A Conservative's Primer On The Bible

A CONSERVATIVE’S PRIMER

ON THE BIBLE

Bob Ward

A CONSERVATIVE’S PRIMER ON THE BIBLE

Published by Robert E. Ward Jr. at Smashwords

Copyright © 2012 by Robert E. Ward, Jr.

All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-0-9848941-1-6

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Cover photo by D. Pickett.

Digital edition created by Maureen Cutajar

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Contents

PREFACE

1) PROVING THE BIBLE

2) WHO IS GOD?

3) GOD’S PEOPLE IN THE MAKING

4) SALVATION NEEDED, SALVATION PROVIDED

5) EXALTING JESUS

6) THE CONVERSION PROCESS

7) THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CHURCH

8) A MATTER OF IDENTITY

9) CHURCH OFFICERS

10) CHURCH FUNCTIONS

11) IDENTIFYING THE CHURCH

12) SOME COMPARISONS

13) FINAL THOUGHTS

PREFACE

I first got the idea of writing this book about ten years ago, or so. I had a business relationship, as a consultant, to a man that I will call Walter, although that is not his real name. This book was written with him in mind, although I know there may be some third parties that actually are the ones who will read it. I will direct this preface to those third parties, but bear in mind that Walt was continuously in my mind when I wrote this.

My first impression of Walt was that he was basically a decent sort of guy. He may have been a little profane, but no more so than a lot of others you encounter while you’re out making a living. But at first, at least, he seemed to measure up okay in the ethics department. As time passed, as I got to see more of him, my opinion changed somewhat. He did and said things that made me pretty sure that maybe he wasn’t altogether on the up and up. His veneer sort of wore off, and I could see him a little better.

But, while I was yet handicapped with my ideas that he was basically decent, I thought to myself that here was a guy who most likely knew nothing of the Bible, nor of Christianity itself, but who by virtue of his seeming decency possibly could be made to appreciate it. I figured that I might be able to help him understand God’s word, and maybe I could make an impact on his life. However, I am not a glib talker by any stretch, and he was, so I knew that I’d never be able to sit and talk to him and convince him of what he should know. He would just talk circles around me, and I’d never get my point across. That’s when I came up with the idea of writing a book. I could say what I wanted, and say it with the benefit of self editing, so that most of what I’d say would be in the best form that at least I could muster. And his quick mind could never get me off track, because all he’d have to talk to would be the book itself, and the book wouldn’t be distracted by anything he said.

Before I ever got around to writing anything, the whole idea went awry. I kind of figured out that he had some serious honesty issues, and my reasoned response was that he would not be a suitable candidate after all. As an aside, I know that pre-judging someone’s potential as a recipient of God’s plan for mankind is really not in my job description, but I was guilty of it nevertheless.

The idea never left my head, though. In fact, as time went by I would find myself composing in my head what I would say to him. Finally I decided that I would go ahead and write the book for him. Intellectually I knew that he was salvable. Worse people than him have been converted. So why not go ahead and try? The trick now that I have completed the book is to find him and give him a copy. I am going to try, though. I lost track of him years ago. He’s probably moved on by now, as I do recall his mentioning several cities in which he had lived. But I am going to try, and try to get this book into his hands.

I’ve had several people read this for editing purposes. Looking for typo errors, grammatical problems, factual basis, absurdity of thoughts, and so on. A common comment from one and all is a perceived negativity in my approach. There even have been some comments that my tone was a little disrespectful to my reader at times. I have gone back and lightened up a bit on some of it, but I am what I am. I just approach things analytically, presenting the negative aspects of any problem at hand right along with the positives. The reader may think I err on the negative side. I tried not to.

Of course, any book about the Bible message is a formidable task. Anybody is quite capable of reading the Bible for oneself. Being the most printed book of all time, it also should be the logical choice for being the one book anyone would want to read. On the other hand, it does seem really long, really detailed, sort of disjointed, just generally not written in the way a normal author, with an eye to commercial appeal, would present it. It’s not usually thought of as being a page turner. Consequently, many (most) people have not read it, and they don’t know the true personality and mind of God revealed there. They don’t know his plan for saving mankind, at least not from its source. And many haven’t dwelled on whether it is indeed God’s ultimate will for mankind, as expressed once and all time by him.

