Many people often think that biblical inerrancy refers to words. If it is words, they will find obvious contradictions. At this time, they can only lie to themselves and say that the original version of the Bible has no errors. Anyway, the original version of the Bible has been lost, so no one can confirm this statement. We know that the Bible is indeed inspired by God. When we see obvious contradictions, what we have to think about is why God inspired us with such obvious contradictions. What exactly does He want to tell us through such obvious contradictions? When we do not forcefully interpret the Bible, we will find that the Bible is indeed inerrant. What God tells us through the Bible is indeed consistent. Here we will look at the Bible from this direction, because God is infinite and man is limited. It is impossible for us to know all such examples. Thus only a few are cited to explain this principle.
First of all, we use an example to illustrate an obvious contradiction, and explain why God inspired us with such an obvious contradiction. Second, we start from the belief that “what God tells us through the Bible is consistent” and look at some examples and their explanations why they are just seemingly obviously contradictions. Finally, we explain nine examples of apparent contradictions mentioned in a YouTube video.
1. An illustration why God inspired us with obvious contradictions
If you haven’t watched yet, “40 Minutes to Understand All Obvious Contradictions in the Bible” on YouTube, please watch it first. But I’ll try my best to make this video watchable independently. His link is at https://youtu.be/z5ZY9Lg9-GQ?si=7TnGQ0tWpn_XXmbn.
First of all, I really hope that Brother Zhuang can be humble, and do not set the title as “understand all the obvious contradictions in the Bible.” The problem is obviously on the word “all.” God is infinite and man is limited. God could open the eyes of Elisha’s servant at any time(see 2 Kings 6:8-23), He can open our eyes at any time to allow us to see things we don’t know. Sometimes this seeing is through discernment of the Internet or other people’s words. Paul said it well, “If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know.”(1 Corinthians 8:2) Paul is a very humble person, so he would say this. But people who know this sentence are not necessarily humble. As I have shared before, I know this sentence, but in the environment God has given me, I see that I am definitely not humble enough. Here we can also emphasize a point we shared before, that is, you cannot draw equal signs casually when reading the Bible!
Humility is difficult to learn. In this passage, we read, “…The LORD has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the LORD has appointed him as ruler over His people, …”(1 Samuel 13:14) It is obvious that David was a man after God’s own heart at that time, but when he counted the people in his old age, he still said, “…I may know the number of the people.”(2 Samuel 24:2) “Now David’s heart troubled him after he had numbered the people. So David said to the LORD, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O LORD, please take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”(2 Samuel 24:10) It took at least nine months for him to realize the pride in his heart and pray to the Lord to take away his sin.
Jehovah gave him three choices through Gad. He knew God very well, so he chose, “…Let us now fall into the hand of the LORD for His mercies are great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”(2 Samuel 24:14) “Then David spoke to the LORD when he saw the angel who was striking down the people, and said, “Behold, it is I who have sinned, and it is I who have done wrong; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let Your hand be against me and against my father’s house.”(2 Samuel 24:17) So many people had died at that time. From his prayer, we can see his worry and pain, and we can see that this is indeed a punishment for him, and unlike other people who may think that as long as I am fine, the death of all the people has nothing to do with me! Please note that the scripture says, “When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD relented from the calamity …”(2 Samuel 24:16) This happened before David prayed.
David’s pride was removed, “because David did what was right in the sight of the LORD, and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.”(1 Kings 15:5) The Bible will not mention the things that David was punished in the past, just like the incident with Bathsheba. Their son died, and the Lord said, “Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me …”(2 Samuel 12:10) And He said, “Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.”(2 Samuel 12:12)
When someone testifies that he has learned humility, I really worry about his pride, because from his performance, I don’t think he will be better than David. At least God has not told that person that he is after God’s own heart. I believe he is so proud that he cannot see his own pride. As I have shared before, I have had such an experience before, so I am very sensitive to this matter. The man who testified thought he had learned humility even when he was not very old, but David still did not learn it when he was old. I can only conclude that this man was so proud that he could not see his own pride. Couldn’t David still realize his pride for at least more than nine months after counting people happened?
Paul said, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”(Romans 8:29) Therefore, Christians must be conformed to the image of Jesus, and Jesus said, “…I am gentle and humble in heart, …”(Matthew 11:29) So being humble is indispensable. Knowing that you are not humble enough is not completely useless, because knowing your own situation is the first step to being able to do it. It is based on the same principle as this scripture, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”(Romans 10:17) Christians believe that the entire Bible is inspired by God, so looking at things from the Bible’s perspective is looking at things from God’s perspective. The words of Christ are in the Bible. How can we not “read out” what God tells us through the Bible? Don’t read in your own thoughts into it.
