This is before, the 1901 painting “The Accolade” by historical/medieval artist Edmund Blair Leighton.¹

And this is after, a slightly adjusted version for this product by the “Biblical patriarchy” organization Vision Forum.

As they used to sing on Sesame Street, “one of these is not like the other.”²

Can you find the difference? And those of you familiar with VF, can you discern this “adaptation’s” belief basis? ³

Coming tomorrow: a letter to any unnamed organization with ties to Vision Forum, with in-context and sourced quotes from “patriarchy” leaders (mostly women?) and encouragements to search the Scripture about the organization’s doctrine claims.

“Christ’s divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.” — 2 Peter 1:3

This verse is the cornerstone of Our Sufficiency in Christ by well-known author and pastor Dr. John MacArthur. In this work, he takes a biblical look at Christ’s sufficiency for every believer in every time. There are many philosophies in the world today that attack the sufficiency of Christ, and secular psychology is one such belief system that has infiltrated the church and undermined this basic doctrine. Many in the church don’t really believe that Christ has already granted us everything we need to live godly lives, turning instead to psychiatric medication and secular counseling. Some believe that the Bible is fallible and should be “updated” for our times, thus denying that God has given us all we need in its pages. Others contravene Christ’s sufficiency by studying techniques for spiritual warfare; they are convinced that unless they have a strategy in place, “Satan will have them for breakfast” (214), and Christ’s power alone is not enough to combat demons. What all these errors share is a basic disbelief in Christ’s perfect sufficiency.

MacArthur examines the tenets of modern psychology, which teach that if we can just dig deep enough, we can find the answers to our problems within ourselves. According to this belief system, people are inherently good but have been damaged by their experiences and environments. This directly contradicts the Bible’s teaching that we are totally depraved (not as bad as we could possibly be in every respect, but with our sin nature permeating every part of our being). There are no answers deep down in our souls that just need patient digging to unearth; we need to look to something outside of ourselves. At its core, secular psychology is a flat contradiction to the Gospel. And yet many Christians have failed to realize this and have allowed secular ideas to dominate our thinking in this area.

In the chapter “Bible-Believing Doubters,” MacArthur discusses the tendency of many pastors and evangelists today to “dress up” the Gospel to make it more appealing and palatable to the average nonbeliever. While we should strive to present the Gospel as clearly as possible, we deny its sufficiency if we believe that our technique adds any power to it. MacArthur writes, “Christians who search beyond Scripture for ministry strategies inevitably end up opposing Christ’s work, albeit unwittingly… Scripture is the perfect blueprint for all true ministry, and those who build according to any other plan are erecting a structure that will be unacceptable to the Master Architect” (120).

MacArthur also discusses the closely related problem of religious hedonism, the use of gimmicks and glamor to make Christianity “relevant.” The effect of liberal theology on the church has been disastrous because it teaches that Scripture alone is not adequate. The seeker-sensitive movement is guilty of this heresy, because it fails to trust in God’s power to draw sinners to Himself. Instead, it relies on a pragmatic policy of marketing, in an attempt to lure people to services and events. But this idea is fatally flawed because it is based on human wisdom rather than God’s. What you lure people with is what you’ll keep them with. Under all the advertising, the Gospel is shuffled aside or treated merely as an add-on, an app you can use (or not) to improve yourself. Pragmatism “has succumbed to the humanistic notion that man exists for his own satisfaction” (155).

As I slowly worked my way through this book, I was amazed at how often I unconsciously assume that what God has provided is not enough. “Oh, well, God’s provision doesn’t really cover THIS area” or “God is more concerned about this over here; He’s not really involved in that problem over there.” MacArthur doesn’t mince words and I appreciate his firmly biblical perspective on the issue. It’s been very challenging and very necessary for me to be educated on this issue, basic as it may seem. I think the sufficiency of Christ and His Word is something many Christians would agree with, but don’t really define clearly enough to work it out practically in our everyday lives. We scrape by somehow, but futility is a hallmark of our lives. And yet we possess such riches in Christ!