So, I thought that maybe I could write something in my own conversational style, plain English so to speak, hopefully without being too light-hearted or impertinent, that might help Walt, or anyone else, to better appreciate the Bible. I think that the Bible is just an incredible treasure.

Now that I’m through with it, I really don’t know what comes next in the process. I’ve been through with it for a couple of years now, but haven’t done anything. It seems that the fun was in the writing, and it was plenty of that. Now I need to go to that next step, and try to get it in some form to forward to Walt. If he’ll read it, I know he will benefit.

CHAPTER 1

PROVING THE BIBLE

So begins my attempt to write about some things pertaining to Christianity. I am writing for the benefit of my former friend Walt, who I know to be pretty ignorant of Christianity. But, it’s applicable to anyone else that reads it, no matter what level of knowledge the reader holds. I think that the subject matter is really quite compelling. I am passionate about it, and I hope my passion will compensate somewhat for any clumsiness of style. There is much to learn about God’s purpose for man, and I never get tired of learning it. Just writing this will be a great learning exercise for me, and I am eager to begin.

I will rigorously endeavor to present a rationale for learning and following Bible truths. If you have a little curiosity about learning something about what it takes to save your soul for eternity, please keep reading. I believe that what follows will be interesting.

There is a lot to learn before any of us understand our roles in the grand design of things, both in this life and after. I’ve accumulated a bit of knowledge over the past fifty years, and I’m still accumulating. I promise to make an earnest attempt to show you some things, from scriptures, that maybe you have never have even considered. I’m no world-class scholar, but I am a serious student of the Bible. As long as you read on, you may gain knowledge that eventually may start to make some sense to you, and you will be glad that you participated in the exercise. At least, that’s my hope.

Common Ground

Before we can get into anything meaningful about eternal destiny, we have to reach an agreement on some common ground that we will both stand on, and launch out from. That common ground has to be the absolute, unquestionable truth of every last word of the Bible. We have to agree that every sentence, every thought, every fact, every admonition, and every anything else you read in the Bible was inspired by God, and appears in the Bible because God wanted it to be there in exactly the way it was placed. We have to agree that the Bible was translated from good and reliable sources, was translated accurately, and has been preserved through the eons of time, just as God intended that it be. This can be a high hurdle, just by itself, especially if you have no Bible background to build upon. On the other hand, setting forth a comprehensive proof that the Bible is the true, infallible word of God delivered to man is just beyond the reasonable scope of this book. Instead, let me make some general observations toward establishing the Bible as the word of God, and then make a bargain with you. That bargain will be for you to read the book, and tentatively and conditionally accept what is said as being what God has consciously left mankind as an expression of his will. After you have examined the book in full, you may want to pursue the evidences of Bible inspiration and accuracy further to see if the scriptures quoted in the book have any validity. That research will be most beneficial to you.

Ultimately, though, you will have to believe that the Bible is 100.00 % true and accurate, in order to feel that my approach to obeying it is the valid one. My whole premise, from this sentence forward, is that every single word of the Bible is direct from God, and he said it exactly like he wanted it said. Furthermore, he preserved it through the centuries, and it is as accurate today as it was the day it was written. Therefore, you can take it to the bank.

God Is

Before we talk about some other matters, let's talk a little about the notion that the Bible is the inspired word of God. It goes without saying, I guess, that first you have to believe in God. Most folks do, but to some it is a sort of vague notion that there is a higher being, and they don’t particularly feel that there is any real and direct connection of that higher being to their own lives. So I think it is worth some time here to offer some discussion that God is indeed real, and a tremendous force.

Actually, it is pretty hard to prove that God is. You just can't prove by scientific demonstrations to one's senses that God is, the way that you can prove that Texas is in the southwestern part of the United States and touches the Gulf of Mexico.

There are some things, however, that sure lead you to the conclusion that there is, indeed, a God. Somehow, a significant portion, if not a majority, of the world’s human population believes that there is a higher power, and that we are answerable to it. If man is rational, and we do think that we are rational, is such a notion irrational? We look at the universe, and see the shear incredibleness of it. How could something of such complexity not have a designer; that is, God? It just couldn’t. And the designer had to have the power, the abilities, to create the things his mind conjured up.

