Word that reveals His mind on it. If we fail to do this, can we be sure that we have reached a godly decision? As God says in Isaiah 8:20, "To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." There we will find true words to steer us right.

What Is Truth?

The goings-on in this world constantly remind me why a certain quotation from the late novelist Michael Crichton, author of The Andromeda Strain, Timeline, The Great Train Robbery, State of Fear, and many other bestselling books, resonates so much. In a speech delivered to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on September 15, 2003, he said in answer to the question of what he considered the most important challenge facing mankind:

The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.

Last night, millions of Americans viewed the intense debate between Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Representative Paul Ryan, a Republican. Both candidates thrust and parried with a steady onslaught of statistics—an armory of dollars and percentages—that each insisted were correct and verified by both governmental and independent audits and studies. Of course, the statistics that were waved about had been carefully chosen to support and spin each candidate's position on the several major policies that were "discussed."

But who is the viewer to believe? Among the topics that the moderator brought up, a few were contentious. For instance, Romney-Ryan will put forward a "framework," sparse on details, to reduce the deficit, lower taxes, and create twelve million jobs, welcoming bipartisan support. Obama-Biden will cut middle-class taxes but force wealthy Americans to "pay their fair share," ensuring that Obamacare, Social Security, and Medicare remain to help everyone. The Republican candidates will take foreign policy out of the hands of the UN and take a cautious approach to pulling out of Afghanistan and intervening in Syria. The Democrat candidates will honor their agreement with their allies regarding the Afghanistan exit plan and do what they can to support the rebels in Syria without sending in troops.

One viewer may see a clear choice between the two sides, while another may see only different shades of red. This brings up another point made by Crichton:

We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we're told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.

Or, as a cynical, career-politician named Pontius Pilate once asked Jesus, "What is truth?" (John 18:38). Not only had he spent his adult life clambering upward in Roman politics, but as governor of Judea, he had also spent many years skirting the pitfalls inherent in Jewish politics. He knew how the world works. Each political party or religious sect had its own "truth," and who could know which was correct? Certainly, an outsider as he was could not separate the pure from the dross. He knew from experience that in a sophisticated world like the Roman Empire—or like our modern civilization—what is perceived to be true is often more important than what is actually true. Clever men can ride such perceptions to the heights of power.

Crichton's warning, then, while intended for us in these Daniel 12:4 times, spotlights an age-old challenge: How do we determine the truth? Our problem is more difficult than Pilate's was only in the fact that we are faced with a tsunami of information each day, as compared to his mere trickle of news. It has been posited that just one Sunday New York Times contains more information than the average medieval villager would receive in a lifetime, and we can be sure that a Roman official would gather somewhat more. As the prophet wrote, "Knowledge [information] shall increase."

Even so, human nature is the same now as it was then, so the level of dishonesty and trickery in those who supply the information is probably nearly the same. Just as Pilate had to discern the facts in the case the Jews brought against Jesus, we have to determine, in a myriad of instances, what is truth and what is marketing, propaganda, spin, disinformation, hyperbole, etc. We must ferret out motives, discover fallacies, and consider probabilities and potentialities. None of these things is easy to do, but some of us, perhaps even many of us, have become proficient in doing these things due to being constantly forced to make such evaluations.

By "us," I mean members of the church of God. There is a good reason—in fact, two good reasons—why we may be better at this than others are: 1) We have access to the truth in God's Word, and 2) we have the help of the Holy Spirit to discern truth. Jesus tells us in John 8:31-32: "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." This is an extremely significant statement. It links God's Word with the truth, discipleship with living the truth, and understanding the truth with liberty.

Divine revelation, which we have in Scripture, gives us the foundational truths that do not change, providing us with a starting point of discernment and oftentimes a great deal more. This allows us to cut through the static and grasp the heart of an issue, comment, or claim, making the determination of truth or error easier. Moreover, if we are living the truth, we have experience to know what works and what does not, giving us a further edge. Finally, a deep understanding of the truth allows us the freedom to choose what to believe and what to reject.