In that video, I want to start by pointing out that the word “all” is wrong, but it is definitely helpful to put together some scriptures that have obvious contradictions, as long as they are interpreted correctly. We must start by believing that “what God tells us through the Bible is consistent,” rather than mistakenly believing that the inerrancy of the Bible refers to words. Haven’t we seen some examples of obvious contradictions in words here? When we see obvious contradictions, what we need to ask is, what is God trying to tell us by inspiring these obvious contradictions? Based on what I saw on the Internet, an obvious contradiction that is not discussed here is presented, so by no means all the obvious contradictions are in that video. Let’s take a look at what the principle just shared says. Based on this principle, we will look at the nine obvious contradictions mentioned in the video.
First let’s look at an other example of apparent contradiction. When Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, three main things were recorded (see Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 4:1-13). If you compare the records in the two gospels, you will find that the order of these three things is different, so someone saw this obvious contradiction. Matthew was an apostle, and Luke clearly said, “…having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, …”(Luke 1:3) Who is right? Both are correct. Why? The first three gospels, including the Gospel of Mark, all unanimously record that this event happened after Jesus was baptized, so the order mentioned in the book of Luke refers to the order for the event happened, not the order of individual things. So what does God want to tell us through these apparent contradictions in things?
It tells us at least the following points. The first is to note that this temptation is not limited to these three events. There were many other things.
The second is for us to notice that “When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him until an opportune time.”(Luke 4:13) Doesn’t the book of Hebrews say that He continued to be tempted in the future? “For we do not have a high priest (Jesus Christ) who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.”(Hebrews 4:15) What God tells us through the Bible is consistent.
The third thing is what the temptation itself wants to tell us, for example, Jesus said, “…It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”(Luke 4:4) It is clearly stated here that Christians need both earthly food and spiritual food, and both are indispensable.
2. Examples of seemly apparently contradictory scriptures
Some scriptures that seem to have obvious contradictions are actually due to our own failure to understand them. Let me give you an example through another video by Brother Zhuang, https://youtu.be/UWsXES2gRr4?si=a9RqDzD_ID8iWU3N, is about “Is the Pentateuch really written by Moses?” These two verses were mentioned at about 12:15, “And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.”(Genesis 6:19) and “You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female; and of the animals that are not clean two, a male and his female.”
(Genesis 7:2) So how many clean animals should be brought onto the ark? This is clear from the consistency of what God tells us through the Bible.
First of all, it is not noticed that one male and one female refers to the kind, because it goes on to say, “Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.”(Genesis 6:20) Seven males and seven females are the actual number entering the ark. Otherwise, “Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.”(Genesis 8:20) If there were only one male and one female of the clean animals on the ark, wouldn’t the clean animals be extinct?
Let’s now look at this verse, “Who knows that the breath (spirit, H7373) of man ascends upward and the breath (spirit, H7373) of the beast descends downward to the earth?”(Ecclesiastes 3:21) The original text uses the word spirit in both places. We know that beasts have no spirit. When we notice that in the culture of Hebrews, spirit (H7373) and soul (H5315) are interchangeable, although they are different words, but have the same meaning, just like half past two and two thirty, although they are different words, the meaning is the same. In Chinese, spirit and soul are usually spoken together. Therefore, where the Bible talks about soul in the Union Version, it is often translated as spirit and soul. Similarly, where the Bible talks about soul in the Union Version, it is often translated as spirit and soul also. This often leads to the confusion between spirit and soul. Regardless, only a few places make it clear! So you have to read the original text in the Strong’s Concordance to know clearly.
I don’t know why some people use the dichotomy to think that humans are composed of body and spirit-soul. In fact, this can be seen from the command given by God to Adam in the Old Testament why this is wrong, “but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”(Genesis 2:17) God will not lie to Adam. This refers to the death of the spirit, because the Bible clearly says that a person dies when the soul departs. “It came about as her soul was departing (for she (Rachel) died), …”(Genesis 35:18) “So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.”(Genesis 5:5) So Adam’s body and soul were alive, but his spirit was dead. If we use the dichotomy, one part of the spirit-soul will be dead and the other part alive. There will be no such thing.
