Problem: “Answer a fool . . . don’t answer a fool.” The Bible is full of claims that are often hard to understand and reconcile. Enemies of God’s Word say these are contradictions. Lovers of God’s Word know the truth—consider “the whole counsel of God.”
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Problem: From the pens of Moses and Paul, we read clear instructions that describe how children ought to treat their parents. Both the books of Exodus and Ephesians state that children should honor their fathers and mothers (Exodus 20:12; Ephesians 6:2). From the mouth of Jesus, and a host of New Testament writers, we have been given the injunction to love others, which certainly would include our parents. Paul wrote: “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8). Jesus, to illustrate how a person should love his neighbor, told the unforgettable story of the “Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:30-37). In light of these verses and the thoughts they contain, one easily can deduce that a person should love his or her parents. Not only is love for parents natural, but it also is commanded by God throughout the Scriptures…or is it? Luke, in his account of the life of Jesus, has the Messiah on record saying, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26, emp. added). So which is it, should we love and honor our parents and family—or hate them?
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Problem: Can all sins be forgiven (Acts 13:39; Titus 2:14; 1 John 1:9) or not (Matthew 12:31; Mark 3:29; Luke 12:10)
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Problem: The Bible’s teaching on the reality of eternal punishment for unbelievers has perhaps “made” more atheists than any other teaching of Scripture. After expressing that he did not “believe one can grant either superlative wisdom or the superlative goodness of Christ as depicted in the Gospels,” popular early-20th-century agnostic Bertrand Russell indicated that he was not concerned about what other people said about Christ, but “with Christ as He appears in the Gospels.”1 How so? In his widely distributed pamphlet “Why I Am Not a Christian,” Russell argued, “There is one very serious defect in Christ’s moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Christ certainly as depicted in the Gospel did believe in everlasting punishment.”2
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Problem: Jesus said, “When you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words” (Mt. 6:7).
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Problem: A man wanted to follow Jesus but first asked Jesus if he could go and bury his father. Jesus responded, “let the dead bury their own dead.” But the dead can’t bury anyone. This doesn’t seem to make any sense.
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Problem: After Jesus prophesied during His earthly ministry that some would live to see the establishment of God’s kingdom, the first two books of the New Testament indicate six days expired before Peter, James, and John were led up on a high mountain to witness the transfiguration of Jesus (Matthew 16:28-17:2; Mark 9:1-2). Luke’s account, on the other hand, says that Jesus’ transfiguration occurred “about eight days after” Jesus prophesied of the approaching kingdom’s establishment (9:27-29). Skeptics charge that this difference in the time elapsed between the two events constitutes an obvious error. They profess that such textual differences should lead the honest person to admit that the Bible contains contradictions, and thus is not the inerrant Word of God.
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Problem: According to The Skeptics Annotated Bible, in Mark 9:1, “Jesus falsely prophesies that the end of the world will come within his listeners’ lifetimes.”1 Skeptic Dennis McKinsey calls this prophecy2 “one of those classic predictions that has haunted his supporters ever since, forcing them to concoct an endless number of rationalizations to explain its failure.”3
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Problem: Did Jesus fail to correctly predict that people standing with Him would “not taste death” until they saw the arrival of the kingdom of God? The answer is, of course, no, He did not fail. There are two reasons why what Jesus said did not fail. First, let’s examine the scriptures under consideration.
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Problem: The most frequent reference to Jesus’ resurrection reveals that He rose from the grave on the third day of His entombment. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record Jesus as prophesying that He would arise from the grave on this day (Matthew 17:23; Mark 9:31; Luke 9:22). The apostle Paul wrote in his first epistle to the Corinthians that Jesus arose from the grave “the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:4). What’s more, while preaching to Cornelius and his household, Peter taught that God raised Jesus up “on the third day” (Acts 10:40, emp. added). The fact is, however, Jesus also taught (and Mark recorded) “that the Son of Man” would “be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31, emp. added). Furthermore, Jesus elsewhere prophesied that He would be in the heart of the Earth for “three days and three nights” (Matthew 12:40). So which is it? Did Jesus rise from the dead on the third day or after three days?
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Problem: Did Jesus tell His disciples to take a staff? Or did He tell them to leave them behind?
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Problem: A woman with a severe hemorrhage touched Jesus to be healed, and he turned around and said, “Who is the one who touched Me?” (Lk. 8:45) If Jesus was God (and therefore omniscient), how could he not know who touched him?
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Problem: After healing the men who were possessed with demons on the east shore of the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 8:28-34), Jesus passed over to the other side and “came into his own city” (probably Capernaum—Matthew 9:1). Soon thereafter, a man by the name of Jairus, one of the rulers of the synagogue, fell at Jesus’ feet and worshipped Him saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live” (Matthew 9:18). Normally, we would continue telling this wonderful story and rehearse how Jesus raised the twelve-year-old girl from the dead. However, the purpose of this article is to answer the skeptics who claim that a contradiction exists between Matthew’s account of this story and the accounts recorded by Mark and Luke. Whereas Matthew records Jairus telling Jesus, “My daughter has just died” (Matthew 9:18, emp. added), the other two accounts indicate that his daughter was “at the point of death” (Mark 5:23, emp. added) and that “she was dying” (Luke 8:42, emp. added). Critics of the Bible’s inerrancy assert that the difference in these accounts represents a blatant contradiction.
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Problem: God’s Word is perfect and cannot contradict itself; therefore, whenever we see two or more passages of Scripture that appear to contradict each other, we need to study the passages in more detail. We must make sure we are examining the same event, do not take words out of context, recognize any figures of speech or poetic language being used, and be aware of any translational issues of words or phrases, from the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek into English.
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Problem: The first three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) each give an account of Jesus healing demoniacs. Matthew states that the place where the healing took place was the country of the Gadarenes. However, Mark and Luke say it was in the country of the Gerasenes.