In terms of discerning truth, God gives us an awesome gift in the Holy Spirit, which John 14:17 calls "the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive." Later in that Passover message, Jesus instructs the disciples that the Spirit "will guide you into all truth" (John 16:13). Most specifically, He implies spiritual truth, "the deep things of God" that Paul writes about in I Corinthians 2:10-16. However, those spiritual truths do not exist in a vacuum. They reach out into every area of life, shining a light on what is real and exposing what is false. Paul concludes his teaching by saying, ". . . he who is spiritual judges all things" (verse 15), and in actuality, such a person with God's Spirit is in process of developing the very mind of Christ (verse 16).

The task of discerning the truth in these confusing times is before us. We can be thankful that God has given us the tools to meet the challenge and overcome it.

'I Will Open My Mouth in Parables'

Because we use them so freely and see them about us so frequently, we often fail to appreciate how many of Jesus’ words and stories populate our speech and cultural references. The Sermon on the Mount contains scores of them: “Blessed are the peacemakers”; “inherit the earth”; “salt of the earth”; “city on a hill”; “let your light so shine”; “one jot or one tittle”—and these are only a few of the most recognizable ones in the first eighteen verses! Hundreds of others are liberally sprinkled throughout the gospels.

Besides being religiously significant, Jesus’ parables are also part of our literary and cultural heritage. The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) has captured the imaginations of many down through the centuries to the point that “good Samaritan” is a common reference for anyone who voluntarily aids a person in need. In a similar way, “a pearl of great price” (Matthew 13:45-46) has become a shorthand allusion to a thing or aspiration a person is willing to give everything he has to achieve. Similar common expressions have come from the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) and the Parable of the Mustard Seed (Matthew 13:31-32), among others.

But are Jesus’ parables just interesting stories with a moral at the end, like Aesop’s Fables? Many people—lifelong Christians all—believe that they are and give them no further thought. This, however, is a mistake because the parables of Jesus Christ are one of His primary teaching vehicles for His disciples, containing deep truths embedded in concisely drawn stories of everyday life.

What is a parable? A common dictionary definition styles them as “a short fictitious story that illustrates a moral or religious truth.” While this meaning is accurate, it falls far short of all that a biblical parable encompasses. Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words contains a comprehensive explanation of the Greek word, parabole:

[Literally] denotes a placing beside. . . . It signifies a placing of one thing beside another with a view to comparison. . . . It is generally used of a somewhat lengthy utterance or narrative drawn from nature or human circumstances, the object of which is to set forth a spiritual lesson. It is the lesson that is of value; the hearer must catch the analogy if he is to be instructed. . . . Such a narrative or saying, dealing with earthly things with a spiritual meaning, is distinct from a fable, which attributes to things what does not belong to them in nature. . . . (p. 840)

A parable, then, is a typical story designed to illicit a comparison between it and real life, from which derives—in the case of Christ’s parables—an eternal lesson or principle. In addition, beyond the overall lesson, a well-constructed parable is comprised of symbols and types that correspond to consistent realities—for example, in Christ’s parables, a field is a symbol for the world (Matthew 13:38). Knowing this interpretation—which is sure, given that it comes from Jesus Himself—we can use it to help us understand other parables that also employ the image of a field, as the Parable of the Hidden Treasure does (verse 44).

Many people make the mistake of thinking that parables are stories that Jesus used to make a spiritual teaching interesting and understandable. As interesting as Jesus may have made them, He did not design His parables to clarify but to obscure meaning! This comes from His own lips, in response to His disciples’ question, “Why do You speak to them in parables?”: “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. . . . Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand” (Matthew 13:11, 13). Parables, then, hide the deep truths of God’s Kingdom from those who have not been given the keys to unlock them.

This means that Jesus’ parables are multifaceted. Most people can see the obvious meaning—the moral of the story—without much difficulty and find it pleasing and satisfying. However, without divine revelation, they miss the deeper meaning that applies only to God’s elect. Thus, as Jesus said, “. . . seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” Moreover, some parables, especially the longer ones like the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46), deliver not just one “moral” but two or even several!

Another factor that we must acknowledge is that Jesus’ parables are focused on the Kingdom of God. Perhaps Matthew informs us most noticeably of this, as many of the parables in his gospel begin with the formulaic opening, “The kingdom of heaven is like. . . .” This beginning tells the reader or listener that the story He is about to tell contains instruction that in some way expands our knowledge or understanding of God’s Kingdom.