The New Testament clearly states that human beings are composed of three parts: spirit, soul, and body. “…may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, …”
(1 Thessalonians 5:23) That is, trichotomy is correct. The verse that says the spirit and soul are separable is, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, …”(Hebrews 4:12) In fact, if we look at the Old and New Testaments together, we will find that when a person dies, the spirit passes away first, then the soul passes away, and the body dies. Regarding the latter, we We have just seen it with Rachel, so we only need to see that the spirit goes first when death occurs. We see this with Jairus’ daughter, “…He (Jesus) said, “Stop weeping, for she has not died, but is asleep.””(Luke 8:52) Then, “He, however, took her by the hand and called, saying, “Child, arise!” And her spirit returned, and she got up immediately; …”(Luke 8:54-55) Her soul was still in her body, so she just fell asleep. When the spirit came back, she got up, so trichotomy is correct.
Finally, in Pastor Kou Shaohan’s video regarding “Is the Bible Really Inerrant?” in https://youtu.be/MZCBK7nArbU?si=54YOmwPmnDI_gr1T, about 1 minute in, he mentioned an example of an obvious contradiction in numbers. He also mentioned how this apparent contradiction was resolved. For this apparent contradiction, let us first look at three verses: “Of Gershon …Their numbered men, in the numbering of every male from a month old and upward, even their numbered men were 7,500.”(Numbers 3:21-22) “Of Kohath …In the numbering of every male from a month old and upward, there were 8,600, …”(Numbers 3:27-28) “Of Merari …Their numbered men in the numbering of every male from a month old and upward, were 6,200.”(Numbers 3:33-34) These three numbers together were the total number of the tribe of Levi, 22,300. But the later verse says, “All the numbered men of the Levites, whom Moses and Aaron numbered at the command of the LORD by their families, every male from a month old and upward, were 22,000.”(Numbers 3:39) Isn’t this a gap of 300 people? Could it be that even addition in the Bible is wrong? By the way, this is how Jehovah asked them to number the people, which is very different from David who numbered the people because of his own pride.
Let’s now look at the following verses, “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Number every firstborn male of the sons of Israel from a month old and upward, and make a list of their names. You shall take the Levites for Me, I am the LORD, instead of all the firstborn among the sons of Israel, and the cattle of the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the cattle of the sons of Israel.” So Moses numbered all the firstborn among the sons of Israel, just as the LORD had commanded him; and all the firstborn males by the number of names from a month old and upward, for their numbered men were 22,273.”(Numbers 3:40-43) Eventually , “For the ransom of the 273 of the firstborn of the sons of Israel who are in excess beyond the Levites, you shall take five shekels apiece, per head; you shall take them in terms of the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs).”(Numbers 3:46-47) This is what happened, so the correct number is very important here.
He spent considerable time discussing what was going on and concluded that the contradiction can be resolved in the Hebrew text. The Hebrew number three is written as “שׁלושׁ”, and the number six is written as “שׁשׁ”. When the manuscript cracked, the middle part of the three was no longer visible, and it became six. Therefore, it should be,”Of Kohath …In the numbering of every male from a month old and upward, there were 8,300, …”(Numbers 3:27-28) Therefore, the total number of the tribe of Levi is 22,000, which will be consistent. Sometimes it takes experts to explore an issue in detail to restore what the Bible has to say.
3. Explanation of the nine obvious contradictory examples mentioned in that video
Let’s look at some of the obvious contradictions mentioned in the video from the perspective of “What God tells us through the Bible is consistent.” A lot of that video talks about contradictions in numbers. The first quoted verse is about 1:00, which is “Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem; …”(2 Kings 24:8) The scripture that is obviously inconsistent with the number of this verse is, “Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and he did evil in the sight of the LORD his God.”(2 Chronicles 36:5) Yes, the important thing is not the agreement in numbers, so what we are told here is not to focus on the numbers, because as soon as we see a very few obvious contradictions, we will Therefore, it is noted that “the message God tells us through the Bible is consistent.” So what is God trying to tell us here? What the video says at about 32:30 is that Jehoiachin should not do what is evil in the sight of the Lord. This is the key point, and it is what God wants to tell us. We believe that the messages God tells us through the Bible are consistent. Only by not modifying the Bible arbitrarily, can we clearly see what God’s inspiration tells us through obvious contradictions.
From an example of no obvious contradiction, we shall know that the numbers mentioned in the Bible in ordinary cases are approximate, and it is not so important that the numbers must be consistent. “God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.”(Genesis 15: 13) The exact time is given in the verse, “Now the time that the sons of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, to the very day, all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.”(Exodus 12:40- 41) Therefore, many numbers in the Bible are approximate numbers under normal circumstances, but there are also exceptions and special cases.