This might be a weak illustration, but I finished this book while on vacation at the beach and while I was there, I felt the lack of some toiletries that I had planned not to pack because of space constraints. The night before we left, I was repacking and found the items I had been missing at the bottom of my bag! I had them with me all week, but in the hurry of getting everything together, I forgot that I did pack them after all. It reminded me of MacArthur’s oft-repeated thesis in this book: in Christ and His Word, the Christian has already everything he or she needs to live a godly life. We’ve had it the whole time — from the moment of salvation until forever. When we fail to believe and live this, we will always feel a lack. No secular wisdom can adequately address our needs.

I am not usually a proponent of blanket recommendations, but this is one book that I highly recommend to every Christian. Christ is sufficient!

To an atheist cyber-acquaintance whom I hope will take this to mind and heart,

I’m still wondering why it seems so vital for you to “prove,” either to me or to yourself, that the Bible is not God’s Word. Are you sure it’s not because it messes with your own moral ideas? Are you sure it’s not because of the offensive ideas that God rightly judges people for their deeds?

Though you started out with a list of commonly cited errors in the Bible (each one of which an online search could easily answer), I doubt that is your main reason for faulting Christianity for evils and nastiness. Instead it is the concept of God’s Law that you find most offensive — making value judgments based on your own subjective imposition of morality, by the way. Also offensive to you is the idea that God has the right to allow evil for His greater good.

For 2,000 years Christians have addressed these same questions — they are not new, and neither are atheists’ accusations on both fronts. Also consider: Christians are people who often also struggle with these issues. Yet they continue their faith in a good and holy God Who loves His people and will redeem His creation. I do the same; I have also asked God your questions.

Try to wrap that around your mind, please, and also consider what C.S. Lewis said about all those supposedly dumb desert wanderers who wrote the Bible: they suffered a lot more.

“Reflect for five minutes on the fact that all of the great religions were first preached, and long practiced, in a world without chloroform,” Lewis gently advised.¹

So it’s approaching the worst kind of elitism to claim only we have discovered that life stinks.

Metaphors in context

It would also be approaching elitism for me to act as though I can answer all your questions to your satisfaction. Make no mistake — I can answer that long string of questions you started out with. But first, ask yourself: will you be satisfied by the answers? Are seeming contradictions in the Bible really troubling to you, or do they just give you ammunition to shoot at Christians?

First to start with one of your last points in the litany of perceived Bible errors:

If your answer to any of the above is “It’s a metaphor” explain how you tell the difference between a metaphor and a literal text.

The same way I do with anything you would write: context, plain meaning, maybe hashing it out between scholars familiar with the language and time period. Respect for the author to tell the difference (regardless of his age) helps as well — the same respect I hope I’m giving you.

Christians call this hermeneutics, and it is not nearly so vague as some assume. Unfortunately it’s becoming quite trendy to go on about how the Bible is supposedly so hard to understand.

Where are the four pillars holding up the earth? […] Are the pillars a metaphor?

Some years ago I had a fiction character answer this common objection. It’s based on — well, most often simple hearsay — but in the actual Bible, 1 Samuel 2:8, Job 9:6 and Psalm 75:3.

But even with just an English-language Bible I can tell from the indented margins that these are figurative expressions used in poetic praise to God. For Hebrew scholars, they can tell from the passage’s context. Some Biblical passages are difficult to discern; these aren’t among them.

Resurrection ‘contradictions’

Who was the first to the tomb, and what did they see when they got there?

Again: you’re reading this next with a sincerely kind and open mind, I hope. I don’t mean to patronize you, but your entire tone was far beyond simple challenging, and nowhere near hinting at honest inquiry. Maybe you did mean it that way, and it got lost in the style.

Let’s have my character, named is Josh, answer this. Here he’s debating an atheist on campus.

Loren read from his paper. “We have four Gospels which detail the life of Jesus Christ. He was killed on a cross by the Roman Empire.”

“Historically true,” Josh interjected. “But we all killed Him in a way—”

“That’s not relevant to my question!” Loren said back. “Wait. Now, according to the gospel of Saint Matthew, on Sunday, Mary Magda-line and someone else named Mary went to the tomb. It says the tomb was empty and there’s an angel sitting on top of a stone. In Luke it says the women found two angels, behind them. In John you don’t read about these people at all, you read only about Mary Magda-line going there first, and finding the tomb empty, and no angels. How are we supposed to figure out what happened first? How were the people back then supposed to know? It’s contradictory.”