The teaching is quite diverse. Sometimes the instruction centers on a Christian’s attitude or character. Sometimes it illustrates God’s work in the world or in the church. Sometimes it prophesies of a future event, like Christ’s judgment or His return, providing us details so that we can conform to God’s expectations of us. At other times, it warns us of Satan’s or some other enemy’s designs against us, the church, or God’s plan. Frequently, several of these points appear in the same parable. Clearly, Christ’s parables are much more than nice stories!

A final characteristic of parables, as just mentioned, is that they are frequently prophetic. Though many may scoff at such an assertion, this must be the case because the Kingdom of God itself has both present and future aspects. While Colossians 1:13 declares that the Father “has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,” it is also true that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (I Corinthians 15:50). The Bible obviously teaches that the fullness of the Kingdom of God awaits the return of Christ in power and glory, and our part in it now is strictly spiritual in nature. For this reason, Christ’s parables teach us how to live as begotten children of God amidst the evil of this world and how to prepare for the world to come.

The parables of Jesus are not as simple as they appear on the surface. They are a gold vein of spiritual truth and teaching at all levels of understanding. With a little thought and the help of God’s Spirit, we can mine from them a lifetime of instruction.

Divided We Fall

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After the 2000 U.S. presidential election—in which George Bush eked out a narrow victory over Al Gore after the Florida chad fiasco—it became oh-so-apparent that this nation was seriously divided. The commonly used illustration of this divide was the Red State-Blue State map, on which the electoral votes for each candidate by state were colored red for Bush and blue for Gore. From this was extrapolated the relative political and social bent of any region of the country: Red signified a conservative, religious, and traditional view, while blue represented a liberal, secular, and progressive outlook.

Soon, demographers began playing with the numbers, dividing the nation into red or blue counties and even into red or blue voting districts. The national map that the county-by-county tabulation produced appeared more purple than red or blue on the coastlines and along the Mississippi River, while "flyover country," the Plains and Mountain states remained predominantly red.

The district-by-district map showed even more purple. These maps inspired the coining of a new term, the "purple state." Politically, a purple state is closely divided between Democrats and Republicans, of which Pennsylvania, for instance, is a prime example. Democratic political adviser James Carville wryly described Pennsylvania as "Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between." Without its two major, left-leaning cities, Pennsylvania would be a red state, since its heartland is composed of mostly rural, religious folk, many of which still hold the solid, traditional values of the Pennsylvania Dutch and other conservative ethnic groups.

The mainstream media has trumpeted the country's divisions, drawing attention to the differences to the point of exaggeration. Pundits on both sides have played into the stereotypes, often using sweeping generalizations to characterize those on the other side (and sometimes those on their own side). In the last few years, however, several scholarly articles have been published, decrying the red state-blue state "hysteria" and criticizing the media and politicians for ignoring the majority of Americans—some say as much as sixty percent of the population—who consider themselves moderates, the bulk of the so-called "silent majority" whose voices cannot be heard above the din of the extremists. These overlooked centrists evidently comprise Purple America.

Purple Americans are the swing-voters in elections. Too frequently, they hold "nuanced" (read "compromise") positions on the major issues, many of which are either impossible or mere semantics. For instance, they may support homosexual civil unions but oppose homosexual "marriage." On immigration, they may support "undocumented workers" but oppose "illegal aliens." On the Iraq War, they may support the troops but oppose the mission. On taxes, they may support soaking the rich and corporations but oppose tax hikes. On entitlements, they may support reform but oppose decreases in payouts and services. Whom they vote for in any election depends on which candidate covers their hot-button topic. In other words, many of them are rather lackadaisical about most matters, but a candidate's agreement with them on their pet issue will swing their votes his or her way.

Thus, what emerges from these demographics is a severely divided country, whether the scholars wish to admit it or not. The staunch conservatives and tie-dyed-in-the-wool liberals on either end of the spectrum are buffered by a large mass of indifferent, tuned-out citizens who can be led about by a demagogue from either extreme by pandering to their self-interests. These middle-of-the-roaders are like the "cows of Bashan" of Amos 4:1, people who are sated on the fruits of their prosperity yet indifferent to the vital problems afflicting the nation.