There is a philosophical position that says that there is a being of which no greater being can be conceived. God fulfills that specification. He created the universes without any raw materials at all. He spoke and things were created into being.

How did the consciousness of morality get ingrained into our being? Every culture has a sense of right and wrong. It had to come from a moral lawgiver, and that would be, God.

This is not an overwhelming proof of God’s existence to a confirmed doubter. I just know that God exists, and he has done everything that is ascribed to him in the Bible. And here comes the first in an extremely long line of Biblical scriptures which will follow, to explain why I do believe. Hebrews 11:6, But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. I just have faith. Maybe that is my strongest argument for God. Jesus said in John 20:29, to someone who had just seen him after he had risen from the dead: Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

A Unique Book

Convincing someone that the Bible is the word of God, and as such is a book totally devoid of errors, internal inconsistencies, and external misstatements is no light-hearted walk in the park, either. But, what if it can be shown that it is a book written over a period of more than 1500 years, by about 40 different human writers, who lived in different parts of the world, who came from all walks of life, and used three different languages to write it? Furthermore, that that book is totally devoid of errors of fact, history, science, archaeology, geography, and astronomy; and is totally consistent internally and externally? Then you’ve just got to start thinking that there is something special going on here that probably deserves a little looking into. If it is not the word of God, then someone sure deserves a pat on the back for putting together something so well documented in all kinds of factual matter. Has that kind of human talent ever existed, and if so, why hasn’t someone been given credit for the accomplishment?

The Bible is so extraordinarily unique. No man, or committee of men, would ever write something in its style. First of all, it blatantly states that it is God’s word, over and over and over again. Then God’s mind is revealed in all sorts of settings: history, prophecy, poetry, wisdom, declaratory statements, commandments, and so on. Fragments taken all through the Bible never contradict each other, and add together for a revelation of the mind of God. That reach of revelation is just not available from any source except God himself.

I read a lot of material to prepare myself for writing this chapter. I had to, because I needed to get my thoughts organized. I read so much, though, that I made the decision that I will not go into the subject deeply here. I’ll just touch on the surface and go on from there. Here’s a couple of reasons for taking that position. First of all, evidences is a whole book unto itself. There are plenty, plenty of sources available, for any doubters to seek, which make an air-tight case for the infallibility and inspiration of the scriptures. One can go to any depth of research that one desires. I’ve got a lot material to cover in this book, and I don’t need to get into proving the Bible.

In the second place, since I don’t know any of the real scholarly aspects of the subject on my own, I would be forced to parrot what others have written. Very quickly I would run into the problem of copyright infringement. To get the publishers’ permission to use all that I researched and wanted to include might just take longer to acquire than I might live. So again, Mr. or Ms. Skeptic, I’m just not going to try to convince you of this.

Nevertheless, I will repeat repeatedly, in the pages to follow, beginning even in the next chapter, the necessity of your believing completely and totally that the Bible is the inspired word of God. I will use scriptures as the bases of everything I write. If you believe that the scriptures do not present God’s case, then seeing them set forth in any discussion is not going to move you much.

An alternative approach, Mr. or Ms. Skeptic, is to read through the book with as open a mind as you are capable, and see if the logical plan presented through scriptures might win you over to the idea that you just might, truly, have seen God’s word in its power. Certainly, that is the approach I’d prefer that you take.

CHAPTER 2

WHO IS GOD?

I hope that you see some value in continuing with this argument for a while longer. I am going to keep right on writing. But as to whether there is any point in your keeping right on reading, depends on how you feel about the foregoing. Until you believe, totally and absolutely, that the Bible is the word of God then nothing I say herein will hold much weight with you, and not too much can be expected. If I quote a scripture, and you don’t believe that that particular scripture (or any scripture) is necessarily correctly representing God’s thoughts on the matter, whatever the matter is that’s under consideration, then there just isn’t any basis for discussion. If there is any chance that the Bible says one little thing that doesn’t reflect God’s thoughts, commands, wishes, or instructions, then the whole thing is unreliable. Therefore, I really can’t speak to you about any issue with any authority, because there is no authority if the Bible isn’t 100.000000% accurate in every detail.