As mentioned just before, the number in Pastor Kou Shaohan’s video is correct. Another different example is when recording the descendants of Adam. For different reasons, the number is also accurate. When the numbers are correct, we can calculate that Methuselah and the flood came on the same day, because “Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven years, and became the father of Lamech.”(Genesis 5:25) “Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and became the father of a son. Now he called his name Noah, …”(Genesis 5:28-29) So Noah was born when Methuselah was 187 + 182 = 369 years old. And “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, …”(Genesis 7:11), the flood came, which happened when Methuselah was 369 + 600 = 969 years old, and “So all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and he died.”(Genesis 5:27) But the Bible does not clearly say that Methuselah was drowned by the flood, or that the flood came as soon as he died. Since God said that we do not need to know, and respect God, we should not guess. In fact, there is no conclusion to guessing, it is just a guess. What we should do is distinguish between special cases and general cases.
Let’s look at other examples using the same principle. At about the 4:24 mark, the apparent contradiction in the second group was mentioned. First, “Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Athaliah the granddaughter of Omri king of Israel. He walked in the way of the house of Ahab and did evil in the sight of the LORD, like the house of Ahab had done, because he was a son-in-law of the house of Ahab.”(2 Kings 8:26-27) The time conflict with this scripture is, “Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Athaliah, the granddaughter of Omri. He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother was his counselor to do wickedly.”(2 Chronicles 22:2-3) It doesn’t matter how old Ahaziah was when he ascended the throne. What God wants us to see is the information about his mother that caused him to do evil in the sight of the Lord.
Ffinally we see, “When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she rose and destroyed all the royal offspring.”(2 Kings 11:1) Here we see God’s intervention, “But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah and stole him from among the king’s sons who were being put to death, and placed him and his nurse in the bedroom. So they hid him from Athaliah, and he was not put to death. So he was hidden with her in the house of the LORD six years, while Athaliah was reigning over the land.”(2 Kings 11:2-3) Without God’s intervention, as that video said, the descendants of David would be wiped out and God’s plan of salvation would be destroyed. This is what God wants to see through this obvious contradiction that He will intervene at the appropriate time and will not disrupt His plan. This is just like in the book of Job that God was going to bless Job. When the appropriate time came, He would personally intervene, that is, “Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said,”(Job 38 :1) He began to personally intervene to complete His original plan.
The third set of apparent contradictions is mentioned at about 6:35, “Now he made the sea of cast metal ten cubits from brim to brim, circular in form, and its height was five cubits, and thirty cubits in circumference. …It was a handbreadth thick, and its brim was made like the brim of a cup, as a lily blossom; it could hold two thousand baths.”(1 Kings 7:23-26) And another scripture says, “Also he made the cast metal sea, ten cubits from brim to brim, circular in form, and its height was five cubits and its circumference thirty cubits…It was a handbreadth thick, and its brim was made like the brim of a cup, like a lily blossom; it could hold 3,000 baths.”(2 Chronicles 4:2-5) Does it matter whether the capacity of the cast metal sea is two thousand or three thousand?
What we need to pay attention to is the function of the cast metal sea. This was not necessary when Moses built the tabernacle. The verse says, “…he set the sea of cast metal on the right side of the house eastward toward the south.”(1 Kings 7:39) This is because the Israelites considered the right side to be the greatest. When Moses built the tabernacle, “See that you make them after the pattern for them, which was shown to you on the mountain.”(Exodus 25:40, and see Exodus 26:30, 27:8) We have discussed before that this is because what is on earth will reflect what is in Heaven. The same principle was used in building the temple, “All this,” said David, “the LORD made me understand in writing by His hand upon me, all the details of this pattern.””(1 Chronicles 28:19) From 1 Chronicles 28:11 -18, you can see that all these refer to spiritual things, so earthly things will have different needs, but in spiritual things the two are consistent.
At about 10 minutes, the fourth group of obvious contradictions was mentioned. One is that “Solomon had 40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots, and 12,000 horsemen.”(1 Kings 4:26) The contradictory verse is found in “Now Solomon had 4,000 stalls for horses and chariots and 12,000 horsemen, and he stationed them in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem.”(2 Chronicles 9:25) That video explains in detail why there is an obvious contradiction in numbers,which basically talks about the difference between ‘40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots’ and ‘4,000 stalls for horses and chariots.” As that video says, Jerusalem is located in the mountains of Judah and is not suitable for the movement of chariots and horsemen. Therefore, the chariots and horsemen arranged in Jerusalem were purely for show. This is what God wants us to notice through this obvious contradiction. So far, all the obvious contradictions occur in Kings and Chronicles. If there are these four times, we still cannot realize the message God wants to convey to us through these obvious contradictions. What can the Bible say or do in this case!
