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Are there contradictions in the Bible?

// Theology
Theology

We have all at some point in our Bible reading come across a passage or verse that says something which seems to contradict something we’ve read in another part of the Bible (if you haven’t then you haven’t been reading your Bible). So what do we do with these  frustrating passages?

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
- 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Firstly we must understand that all Scripture is inspired by God and is true; so we approach the Bible knowing that if it is all true then there can be no contradictions. So all of the Bible is equally inspired by God, but not all of it is equally clear to understand.

So there are some very clear parts in the Bible and there are some less clear parts in the Bible. What we do with these less clear parts (the parts that appear to contradict) is look at them in light of the parts that are more clear (for those of you who like big words this is called The Principle of Perspicuity).

Here’s what I mean; There is as passage in Matthew 12:31 that says “So I tell you, every sin and blasphemy can be forgiven—except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will never be forgiven”.
So it looks like we’ve found a verse that tells us that there is a sin that can’t be forgiven, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Here’s what we do with it – ask yourself “is this what the message of the Gospel says as a whole?”, the answer of course is no. The message of the Gospel teaches that Jesus died to cover all of our sin and that all sin can be forgiven. So does this verse contradict the Gospel message? No, it simply means something else (we’ll have some fun looking at this exact verse in another post) and that we need to find out what it actually means/ who it is referring to. This is our starting point. In the coming posts we’ll have a look at some ways of exploring what some of the harder verses we come across mean.

“I don’t understand the Bible!”

// Theology
Theology

For everyone who has ever looked at their Bible and thought “I…REALLY don’t get this” welcome to being a Christian. Some of the Bible is really hard to to understand and sometimes it is easier to just skip those parts or just stop reading our Bible altogether.
In this next short series of short blogs we’ll have a look at some of the ways of tackling those tricky parts of Scripture and how we can approach them and understand them long before we throw our Bible out the window (…then running to pick it up from the garden apologising profusely to God as we go).

Let’s start here; the Bible says that the Bible is hard to understand.
In 2 Peter 3:15, Peter says;

Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture.

Peter wrote some of the New Testament and in this letter he admits that some of Paul’s writings are hard to understand. We certainly shouldn’t feel bad when we don’t understand it all. More than that the Bible says that we actually won’t be able to understand it all.
There are things we can do to help us understand more of the Bible and we’ll have a look at some of those in the coming blogs, but some of the things we read we may never know until we meet Jesus, and that’s ok. You’re doing well, keep going!