Reinforcing Belief

The reason I am so hung up on this point about believing that the Bible is completely accurate and just exactly as God desired it to be presented can be illustrated by a recent event. I recall that a few years ago, the Mel Gibson movie The Passion of the Christ was about to be released. But prior to its release it was in the news, was much discussed, was widely acclaimed by the few who had seen it, and was eagerly anticipated by the people who eagerly anticipate things of this sort.

As a by-product of the discussion and anticipation extant, there appeared an article in NEWSWEEK, by someone named Jon Meacham. I don’t know anything about Mr. Meacham, and he could be the finest fellow one ever could hope to meet. He may treat his mother with all love and affection, he may be just the guy you’d want to be president of your Little League or PTA, and the perfect guy to help you give your child’s birthday party. However, I do know that he very likely will not be converted to Christianity as it is defined in the New Testament, for the simple reason that he just simply doesn’t believe that the Bible is inspired of God. It so happens that he presumes to know where the Bible is true and accurate, and he knows where the writers fudged a little to help make their points. And wisely knowing those little inside bits of information, he never can be hornswoggled into doing the things that are called for in the Bible to be an acceptable Christian. He can filter out the necessary, and delete the unnecessary. Glory to Mr. Meacham in the highest!

To illustrate, let us look at his article. A direct quote from it: But the Bible can be a problematic source. Though countless believers take it as the immutable word of God, scripture is not always a faithful record of historical events; the Bible is the product of human authors who were writing in particular times and places with particular points to make and visions to advance. That quote really does, in my mind, establish Mr. Meacham’s low regard for the notion of using the Bible as authority for anything. His idea is that you’ve just got to be able to weed out the places where the Bible’s authors took a little liberty with the truth in order to drive home their point of view, and he thinks he is able to know when this happens.

Mr. Meacham tells, in his essay, how the Romans really were the only ones with authority to crucify, and so the Romans were really the guilty ones. The Bible does bear that out, that the Romans alone had that authority, except no blame is ascribed to them. Doesn’t matter, because Meacham believes the Romans were the culprits. At least, I think he does. Whatever he thinks doesn’t really matter to me though, except in an academic way. But he says, and again I quote: So why was the Gospel story—the story Gibson has drawn on—told in a way that makes ‘the Jews’ look worse than the Romans? The Bible did not descend from heaven fully formed and edged in gilt. The writers of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John shaped their narratives several decades after Jesus’ death to attract converts and make their young religion—understood by many Christians to be a faction of Judaism—attractive to as broad an audience as possible. What Mr. Meacham claims here is it was a case of giving the idea over to the boys in the marketing department, and they cooked up the most compelling sales strategy they could under the circumstances. They shaped their narratives. To Mr. Meacham and those like-minded, God had nothing to do with the inspiration of the book. Or, if he did, he still couldn’t control those upstart rebels like Matthew and Mark from putting their own two cents worth in.

Mr. Meacham critiques the movie story as to how it stacks up historically, and I have no way of critiquing his critique, as I haven’t seen the movie, even after all these years. My general critique is if it faithfully follows exactly the Bible’s account of events, it is accurate, period, and if it doesn’t, it isn’t, period. But there’s one more point of his I’d like to kick around. One of the serious problems with the movie was, horror of politically incorrect horrors, the Jews might get offended. They shouldn’t, but anyway, that was one of the big topics regarding the movie. Meacham says: "Frustrated, desperate, bloodthirsty, the mob says: ‘His blood be on us and on our children!’ Gibson ultimately cut the cry from the film, and he was right to do so (remember, this is Meacham talking). Again, consider the source of the dialogue: a partisan Gospel writer. The Gospels were composed to present Jesus in the best possible light to potential converts in the Roman Empire--and to put the Temple leadership in the worst possible light. And many scholars believe that the author of Matthew, which is the only Gospel to include the ‘His blood be on us’ line, was writing after the destruction of the Temple in 70 (A.D.) and inserted the words to help explain why such misery had come upon the people of Jerusalem. According to this argument, blood had already fallen on them and on their children." So you see, Meacham believes that that little rascal Matthew was using some convenient hindsight to make the story fit the recent history of the day. But wise Mr. Meacham sees through Matthew’s feeble and transparent efforts to manipulate the emotions of his readers. Therefore, he is willing to delete that troublesome passage from the Bible as being something that Matthew, that poor uninspired but probably well-intentioned human, thought was a convenient point to make, given the social order of that particular time.