In His prediction of their doom in verse 2, God hints at their gullibility in being swayed by others: "Behold, the days shall come upon you when He will take you away with fishhooks," describing the Assyrian practice of inserting hooks in their captives noses by which to lead them away. Just as they weakly followed their Israelite leaders to their nation's downfall, so will they likewise follow their conquerors into slavery.

The divide between Right and Left in America is the battleground between two irreconcilable ways of thinking. In the end, one or the other must prevail; there is no chance of them co-existing for long. The difference can be distilled down to those who believe in truth and those who believe in relativism. The former hold that truth is objective, that it exists in its own right, and people can aspire to understand and follow it. The latter consider truth to be subjective, that it is what each person decides to believe, and people are free to forge their own paths toward enlightenment. Ultimately, the difference comes down to those who believe in Deity and those who do or will not.

It is not apparent how long the current hostile truce between these two factions will hold. Perhaps the upcoming presidential election will provide insight into the speed and direction of the national ethic. Yet, optimistic and hopeful as we might be, it is difficult to foresee national revival. The social indicators—things like abortion, illegitimacy, marriage, crime, church attendance, etc.—are not improving as a whole, and as each year goes by, behaviors that were once thought beyond the pale are accepted into the mainstream. These are not signs of a society on the upswing. The oft-remarked parallels with the declines of the great empires are legion.

Where does one turn in times like these? King David supplies the answer in Psalm 11:3-7:

If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? The LORD is in His holy temple, the LORD'S throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. The LORD tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates. Upon the wicked He will rain coals; fire and brimstone and a burning wind shall be the portion of their cup. For the LORD is righteous, He loves righteousness; His countenance beholds the upright.

The answer to our divided nation, then, is simple: Each individual must turn to God and work to be found among the righteous and upright whom He loves. Will we?

Jena Sixed

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The following USA Today article, published on September 6, 2007, is typical of the coverage on the now-infamous Jena 6 case:

For a year, Jena (pronounced JEEN-uh), a poor mining community of 3,000 people, has been embroiled in racial tensions pitting the black community against white school officials and a white prosecutor. It began last August when a black student asked at an assembly if black students could sit under a tree where white students usually sat. The next day, two nooses hung from the tree.

Black parents were outraged by the symbolism, recalling the mob lynchings of black men. They complained to school officials. District superintendent Roy Breithaupt and the school board gave three-day suspensions to the white students who hung the nooses, overruling the recommendation of then-principal Scott Windham that the students be expelled. . . .

In November, an unknown arsonist burned down part of the high school.

Over the next three days, fights erupted between black and white students on and off school grounds. Police arrested a white man for punching a black teen. He pleaded guilty to simple battery.

The skirmishes culminated with a fight in which the six black teens, star players on Jena's champion football team, were charged as adults with attempted murder. The white student they're accused of beating, Justin Barker, 17, was knocked unconscious and suffered cuts and bruises. He was treated at an emergency room but not hospitalized.

Mychal Bell, 17, was convicted in May of a reduced charge, aggravated second-degree battery, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Since then, charges against two youths have been reduced.

This seems like straightforward reporting of the facts. However, an October 24, 2007, Christian Science Monitor article by Craig Franklin, a longtime resident of Jena and assistant editor of The Jena Times, is throwing cold water on the media-induced racial firestorm spreading nationwide from the small Louisiana town. Franklin, who has covered the story since it broke in August, and his wife, who teaches at Jena High School, claim the mainstream media have distorted at least twelve vital facts surrounding the incident, fabricating and even inciting racial division where little or none existed. Franklin's twelve media myths range from the "whites only" tree (students of all races were free to sit under it) to the attack on the white students being linked to the nooses (none of the eyewitness testimony mentioned them).

How could professional journalists—if they can be called such—get so much wrong? Part of the answer follows Solomon's warning in Proverbs 18:17, "The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him." According to Franklin, "because local officials did not speak publicly early on about the true events of the past year, the media simply formed their stories based on one-side's statements—the Jena 6." Evidently, reporters took advocates for the assailants at their word and made little effort to fact-check their assertions. Franklin concludes, "[T]he media were downright lazy in their efforts to find the truth. Often, they simply reported what they'd read on blogs, which expressed only one side of the issue."

