Category: Bible

The Perfect Imperfection of the Universe

We need to know the purpose of a design before we can comment on how well it accomplishes that purpose.

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Photo credit to Beth Drendel

This article is inspired by the following article in which the author takes issue with an author of another article taking issue with the idea of the eye as proof of an Intelligent Designer. Go ahead and read the article if you are curious. My point goes in a different direction, though. I will pick up when you are done. (Or you can skip it and jump to where I start again.)

Did Nathan Lents Refute Design?

Nathan Lentz finds fault with the human eye and, therefore, argues that the human eye is poor evidence that a Designer God is behind it. Lentz comes from an evolutionary materialist position. Cornelius Hunter uses the force of Lentz’s argument against him.

In essence, Hunter counters that the fault-prone human eye should have spelled the demise of the human species if evolutionary materialism is true. The fault-prone human eye would have prevented humans from climbing to the top of the food chain and would have weeded us out long ago (on the evolutionary paradigm).

I am not really convinced by the counterargument. But then, I am not really convinced by the initial argument. Both arguments boast of knowledge and wisdom we have no claim on.

If God exists, who are we to find fault in His design? Design requires a purpose. Design doesn’t drive purpose; rather, purpose drives design. We must know the purpose of something before we can really comment on the design.

A design may be well suited to certain purposes and not to others, in varying degrees. The human eye serves a purpose in providing us the ability to do many things, and we have survived (obviously) despite the faults to which the human eye is prone. Perhaps, we could do more and survive better if the human eye wasn’t so subject to problems.

Then again, maybe the point (the purpose) of the human eye isn’t primary or only to allow us to do things and to survive. Maybe the human eye is designed to accomplish a much a greater purpose than mere utility and survival.

One the other hand, the fact that humans have survived despite having eyes that are susceptible to near-sightedness, far-sightedness, glaucoma and a host of other issues may simply suggest that we have evolved with other strengths that overcame the weaknesses in the human eye. The faults in the human eye don’t really disprove evolution.

But I have no interest here in continuing to prove or disprove either argument. I believe sufficient evidence exists to establish that a creator God is the best explanation for the universe.

What interests me is the following passage in Romans that speaks to the Lentz article on the seemingly flawed design of the human eye:

“[T]he creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope …..”

Romans 8:19 (ESV)

The idea I come back to is that God subjected the creation to futility… in hope. That means God subjected the creation to futility for a purpose. If the human eye is “flawed” (from our perspective), it is “flawed” for a purpose.

Continue reading “The Perfect Imperfection of the Universe” →

How Does the Tower of Babel Fit into God’s Plan for People to Love Him and Love Our Neighbors?

Our frustration, toil and separation from other people are not contrary to the purposes of God, but part of the plan.

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The story of the Tower of Babel is included in Scripture for a reason, right? So, Why is it there? How does the tower of Babel fit into God’s redemptive plans and purposes?

These are questions we should think to ask. In fact, Scripture is designed, according to Hebrew thinking, to invite us to ask questions.

Western thinking might assume that we just take things on faith and don’t ask questions. Or the opposite: take it at face value and dismiss it when we find problems (“contradictions”) in the text. The biblical texts, however, are inherently Hebrew (“eastern”) in their assumptions, and we lose something if we do not understand that.

God wants us to seek Him, and that includes asking questions of Scripture, wrestling with it, and finding answers to our questions. We don’t exhibit a lack of faith when we find “problems” in Scripture and ask questions. Our faith propels us forward to wrestle with the text and seek answers through study, prayer, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

We can hold to a high view of Scripture and admit there are “problems” in the text. Those problems can lead us to some real gems in the answers they reveal.

God desires us to seek him and find him, as Paul says to the philosophers in Athens. (Acts17:27) Jesus, of course, promised that those who ask, seek, and knock will be answered, will find, and the door will be open to them. (Matthew 7:7) Faith is evident when we use the problems we see as the springboard to seek answers.

I recently wrote an article on the Tower of Babel story exploring some of the questions it invites us to ask, and trying on answers that are suggested by a more eastern (Hebrew) mindset than most westerners might be adopt.

One question we might ask is: why is the story there to begin with?

