Lev Tolstoy is regarded as one of the best novelists ever. He was born in 1828, raised in the Russian Orthodox Church, and excommunicated in 1901. Surely there have been others who abandoned Orthodox thinking to a degree much worse than Tolstoy, but usually such people disappear into ambiguity without their thoughts being recorded. Tolstoy, on the other hand, left behind some of the world’s most epic works along with diaries and even posthumous publications that tell us where things went wrong.
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inerrancy
Three reasons why you do not want Jeremiah 29:11 to be about you
Have you ever seen a conversation like this take place between two believers?
Believer 1: How is life going, Believer 2?
Believer 2: Oh, life is terrible! My dog left me and I stepped on a LEGO. Things will never get better. Blah blah blah.
Believer 1: Oh no. Be encouraged! The Bible says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Believer 2: Oh, wow! You’re right! Everything is just swell. I think I’ll ride off into the sunset now.
Believer 1 has just quoted Jer 29:11. If we look at the context of this passage, I think we’ll find that he has actually misused this particular verse (though, I’m sure his intentions were good).
Now, Jer 29:11 is a source of encouragement for many believers and I don’t want to rob anyone of encouragement. So, I have compiled a list of three reasons why we should rejoice that this passage is not about us. If Jer 29:11 was indeed about us, then:
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Read the Bible like an Architect Part I
When I was in High School, I took an architecture class that I especially enjoyed. We got to use paper, right angles, compasses, and other cool instruments that architects use along with our knowledge of geometry to solve whatever problems the teacher presented to us. Often the problems involved taking limited information and using it to extract other information. He would always say the same thing:
Use what you know to find what you don’t know.
That’s some solid advice. Once we establish that something is true, we can use it to make sense of things that we don’t know or don’t understand. The applications of this advice go far beyond High School architecture; it’s essentially how we progress in science and technology. It is also a fundamental concept to interpreting documents, whether they be laws, historical records, or even the Bible.
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Did Allah tell Muhammad about embryos?
One common argument in favor of the Quran being legitimate revelation goes like this:
In the Holy Quran, God speaks about the stages of man’s embryonic development, 1,400 years before modern day scientists ‘discovered’ important information on creation of man and his development:
We created man from an extract of clay. Then We made him as a drop in a place of settlement, firmly fixed. Then We made the drop into an alaqah (leech, suspended thing, and blood clot), then We made the alaqah into a mudghah (chewed-like substance)… [Noble Quran 23:12-14]
[…] How could Muhammad (peace be upon him) have possibly known all this 1,400 years ago when scientists have only recently discovered this using advanced equipment and powerful microscopes which did not exist at that time? (source)
There are two assumptions here: 1) that men did not know about the development of embryos and 2) that they could only know from revelation from the creator. But, here’s why this argument is rather weak.[Read More]
Soviet Encyclopedia on the Bible and Christ
I have recently come across the Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia online (available here). It was an ongoing project over several decades in the Soviet Union, and gives insight to old Soviet mentality toward things. I looked up a few things and thought I’d translate some to give you a taste of Soviet propaganda. Here’s what the Ukrainian Soviets thought about the Bible:[Read More]
What was written above the cross?
The biblical authors neither invented nor changed history. It is claimed that there is a contradiction between the Gospels over what was written on the Cross. Here’s what the Gospels say:
Matthew 27:37 And over his head they put the charge against him, which read, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”
Mark 15:26 And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.”
Luke 23:38 There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”
John 19:19 Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
How can we believe that the Gospels are reliable when they have differences here? [Read More]