One might just relegate the media's mishandling of the facts to sloppy journalism except for a section of the USA Today article left out of the above quotation:

The events in Jena have caught the attention of national civil rights activists. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King III have marched on Jena in protest.

"The case plays to the fears of many blacks," Sharpton says. "You hear the stories from your parents and grandparents, but you never thought it would happen in 2007. I think what resonates in the black community is that this is so mindful of pre-1960 America."

When civil-rights activists like Sharpton and Jackson become involved in a matter, such as the equally infamous Duke Lacrosse case, the word "agenda" should come immediately to mind. These two men in particular exist to stir up racial animosity because the maintenance of their personal wealth and reputation demands that they exploit every incident of interracial friction, whether or not racism played any part in it. They have been aided and abetted by a willing media, which shares many of their views. Like the Duke Lacrosse case, the Jena 6 incident fit the liberal "template" of racist America—a pattern that has been used successfully many times in the past to score political victories for the Left.

Information has surpassed oil as the commodity of control in this nation and indeed around the world. Spin is in; truth is out. Whoever controls the bias on the news controls the populace. One can see this in any number of areas: the Iraq War, the climate change hysteria, the homosexual-rights movement, the immigration issue, etc. Polls consistently show that the American people implicitly believe what the media tells them, even when the facts prove otherwise. For instance, a recent poll showed that most Americans thought that the troop surge in Iraq was increasing casualties there, but since the infusion of additional soldiers, casualties have decreased significantly. The public's impression of increased violence is an effect of media incessantly reporting on so-called atrocities (many of which are later shown to have been greatly exaggerated). So, despite an improved situation on the ground, the public outcry is still, "Bring the troops home!"

Isaiah prophesies of just this kind of departure from the truth: "Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey" (Isaiah 59:14-15). The prophet speaks of a whole society so removed from what is true and right that they are groping, stumbling blindly forward, realizing instinctively that their doom is not far off. This is just what is happening in America as the truth is becoming more difficult to find amidst the flood of available information. How vital it is for us to seek the truth (Proverbs 23:23) and hold on to it in these evil days (Revelation 3:11)!

A Day of Inconvenient Truths

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Former presidential candidate and senator from Tennessee, Albert Gore, Jr., spent the first half of 2006 jet setting throughout the United States and Europe to tout his new documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. In it, he proclaimed the end of the world as we know it, but despite his Bible Belt origins, his apocalyptic vision does not include even a whiff of biblical prophecy. He is a proponent of sudden, disastrous, worldwide climate change due to global warming, the kind imagined in another recent movie, The Day After Tomorrow. So, any day now—perhaps even as soon as this coming Sunday—everyone north of the Tropic of Cancer or thereabouts will either be frozen solid or huddled, shivering and blue, in their own custom igloos.

The irony of the Gore movie's title is delicious, right alongside Bill "The Gambler" Bennett's Book of Virtues and the late Sam Walton's Made in America. An Inconvenient Truth purports to marshal the facts on global warming and predicts the dire consequences of ignoring them. Yet, the movie itself turns a blind eye to the mounds of scientific evidence that contradict its premise. They are themselves rather inconvenient.

For instance, the Cato Institute's Patrick Michaels has written two well-documented books, The Satanic Gases and Meltdown, both of which conclusively explain that, while there has been some increase in global temperatures over the past few decades, the warming trend has been quite gradual and natural—and certainly will not produce catastrophic results. In fact, temperatures rose much more rapidly in the decades before 1940, and there were no adverse effects then. Michaels' offerings are just a few of the many books and studies published in the last few years to balance the environmentalist left's Chicken Little scenario.

That is exactly what it is: a fake crisis, based loosely on debatable science, promoted to advance a political agenda. As Michael Crichton explained in his book, State of Fear, movers and shakers of all stripes have learned that manufacturing crises, producing doubt and fear in the populace, opens the electorate to suggestion and manipulation. Although these influential members of society and advocacy groups assert the truth is on their side, they really care little about it. Their first rule is "the ends justify the means."

