Published on 05/23/2006

The Da Vinci Code

gives believers a remarkable opportunity to talk to our friends about Jesus. For several weeks we considered facts and issues which might help make such conversation more effective. Yesterday we began a related series, dealing with the perennial questions non-Christians ask about our faith. Today we'll consider a challenge Christians hear often: isn't your Bible filled with contradictions?

Commentary

The Da Vinci Code gives believers a remarkable opportunity to talk to our friends about Jesus. For several weeks we considered facts and issues which might help make such conversation more effective. Yesterday we began a related series, dealing with the perennial questions non-Christians ask about our faith. Today we'll consider a challenge Christians hear often: isn't your Bible filled with contradictions?

We assume that an apparent contradiction invalidates a statement. However, experience proves otherwise. It may appear contradictory to claim that you love your children and yet sometimes wish they'd never been born--but if you're a typical parent, you know that both are sometimes true. Jesus claimed to be fully God and fully man; God is three and yet one; the Bible is divinely inspired but humanly written; God knows the future but we have freedom to choose. Inside every essential Christian doctrine there is a paradox, an apparent contradiction. Relationships defy strict logic, and faith is a relationship.

Many of the so-called contradictions in the Bible fit into such spiritual or relational categories. For instance, the Bible teaches that "God is love" (1 John 4:8). Yet it also states clearly, "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness" (Romans 1:18). How can God both love his children and hate their sin? Ask any parent.

A second category of apparent contradictions in the Bible is resolved when we understand the context of the statement in question. For example, the Old Testament teaches, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But Jesus told us to turn the other cheek. Which is right? Both. Moses was dealing with an ancient culture in which blood vengeance was common and drastic. If you kill my son, I kill your entire family. To limit retribution to the actual criminal and crime was a great step forward. On the other hand, Jesus was speaking to the issue of personal insult. People in his day used only the right hand in public (as the left was used for personal hygiene). To "strike you on the right cheek" (Matthew 5:39) with my right hand meant to slap you, a threat to your social standing but not your life. Here you are to forgive rather than punish.

For more on supposed contradictions in the Bible, I invite you to the larger essay at godissues.com. Let's close with this advice: the next time someone claims the Bible is full of contradictions, ask him if he has read the Bible. Then ask if it is a contradiction to dismiss a book he hasn't read. Now offer to help him study the Bible and meet its Author. It is a contradiction to me that a holy and perfect God would want me to live in his perfect paradise. I'm glad it's not to him.