[. . .]

Josh had to pause. For real. Answer him. Do it now! “First . . . these are four different books of the Bible. They tell about mostly different events. I’ve read each of them all the way through, at least once. Everybody has a different perspective on the life of Jesus. Matthew stresses Jewish things, and talks a lot about the kingdom of Heaven. Mark writes for people who don’t want to hear many details . . .”

“You haven’t answered the question.”

Loren had just cut him off, and he sounded annoyed. That’s good . . .

And even better, because now Josh was coming up with the answer. “There’s no mistake here, Loren. What happens when a big news event breaks?”

Loren paused before realizing the question was for him. “What?”

“Big news breaks, and reporters run all over the place. They try to get the story. They hear stuff. They put their own perspectives on things. They’ll tell you one thing happened, and maybe not mention that something else happened first. Sometimes there will be conflicting reports . . . I mean, reports that seem contradictory, but then all make sense later . . . and they’re all true. It’s the same thing with Jesus’ resurrection. The Gospel writers wrote about it differently. The details do make sense when you put them together. He died, and he rose again.”

Consider more from ApologeticsPress.org.²

Do these different lists contradict one another? No, not in any way. They are supplementary, adding names to make the list more complete. But they are not contradictory. If John had said “only Mary Magdalene visited the tomb,” or if Matthew stated, “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were the only women to visit the tomb,” then there would be a contradiction. As it stands, no contradiction occurs.

By now your defenses may be up, yet I hope you’ll be enough of a good sport to keep reading.

You’ll find the “what about Jesus’ imposition of the Law to enter the Kingdom” answer at the end of this column. (I can already tell I need to continue in a second part.)

(Seemingly) endless genealogies

How many generations are there from David to Jesus, and why does Joseph have different fathers?

Another objection commonly raised by atheists, and refuted in return.

It helps us both to know — or read respectfully those who’ve studied more than either of us — something about Jewish genealogies, the Gospel writers’ intents and other factors. Otherwise we’d be guilty of imposing our own cultural expectations on people of the past. It’s also commonly held that Matthew and Luke are tracing different genealogies: Mary’s and Joseph’s.

[Jesus has] a clear blood relationship through Mary. This genealogy is listed in Luke 3. It is clearly Mary’s genealogy, rather than Joseph’s (though some scholars disagree). Joseph’s father was called Jacob in Matthew 1. Yet Luke lists the generation before Joseph as Heli. Tradition has it that this was Mary’s father.

There is more than tradition at stake, however. It is notable that Matthew, writing to Jews, deliberately breaks some typical rules of Jewish genealogies—by not giving every generation and by including women. Both these factors emphasize the fact that Jesus does not hold His kingship through Joseph.

In the same way, Luke, writing principally for Gentiles, actually does stick to the Jewish rules of genealogies, in that he includes every generation and excludes women’s names. Therefore, Joseph’s name is included instead of Mary’s. Also, it should be noted that the phrase “the son of” really means “descendent of,” and its subject, in every case, is Jesus. Therefore, the genealogy could be expanded as follows: Jesus was the son (as was supposed) of Joseph; Jesus was the descendent of Heli; Jesus was the descendent of Matthat, etc. The purpose of this genealogy is to emphasize the blood descent of Jesus from David through Mary.³

Sorry, you’ve got the wrong Christian?

Is the resurrection a metaphor? What about the four riders of the apocalypse? Is the whole thing about [representing] a metaphor? How do you tell the difference.

No. Probably. No. Hermeneutics.

And I can do my best to explain each of those further if you’re truly interested.

Are you sure you haven’t been told “it’s a metaphor” by other confused or perhaps intentionally liberal professing Christians? Have ye not read that even with older documents such as the Bible, one can most often easily discern a text’s meaning based on its culture and context? We see this in the present, discerning between the focuses of essays vs. poems, newspaper articles vs. legal codes, fiction novels versus advice columns. Why would those rules stop at Scripture?

Let’s close for now with perhaps the most important point: the myth, which I might admit Christians have often themselves confused, that Jesus ignored or downplayed God’s holy Law.