In the past few weeks, another issue has moved forward in the face of inconvenient facts. New York Congressman Charlie Rangel, a Democrat and soon-to-be powerful House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, has pledged to introduce a bill to reinstate involuntary conscription to the U.S. military—the draft. The crisis he has created, along with willing abettors in the mainstream media, is that of class warfare. He claims that the poor and disadvantaged comprise a disproportional percentage of the armed forces. In other words, the wealthy and elite in this country do not contribute their fair share to the nation's defense in terms of manpower.

What are the inconvenient truths that Rangel ignores? The Heritage Foundation's Dr. Tim Kane has engaged in an exhaustive study of the composition of U.S. military recruits since 1999. He and his associates have found that Representative Rangel has reached the exact opposite conclusion to the facts. For instance, Kane's "Who Are the Recruits? The Demographic Characteristics of U.S. Military Enlistment, 2003–2005" relates:

The current findings show that the demographic characteristics of volunteers have continued to show signs of higher, not lower, quality. . . . Those who have been so quick to suggest that today's wartime recruits represent lesser quality, lower standards, or lower class should be expected [to] make an airtight case. Instead, they have cited selective evidence, which is balanced by a much clearer set of evidence showing improving troop quality.

. . . For example, it is commonly claimed that the military relies on recruits from poorer neighborhoods because the wealthy will not risk death in war. This claim has been advanced without any rigorous evidence. Our review of Pentagon enlistee data shows that the only group that is lowering its participation in the military is the poor. The percentage of recruits from the poorest American neighborhoods (with one-fifth of the U.S. population) declined from 18 percent in 1999 to 14.6 percent in 2003, 14.1 percent in 2004, and 13.7 percent in 2005. . . .

In summary, the additional years of recruit data (2004–2005) support the previous finding that U.S. military recruits are more similar than dissimilar to the American youth population. The slight differences are that wartime U.S. military enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on average than their civilian peers. (Emphasis ours.)

What is Representative Rangel up to? How can he ignore such obvious facts? He is advancing a political agenda to punish the wealthy and privileged, as he imagines them, and to extort money and benefits for his poor and downtrodden constituents, as they are only in his own mind. Stripped of all its rhetoric, his proposal is sheer socialism, arbitrarily redistributing wealth and advantage to those who have shown no inclination to earn it for themselves. But then, socialists have never let the truth weigh them down.

As Christians, as keepers of the Ten Commandments, we are bound to the truth. Whatever kind of truth it is—religious, scientific, political, social, financial—we must give it its due regard. Yet, we live in a nation—in a world—in which the pursuit and respect for truth is waning and almost gone. God says through Jeremiah: "'And like their bow they have bent their tongues for lies. They are not valiant for the truth on the earth. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me,' says the LORD" (Jeremiah 9:3).

But we do know Him, and we have a responsibility to "buy the truth, and sell it not" (Proverbs 23:23, KJV). As liars and deceivers increase (II Timothy 3:13), we must be on the lookout for those who press on with their agendas despite the inconvenient truths of reality. No good end will come on those whose lives are built on lies.

Sacred Cows

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Even though we live in a world deluged by knowledge—after all, our day is known as the "Information Age"—we often rely heavily on our preconceived ideas about many things. On the other hand, if what we believe about a thing is not a preconception, it is often a misconception because we do not take the time or effort to find out the truth. In other words, some of what we believe is the result of ignorance, rather than true knowledge, while other beliefs are the result of prejudice, rather than true judgment. It is to be hoped that true Christians are whittling away at—or better yet, carving out big chunks of—both of these.

Some of these preconceptions or misconceptions become so dear that they turn into "sacred cows." According to the dictionary, a sacred cow is something "that is often unreasonably immune from criticism or opposition." This term was coined from the Hindu practice of worshipping cows. If any non-Hindu suggested that the cow, as a dumb animal, should not be allowed the run of the country, a Hindu would take great offense. This subject is immune to reason, criticism, or opposition.

A few of our ideas about biblical events or people are sacred cows. To some people, Herbert Armstrong is a sacred cow. They mistakenly venerate him so highly that they brook no criticism of him at all, forgetting that he, like all the rest of us, was human and made mistakes. Too many jump to the other extreme, saying that he did nothing right! Moreover, we have had skewered the sacred cow of an exclusive body of the true church in one corporate organization. Other sacred cows are, for some, church government, a Monday Pentecost, the new moons, postponements, conspiracy theories, etc.