We might assume the story is simply an explanation for how people became scattered all over the world in different language groups. If that is all we get out of the story, though, we miss the most important meaning. If we stop there, and assume there is no more to the story, we may be missing the most important part of the story!

A Hebrew (or eastern) mind always asks, “Why?”

I resonate with this basic practice incorporated into the BEMA Podcast because of a Jewish professor I had in college. He explained one day the difference between the western and eastern approaches to Scripture. He illustrated it with the following example.

If the universe consisted of a chair in a room, people with western minds and eastern minds would approach the room differently. The westerner would measure the height, width, depth and mass of the chair. He would weigh it and measure the distance of the chair from the walls and the ceiling. The easterner (the Hebrew) would start by asking, “Why is the chair here?”

In my previous article, I discussed how the story is a chiasm (a type of poetry). A chiasm puts emphasis on the middle verse. In this story, the emphasis falls on the people’s desire to “make a name for ourselves” because “otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the earth”. (Gen. 11:4)

Why were they concerned about being scattered? Why does God care? What is God doing in confusing their languages and scattering them?

For starters, God does not break into the story, yet, when they are making bricks. We might assume, therefore, that God isn’t threatened or concerned about their development of new technology. He doesn’t break into the story until they say they are going to build a tower to make a name for themselves.

We also need to be mindful, always, of context. The context here is that people are moving away from God, away from his plans. (Moving east.) God wanted them to multiply and fill the earth, but they wanted to put down roots in the plains of Shinar (Babylon), lest they be scattered, and build a tower to exalt themselves.

God’s plan was to have them “multiply and fill the earth”. This was the instruction from God to Adam and Eve. The people who built the Tower of Babel didn’t want to do that. They didn’t want to be “scattered”. They resisted, and they put down roots when they should have been filling the earth.

Building a tower to make a name for themselves, in this context, means wanting to pursue their own plans to achieve their own ends. The concern about being scattered suggests they knew they were doing their own thing contrary to God’s plans for them. They might have feared being scattered because it would disrupt their plans to exalt themselves.

Maybe they thought God couldn’t scatter them if they built a fortified tower. Maybe they were trying to make God deal with them on their own terms, in a location they established, by a structure by which they thought they could ascend to God and control where God met with them.

Of course, God did exactly what they feared, and scattered them a against their wishes by confusing their languages.

But why? Was God threatened by them?

Um…., no. God is sovereign. He created the heavens and earth, and He created these people. They were no threat to Him. So why did God scatter them?

I believe the answer lies partly in the fact that they were pursuing their own plans in exultation of themselves. God had other plans, and God frustrated their plans that were not in keeping with His plans.

That might all seem arbitrary unless we keep asking questions and seeking answers. Why were the peoples’ plans something God couldn’t abide? How did the peoples’ plans interfere with God’s plans?

What were God’s plans?

Continue reading “How Does the Tower of Babel Fit into God’s Plan for People to Love Him and Love Our Neighbors?” →

East and West Meet at the Tower of Babel

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I have been listening to the BEMA podcast. I highly recommend it. As defined on the website, “‘BEMA’ (or bimah) is a Hebrew word that refers to the elevated platform in the center of first-century synagogues where the people of God read the Text.”

The early Christians knew their Scripture. They built their lives around it. They devoted themselves to it, and to prayer, and the apostles reaching, and to fellowship and shared meals. (Acts 2:42) The bema in was where early Christians gathered in first century synagogues before they were persecuted and scattered.

The BEMA podcast attempts to approach Scripture the way easterners would have approached Scripture – the way the early Christians in the Middle East would have approached Scripture. The idea that Hebrew people were more “eastern” in their thinking was first pointed out to m by my Jewish professor in college over 40 years ago, so following up with that concept intrigues me.

Christianity quickly became westernized, but the origins of Christianity are eastern, growing out of the Hebrew culture and scriptures. For that reason, we would do well to gain some new perspective from a more eastern way of thinking. I encourage you to listen to the first couple of episodes of the podcast linked in the opening paragraph if you want an introduction to an “eastern” perspective of the Bible.

Reading the first 11 chapters of Genesis from an eastern, Hebraic perspective, opens up new insights. Not the least of which is the genre of literature these chapters represent. They are poetry. They are written in chiasms with intricate organization and emphasis that is found in the structure of the chiasms.