Why would Mr. Meacham make an unlikely and particularly poor candidate to conversion to Christ? He simply does not believe the Bible is the true word of God. And if it isn’t the word of God, how can you take any actions based on what the Bible directs you to do? He already sees a lot of inaccuracies, even deceitful statements, in the Bible, and I’ll bet you that if he were challenged to find some more, he could. So getting him to change his life based on what the Bible says is ridiculous on its face. Or so it would seem to me. And I think also that it would be just preposterous to want anyone to fundamentally change behavior and to do acts commanded or inferred from Biblical authority when one only believes that the Bible is the best compilation we can muster of historical writings of writers who had agendas to further. No matter that the Bible itself says as in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, that all scriptures are inspired of God, and given forevermore as God’s revelation to mankind, as in Jude 3.

So, do you believe the Bible is God’s word, and his only word? Was God capable of giving us something that is free from the manipulative influences of men bent on advancing their particular points of view as they saw things at the time they did their writing? Was God smart enough; was God powerful enough, to accomplish all that? If you think that he was, and if you really do believe, without reservation, that the Bible is God’s word, then read on.

Some Attributes of God

I suppose the place to start is with God. Who is God? What is God? The Bible defines God by the various and random mentioning of his attributes. All through the Bible there are bits and pieces put forth which, drawn together, make an excellent composite of the being, character, and nature of God. Allow me, if you please, to point out some of these attributes.

God is a spirit. He is not flesh and blood, like us. Jesus said, in John 4:24, God is Spirit: and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. God is a spirit, yet we are made in his image (Genesis 1:27 – So God created man in his own image; in the image of God He created him). There is a part of us that is spirit, and at the resurrection (I’ll get to that, just hold on), that spirit part will rise to eternal life, as explained in 1 Corinthians 15, particularly verses 42 and 44. But my point here is that God is a spirit.

God has a mind that is capable of every conceivable and inconceivable achievement, except unrighteousness. God spoke the world into being. He didn’t roll his sleeves up and start making patterns, cutting and fitting, setting this on top of that, honing and refining, and so, to get the world and all the universes made. Here is where I start to lose you, but there was nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a speck of finest, tiniest dust, available as building materials when his mind set out to do the work of creation. He just spoke, and it happened as he spoke. Let there be light," in Genesis 1:3, and there was light. Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and it was so (Genesis 1:6, 7). And so on, until and including the creation of man, God just spoke and it happened as he spoke. Stop and think a minute; that’s power. That is awe-inspiring power. And that is one, but one, of the attributes of God.

Then when you think of the grand scale of which he spoke things into existence, such as the huge stars that dwarf our earth, the distance between the stars and the galaxies, his power, as controlled by his mind, boggles our minds. Then the complexity of his creation, such as the enzymes we have in our bodies that are called into play for special situations, such as stress or by sudden requirements placed on muscles to accelerate foot speed, and so on, makes another attribute come to mind, that of omniscience. He knows everything. He put everything into being, so he knows everything. And he was able to do it by speaking it so. Can you fathom the enormity of that? He speaks, and all of these complex things come from nothing and into existence.

God is timeless. He was there before anything that exists today was. He calls himself in Exodus 3: 14 I AM. He tells Moses in that instance, in response to Moses’ question of who shall I say sent me, Thus you say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you. To me, that is the most goose-bump producing, hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck-raising pronouncement in the whole Bible. He is saying, call me the one who just always was and always will be. To God, millions of years ago is present tense, and millions of years from now is present tense. He just is, that’s all; he is I AM.

Another attribute of God is that he is holy. His holiness is the attribute of attributes. He is more, much more, than the sum of all goodness and righteousness in being. We have good qualities, because we are made in his image. We have wisdom, reverence, compassion, love, and so on, but the measure of these things in us is quite finite. God has all of these, plus every other appropriate attribute, and he has them in infinite quantity and quality. Psalms 99:9 says, Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His holy hill; for the Lord our God is holy.

An often-mentioned attribute of God is his love for mankind. One of the most quoted scriptures is John 3:16, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. He not only provided for our salvation, as John 3:16 refers, but provides the entire world for our utilization.

Everyone that believes in God pretty much believes, at least intuitively, in the picture of God that I have presented. They pretty much believe,