The fifth set of obvious contradictions is mentioned in John 11:58. At this time, in the New Testament, there are two verses, “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, …”(Matthew 2:1) and “In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.”(Luke 1:5) These two passages agree that Jesus was born during the time of King Herod the Great. The obvious contradictory passage is “Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, …”(Luke 2:1-5)
That video mentioned that according to the records of the Jewish historian Josephus, there was a time when Quirinius was governor. The video explains in detail that this would be inconsistent with the time when Jesus was born. This is an obvious contradiction that would arise if the historical records are correct, but the records are often not necessarily correct. If you look at the modern history of China, you will know this very clearly. God wants us to see that when the historical records conflict with the Bible records, we must take the Bible inspired by God as the standard and not put the cart before the horse, because there may be errors in historical records, but God’s words are always correct. As an example of the latter, we can cite the book of Job, which says, “He …hangs the earth on nothing.”(Job 26:7) People at that time would have thought, how could this be possible? Now, in spacecraft, you can actually see this and know that God’s word is correct.
The sixth group of obvious contradictions is mentioned at about 16:45. One is that “Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it”(Matthew 28:1-2) So they saw the stone being removed. In that video, we saw three corresponding contradictory scriptures, which are “Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb.”(John 20:1) and “When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might come and anoint Him. Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. They were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” Looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large.”(Mark 16:1-4) and “And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.” The three scriptures all say that the stone was rolled away, so there is a debate about whether the stone was rolled away. In fact, if we believe that what God tells us through the Bible is consistent and do not discount the words of the Bible, we will have a correct view and realize that there is no obvious contradiction here. We have previously discussed this point in detail inb”3. Details of Jesus’ Resurrection” of “1085 Jesus’ Death, burial, and controversial issue in resurrection – Jesus (37),” please go to “https:// a-christian-voice.com/“, click “Understanding of Spiritual Life” to find this article.
The seventh set of apparent contradictions mentioned in John 19:38 concerns the place where Jesus ascended to heaven. First look at these verses, “And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. While He was blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven.”(Luke 24:50-51) It is clear that Jesus ascended to heaven in Bethany. But the book of Acts says that the place where He ascended into heaven was the Mount of Olives, near Jerusalem, for “And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.”(Acts 1:9-12) And “Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off.”(John 11:18) As that video notes, normal people cannot see the same person in these two different places. Therefore, God wants us to notice, “For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.”(Matthew 24:27) And make sure we notice, “…This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.”(Acts 1:11) Don’t look at this from a human perspective. When Jesus comes again, these will not be a problem.
About minute 29 is the eighth group of things about Paul seeing the great light. First, “The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; and leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus.”(Acts 9:7-8) At almost the end of the book of days, “And those who were with me saw the light, to be sure, but did not understand the voice of the One who was speaking to me.”(Acts 22:9) Here, it says the companions heard the voice. But if you got the original text of the Strong’s Concordance, it says clearly that the companions didn’t hear the voice. So, did anyone traveling with him hear it? What does God want us to see here? First of all, we notice that the light that Paul saw was different from the light that his fellow travelers saw. Only the light that Paul saw could temporarily prevent him from seeing. God wants us to notice that the voices were also different. The people who were walking with him did not hear the voice as Acts 22:9 says. The voice in Acts 9:7 was just that Paul thought the companions heard the same voice. It is very important to believe that what God tells us through the Bible is consistent when reading the Bible. Without this, you will see many obvious contradictions and cannot understand why God does this kind of inspiration. Therefore, this is the only way to avoid forced interpretation of the Bible.
At about 30:45, the ninth group talks about the controversy about peace. First, we look at three verses, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”(Luke 2:14) “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”(John 14:27) “The word which He sent to the sons of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ (He is Lord of all).”(Acts 10:36)
These verses seem to conflict with the following verse, ““Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.”(Matthew 10:34-36) Whether Jesus brings peace or not, if we do not forcefully interpret the Bible, we will find that the message what God tells us through the Bible is consistent. Here you can see that what we just said is something similar to what these verses say, “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”(John 3:17-18) So Jesus’ original intention is indeed to come with peace. When people at home do not believe and prevent us from believing, isn’t it true that “and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.”(Matthew 10:36) Even if family members believe, each person’s degree of belief will be different, so God will also allow them to become our circumstances.
It is true that only Jesus is the only truth, but our knowledge about Jesus comes from the Bible, which are two sides of the same coin, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; …”(Romans 1:17) We are not just saved by our initial faith, but we also have to embark on the road to sanctification. Only in this way can we be from faith to faith, and be able to walk on the road to sanctification. It then is possible for us to be in Christ, to be conformed into the image of Jesus, and to be completely one with the Lord.
(Verses refer to those in NASB95 unless otherwise specified.)
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