One sacred cow is that the ten northern tribes of Israel were taken into Assyrian captivity, and nearly 150 years later, Judah was taken to Babylon. Generally, this is historically accurate, but it is not the whole story. A few years after Israel's fall to Assyria, a major segment of Judah's population was also taken captive by Assyria! Suddenly, the sacred cow of the Ten Lost Tribes becomes inaccurate. Not only the ten northern tribes were "lost," but even a large portion of Levi, Benjamin, and Judah lost their identities too! Now, in reality, we have thirteen remnant lost tribes! This is one reason why later Bible writers call the Jews "the of Judah."

Most people are ignorant of this because the Bible does not directly mention it. However, the Bible agrees with the historic record: "And in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them" (II Kings 18:13). This occurred only about eight years after Israel fell to Sargon. What did Sennacherib do upon taking all these cities? He boasts in his inscriptions that he took 46 fenced cities of Judah and deported 200,150 captives to the same areas to which Sargon had transported Israel. He says he left Hezekiah confined in Jerusalem "like a bird in a cage." In the end, only Jerusalem escaped intact. In essence, this means that only those few of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi who had taken refuge in Jerusalem were not deported or killed! How is that for skewering a sacred cow?

Another sacred cow is the occupation of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What did they do for a living? How did they become so wealthy? The movies made about the patriarchs usually depict them as nomadic shepherds. Even though the Bible describes Abraham as immensely rich in livestock, silver, and gold (Genesis 13:2), moviemakers usually make him seem just on the verge of poverty, dressing him in dirty brown robes, giving him a hangdog expression, and surrounding him with a few sheep and goats. How much wealth could a landless shepherd amass? Let us notice a few biblical facts:

Genesis 14:13-16 tells the story of an escaped captive coming to Abraham to tell him about the attack upon Sodom and about Lot's capture. Why did the man come to Abraham? Abraham had 318 trained and armed men, which he quickly marshaled and led into battle, successfully routing the forces of the four kings of Mesopotamia. Suddenly, Abraham starts taking on another dimension.

In Genesis 23, the Hittite elders address Abraham as "my lord" and "a mighty prince among us." They then proceed to negotiate ruthlessly with him for Sarah's burial cave, finally agreeing on the price of 400 shekels, a lot of money at the time. The Hittites ruled a vast empire centered in Asia Minor, and they had built it primarily on trade rather than conquest. They haggle with him as a sign of their respect for—not a dirty, poor shepherd—but a successful and incredibly wealthy merchant! It appears that Abraham was a businessman of great skill, intelligence, and power!

If the Egyptians considered shepherds to be an abomination (Genesis 46:34), why did Pharaoh and the princes of Egypt accept Abram and Sarai so readily in Genesis 12:14-16? Simple—Abram was not a shepherd but a wealthy merchant! The patriarchs were shepherds, in a sense, only because vast flocks and herds were necessary to their main occupation: trade! In that society, livestock acted as a form of currency just like silver and gold. Coins had not yet been invented, and some found it easier to trade in livestock rather than in heavy gold and silver. In a way, we carry on this practice by calling our trading centers "stock markets."

We tend to forget Abraham's origins. He was born in Ur, a large, commercial city of Mesopotamia, and he lived there into his seventies. He then moved with Terah, his father, to Haran, a major stop on the caravan route that ran between Babylon and Egypt. Trading seems to have been the patriarchs' business for several generations. Genesis 34:10 shows Jacob and his sons allying with the Hivites to carry on the family trade.

Another proof of their occupation as traders can been seen by mapping the patriarchs' dwelling places in Canaan. The resulting map shows that all of their activities took place at the junctions of major trading routes. The patriarchs lived where their business could profit them the most!

How does skewering this sacred cow benefit us? It is definitely not knowledge necessary for salvation, but it is the truth. It is not a preconception or a misconception. It is a small piece of knowledge that may help us understand more important things. For instance, God certainly has nothing against His children being in business and making money. In addition, we can better relate to some of the problems the patriarchs had to overcome.

It should certainly make us more careful in our Bible study to avoid relying on preconceptions. Proverbs 15:14 tells us, "The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouth of fools feeds on foolishness." We should be seeking the knowledge that will help us to understand the truth and shun the foolishness of sacred cows. This will help to show God that, rather than believing the lie, we have received the love of the truth (II Thessalonians 2:10).

