Visitors to Hampton Court in London are amazed by the maze they find there. Bushes form solid walls, head high. In the center sits a guide high on a platform. When pilgrims get lost wandering through the hedges, they look up to this guide, who points them to the next turn on their way. Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Twain is supposed to have said, “It’s not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand which bother me—it’s the parts I do understand.” We understand what he meant, even if he never said it. The Bible tells us all we need to know, but seldom all we want to know.

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Some questions come from people who are skeptical about the Christian faith. Some come from believers who have skeptical friends. And some come from believers who are struggling with the issue themselves. Our first question is found in the hearts of all three. Read the rest of this entry »

Serving as a summer missionary in East Malaysia in 1979, I was privileged to bring a hundred or so paperback Malay New Testaments to the people. At one church, members stood in a long line to receive a copy. At the end of the line was an elderly woman. She took her Bible from me with trembling hands, held it close to her heart, and wept. I thought of all my Bibles at home gathering dust. Read the rest of this entry »

My earliest experience with the Bible was leafing through an ancient King James Version my parents kept in the guest room. The fountain-penned family tree calligraphied in the first pages fascinated me. The printed thees and thous made no sense, the begats even less. I assumed the entire thing had been handed from God to man in black leather. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is one of the most common ways skeptics justify their skepticism about the Bible. The question is based on the commonplace supposition that contradictions are bad. If you can find a statement I make which disagrees with something I’ve already said, you’ll feel justified in rejecting both. Even though one may be right. Even though they both may be. Why? Read the rest of this entry »

My grandfather was born before the turn of the 20th century. In his lifetime he saw the advent of the automobile, commercial airplanes, and the computer. But he never met a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or a Mormon. Our question never occurred to him. Read the rest of this entry »

The book of Joshua presents most readers with a troubling question: how can a God of love command his followers to destroy an entire nation of people? The Canaanites had lived in their land for centuries before Joshua and his people came to claim it for themselves. While some in Canaan fought against God’s people and were destroyed as a result (cf. the battle of Ai, 8:14ff), others did not attempt armed aggression against Israel. The people of Jericho, for instance, retreated inside their city walls and mounted no attack against the Jews. Nonetheless, following divine orders, the Israeli soldiers “destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys” (6:21). Read the rest of this entry »

The week after my first son was born, I was scheduled to preach on Genesis 22 and the story of Abraham’s offering of Isaac.  I had to change the sermon.  As I told the congregation, I thought I didn’t understand this story before.  Now I knew I didn’t. Read the rest of this entry »

A woman once told me, “If you can prove God loves me, I’ll trust him.” I asked her if she could prove that her husband loved her, that his words were true and his actions sincere. She admitted she could not.

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