What are the requirements to enter the kingdom of heaven, and how can anyone meet them all? [… A]re the 613 laws metaphorical? If not, why do the commandments apply, but not them to a Christian [sic], despite what Jesus allegedly says about knowing and keeping the laws better than a Pharisee?

If you are talking about Jesus’ “sermon on the mount” and His other requirements for what people must do — then that is exactly the point: no one can meet all these standards.

Undoubtedly you’ve heard some well-meaning Christians imply (or even say) that God’s Law was first the standard, but now Jesus has come and God has mellowed out a bit. This is not the Biblical message, easily shown by Jesus’s statement that “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).

Consider busting this dumb myth further, starting with God’s Law and Jesus’ Love, part 2.

And this is the part where a Christian would start talking about the Gospel, and any atheist would be offended at the notion that he/she isn’t a “good person” — yet I hope you’d listen.

I also hope you’ll read part 2, coming soon.

A book that claims to be about restoring “the supremacy of Jesus Christ” in Christians’ lives — that sounds pretty good, right?

But I suppose that depends on whether one’s version of Jesus is based on truth — not just one’s favorite truths about Him, but the entire Biblical picture. And according to Mike Duran, who recently read and today reviewed Jesus Manifesto by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola, this book just doesn’t present all the words about the Word. Is this lying by omission, simple naïveté (assuming Christians have only one set of problems), or is there “a fresh alternative — a third way” reason?

Subtitled “It’s time to restore the supremacy of Jesus Christ,” the authors begin with a series of sweeping, but predictable, generalizations about the grim state of affairs: “The world likes Jesus; they just don’t like the church. But increasingly, the church likes the church, yet it doesn’t like Jesus” (pg. xvi), and “If the church does not reorient and become Christological at its core, any steps taken will be backwards” (pg. xiv). This kind of “bash the church” rhetoric is at the heart of the postmodern, post-evangelical movement, and propels much of what Sweet and Viola unpack. Apparently, for many “emergent” Christians, problems with the church are a license to reconfigure the gospel. And, ultimately, Jesus Manifesto seems determined to do just that.

[. . .]

The “hard sayings” of Christ about hell, damnation, and judgment are nowhere to be found in this book (unless intimated toward religious elites). As such, the Jesus of Jesus Manifesto is the friend of sinners NOT the “judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42). The Jesus of Jesus Manifesto comes to bring unity NOT “division” (Lk. 12:49-57). The Jesus of Jesus Manifesto carries an olive branch NOT a “sword” (Matt. 10:34). The Jesus of Jesus Manifesto ushers souls to heaven NOT “eternal punishment” (Matthew 25:32,46; see also Matthew 13:41-43, 49). It is this ecumenical evasiveness that spoils Jesus Manifesto. The Bible teaches that the Good Shepherd will one day return with “the armies of heaven… to strike the nations” (Rev. 19: 11-16), that the cross of Christ “offends” people (Gal. 5:11) and its message is “foolishness to those who are perishing” (I Cor. 1:18). Sadly, it is this “offense” that Sweet and Viola jettison in favor of uncritical inclusion.

Read Duran’s complete Jesus Manifesto review here.

And read Bob Kauflin’s quote of Kevin DeYoung here: “I wouldn’t want people to diss my wife, so why should I tolerate people dissing the bride of Christ?” ¹

I am still wondering why it is that Sweet, Viola and similar authors are unaware of their own insular environment. It’s enough to make homeschoolers cringe² — an apparent new Christian “bubble,” from which those on the inside are quite happy and comfortable with themselves, their friends and movements and jargon, but seemingly ignorant that those “outside” the Inner Ring are finding even better and more Biblical solutions to problems.

Do Sweet and Viola truly not know that thousands of Christians are already striving to recognize Jesus’ supremacy, but in the way that Jesus Himself said He wants, and not by going off to come up with a spiritual System that corrects for only one’s preferred set of perceived problems?

Maybe they know and are just kind of blind to it (this can happen to the best of us). Or maybe they’re seriously stuck in this parallel world. Or maybe there is a “third way” to explain this too, but I’m trying to be optimistic.