The Tower of Babel story is one of those chiastic passages in Genesis. The story actually begins in the Hebrew with the last verse of Chapter 10 (as it is organized in English Bibles), and it goes like this (ESV):

These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood.

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’

So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Hebrew has no vowels, only consonants. Rather, vowel signs are placed over the consonants to denote where breaths should be taken for anyone reading Hebrew out loud. 

The consonants in this chiasm are repetitive: N, B, L, H; then H, L, B, N in reverse. There is a front half and a back half to the structure. The middle of the chiasm is verse 11:4, which I have emphasized by bolding it.

The verse in the middle of the chiasm is where the emphasis lies: the peoples’ concern about being scattered over the face of the earth. They didn’t want to be scattered.

Why not? That’s the question we should be prompted to ask according to the emphasis we find built into the structure of that story.

I am not sure I can do any justice to the layers of meaning and the questions that arise in these verses in a short blog post. I can only scratch the surface, but here goes….

Continue reading “East and West Meet at the Tower of Babel” →

When It Gets Hard, to Whom Shall We Go?

I had gone back to medicating myself and chasing weekends. I was lost in a spiritual wilderness.

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The passage from the Gospel of John reproduced below was the subject of a sermon recently where I attend church. It is also the catalyst for one of the most important turning points in my life.

Jesus had just finished telling the crowd, “I am the bread of life….” (John 6:48); “And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51); and, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.” (John 6: 54)

The Romans called the early Christians cannibals because of words like these and “the Lord’s Supper” that Christians observed ritually when they met. The crowd didn’t understand what he was saying either. The apostles also didn’t understand, as is evident by the following interchange in John 6:

60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit[e] and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.

68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.” (Emphasis added)

These words Jesus spoke were allegorical of course. In the sermon on this passage the pastor developed the principal that we feed on what we follow.

Paul says, “Bad company corrupts good character.” (1 Corinthians 15:33) “Garbage in, garbage out”, as “they” say. It’s biblical, and it’s common wisdom, but this passage is about much more than an adage for life.

Continue reading “When It Gets Hard, to Whom Shall We Go?” →

What Does It Mean to Be Transformed By the Renewal of Your Mind?

Broad is the way and wide is the path that leads to destruction.

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I listened to a sermon by Tim Keller this morning. Before I get into what Keller said, though, allow me to share the verse I was meditating on before I listened to Keller. The verse is:

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:2 ESV

As I meditated on this verse this morning, I was first struck by the command, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” This is something Paul was telling the Romans to do.

As I went on in my meditation, I began to realize that the patterns of this world and the renewal of our minds are influenced by agents “outside” of us. We either allow ourselves to be conformed to the patterns of this world, or we allow ourselves to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. The patterns of this world and/or the renewal of our minds by God’s Spirit are influences on us that we can reject or embrace.

We have a choice to make, but the choice is in the allowing, in the submitting either to the patterns of this world or to the renewing of our minds by the Holy Spirit. It is something that happens to us that we can choose to participate in (or not).

The HELPS Word study (on biblehub.com) for the Greek word, sysxēmatízō, explains that “be conformed to the patterns of the world” means to be identified with those patterns and to assume a similar outward expression by following the same patterns. This conformance may happen consciously or unconsciously.

Paul is urging us to be conscious, to be mindful and intentional, in resisting conformance to the patterns of the world and to submit ourselves to the renewal (the transformation (metamorphóō)) of our minds by the influence of God’s Holy Spirit.,

The Greek word translated as “renewal” means literally metá “change after being with” and morphóō “changing form in keeping with inner reality”. The transformation Paul means is a metamorphosis. Like the caterpillar that changes into a butterfly, this is something that happens to us (within us), but only if we submit to it – only if we do not resist it and we allow it to happen.

We will be influenced one way or the other. We will conform to the patterns of this world unless we resist them. We will not be transformed by the renewal of our minds unless we choose to submit ourselves to God’s renewal process that is the work of the Holy Spirit.

My first thoughts focused on the fact that this is something that we do or do not do. We are acted on by outside agents either way. Yes, we participate in our own condition, but our participation is merely a matter of what we choose to respond to and yield ourselves to.

Continue reading “What Does It Mean to Be Transformed By the Renewal of Your Mind?” →