'Dangerous' Speakers of Truth

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Just this Tuesday, speaking at Regensburg University in Germany, Pope Benedict XVI quoted fourteenth-century Byzantine Emperor Manuel Paleologos II, a Christian: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." Of course, as we have unfortunately begun to expect when someone speaks the truth about Islam, his remarks have been met with the usual firestorm of protest from the Muslim world. From the growing Muslim enclaves of Europe to the more traditional Middle and Far Eastern Islamic nations, the Pope is being burned in effigy and lambasted as a bigot and a racist intent on promoting a modern Christian crusade against Muslims.

The Byzantine Emperor's observation predates by about five centuries a lengthier and more detailed one from a young Winston Churchill, which he included in his book, The River War, published in 1899:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities—but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

Intrepid radio talk-show hosts, columnists, and a handful of politicians have made similar remarks to their respective audiences since September 11, 2001, only to be castigated for intolerance, mendacity, and bigotry. In fact, here in America, one Muslim group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (maybe better known by its acronym, CAIR), headquartered in Washington, spends nearly all of its time and energy protesting truthful statements about Islam in the media. They have been successful in causing radio stations to fire talk-show hosts and squeezing newspapers and magazines to offer apologies to the "Muslim community." Perhaps they have been most successful in intimidating politicians to tone down their rhetoric and to treat American Muslims with kid gloves.

So great is the fear of offending adherents of Islam that it is the official policy of the Bush Administration that "Islam is a religion of peace." To assuage Muslim voters, the President repeats this ironic statement every time there is an "incident" involving Islamic violence and terror. Watchwords of our time are "Islamic terrorism" and "Muslim extremists," and nearly every point of conflict on the planet involves Muslim aggression, yet the American government—and frankly, most other Western governments—continues to insist, "Islam is a religion of peace."

Any objective history of Islam will show that "the religion of peace" expanded primarily at the point of the sword. The concept of jihad, whether or not the Koran's original intent included aggressive warfare, came to mean "holy war" early in Islamic history, and millions of Muslims have sworn to advance jihad, no matter the cost, until the entire earth lays under the banner of Islam. The so-called "moderate Muslim," if such a person exists, is either 1) a secularist in reality, or 2) a moderate because he has calculated that it is presently in his best interest (for example, the governments of "moderate" Arabian Peninsula states like Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar fall into one or the other of these categories).

More broadly, the Pope's statement and the Muslim world's reaction to it highlight a confounding reality of this world: Those who speak the truth are considered dangerous and must be silenced. Usually, the silencing of those who dare to say what is right takes the form of ridiculing or discrediting them, branding them as intolerant, or stridently calling for them to apologize or resign. If this fails, Islamists are not above intimidation, threats, violence, and murder. In the Netherlands, Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn both paid the ultimate price for daring to speak the truth about Islam and Islamic fundamentalism.

But this goes beyond Islam. It can reach into every facet of life on earth, but it is especially virulent when the subject is religion, lifestyle, or morality. Anyone who speaks authoritative truth wears a target in these days of tolerance and liberal humanism. Should a preacher, backed by the authority of God's Word, condemn homosexuality, he could in some places not only expect persecution, but also find himself jailed or heavily fined for his "hate speech." Were a missionary to enter America's urban neighborhoods and preach abstinence, non-violence, and respect for law and authority, he would likely be laughed down, roughed up, and perhaps even killed for his "insolence." Even college campuses, supposedly bastions of free speech, are no longer safe for preachers, pundits, and politicians who stray beyond a narrow, politically correct viewpoint.

The prophet Amos foretells of such a time: "They hate the one who rebukes in the gate [where city elders made judgments in ancient Israel], and they abhor the one who speaks uprightly" (Amos 5:13). Isaiah, too, speaks of those "who make a man an offender by a word, and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of naught" (Isaiah 29:21). Jesus concurs: "[Yes], the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service" (John 16:2).

It seems that the whole world—the nations of modern Israel in particular—has come to such a point. The time of the end is fast approaching as we see these activities of evil men increasing. From here on out, it will become increasingly dangerous to speak the truth to a "hear no evil" world.