Monday, February 05, 2007

SIMPLE TEST?

Test your Bible knowledge
Mark answers below “True” or “False”

1- Because Eve was tempted by Satan and ate the apple, sin entered the world.
2- According to Scripture, Samson was a super strong, physically muscular man that God used to judge the enemies of Israel.
3- Jonah the prophet was swallowed by a whale because he refused to go and preach to the people of Nineveh.
4- The city of Sodom was judged by God because of the sin of homosexuality.

*The answer to every question is "False".

Want to know why?

1) Eve did not eat an apple. Well, ok, the truth is she probably ate hundreds of apples in the Garden, but none of them brought sin into her heart, or this world. If you read the Bible, you'll see that she ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil...not an apple tree...those were ok to eat from.

2) This is one of my favorite ones. Samson is never described in the Bible as being a physically large or muscular man. Ever. Go look it up. It's not there. What you WILL see is that the Phillistines were very, very puzzled as to how Samson could perform such amazing feats of strength. You WILL see that they were so confounded by his strength that they began to search for the secret of his strength...because it was not obvious to them by his appearence. If he looked like a muscle-bound body builder do you think they would have been scratching their heads and wondering what the secret of his strength was? No. They would have assumed it was because he was a muscle-bound hulk.

3)Jonah was not swallowed by a whale. If we read the Scriptures we'll see that "God prepared a great fish" to swallow Jonah. So, a whale is not a fish. The main implication is that God created a special fish specifically to swallow and hold Jonah alive inside for three days without being digested. Either way, it was not a whale.

4)Another misconception I love to destroy is the concept that the sin of Sodom was about sexual practice. We might make an inference from what we see in the account of its destruction, but the clearly stated "Sin of Sodom" is found in Ezekiel 16:49-50 where God tells us "Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were proud and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen."

So, according to God the "Sin of Sodom" was arrogance, pride, gluttony and a lack of concern for the poor...and oh yeah, right at the end he does add "did detestable things" which could also contain those sexual sins, but the specific sin mentioned involves pride and a lack of concern for those in need in need around them.

My point for listing this quiz is that, first I wanted to demonstrate that many of us believe things about the Word of God without actually knowing what it really says. Secondly, I posted this list as part of last week's [SUBVERSIVE UNDERGROUND] and I promised my subscribers that I would provide them with the specific answers to why each of the statements in the quiz was "False".

So...be careful what you accept at truth or fact. Go to the source. Study the Word of God yourself to be sure of what it says.

My work here is done...

kg

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great! I really enjoyed your article about the tax status on ginkworld also. I really would love any info. on a community in Northern Ca. Or maybe you would consider moving your group up north? Am I asking too much? :)

Anonymous said...

Interesting stuff, but still misses the point to me. First off you could use the apple as just an image to teach young ones. The fruit of the tree of knowledge can be a little harder to understand.

Does not change the context of the message by using an apple, peach, or pair. It was eating whatever it was.

Even if Samson looked liked the Hulk, the feats of strenght he performed would still be astounding to even the strong man constest on television. Does not say he was skinny either, you are making an assumption from silence. They were astounded by the strength itself.

The word there could be any large fish, and since emergent church always uses culture context with their arguments, then how else would someone who saw a large whale describe what they were seeing except a large fish. It lived in the water and was large and looked like a fish, except it came up for air everyonce in a while. Again, an argument of names. Either way in a big animal for a long time.

Sodom was a known for their detestable acts, and seen in N.T. as well. Where Sodomites came from, and does refer to a sexual practice. You actually defeat your argument by saying in the end that it was also for detestable acts and you can find out what those were by going back to the original story. You seem to pull what you want and gloss over the rest.

Main point is the context and meaning are not lost at all in the questions you gave. And your answers lack true substansive argument.

But nice trick to play and lead people into the emergent mindset. Have them question some small questions and then move them into the bigger ones as salvation, atonement, virgin birth and the inerrancy of the Bible. Seen it done many times. You follow the Rob Bell model very well.

Keith Giles said...

Anonymous..."nice trick"?

I'm not tricking people into anything...and certainly not the Emergent Mindset.

I'm not Emergent. I don't read or follow Rob Bell...or any other Emergent dude (or dudette).

What I'm saying is: "What does the Bible say?"

The Bible doesn't say "Apple" or "Whale" and God Himself says the sin of Sodom was "Arrogance" and "Unconcern for the poor".

How is that tricking people?

Hmm...?

Anyway, thanks for reading with an open mind...I think....

Peace,
Keith