This is the first in a series of questions about the Christian faith that I for some reason or another cannot come up with a good answer to. It is up to you, the readers, to weigh in and figure out just what is up!
Alright folks. I believe in and love Jesus, the only begotten Son of God and our Lord and Savior. I have learned many truths from His Word that I have been able to apply to my life, and I praise His Name for that.
But we all know there are many confusing things in the Bible. Like, why did God condone killing of so many people in the Old Testament yet one of the Ten Commandments told us directly not to kill anyone? Or, how the heck does David get away with stealing a woman from her husband and having him killed, and is STILL called a man after God’s own heart?
I also wonder something.
Jesus died on the cross for our sins, but also for much more than that. In doing so he also took on the sins of the world and delivered a sucker-punch to Satan by, as the Bible says, conquering death, hell and the grave (see Hosea 3:4 for the prophecy).
So after all Jesus did, and knowing that he conquered evil for good…how come evil is still allowed to run amok nowadays? How come we perform spiritual warfare in church against Satan? Why for do we have to, after accepting Jesus’ forgiveness and proclaim our devotion to him, beat that dirty lummox Lucifer back constantly?
I do find it rather odd, and have all through my life to hear different people in the same prayer sessions follow “Praise you Jesus! You have won the victory!” with “We rebuke you, Satan!”
I have never been able to give a good explanation for this, so if the question ever comes up in ministry I need some help to give a rational answer to the poor dude trying to comprehend it all.
HELP ME UNDERSTAND.
That's a lot of questions, all of which have answers. You'd do well to ask a priest or other Christian scholar to go through them one at a time at length.
Conversely, if you'd like to get together sometime over coffee, I'd be happy to do my best answering each question in turn. It'd be a rather lengthy write-up and I won't have time to do them justice in text for quite a while, so talking would be the fastest/soonest way for me to answer and reply :-P
Okay, here is the deal. The ten commandments said, thou shalt not MURDER. I don't care what people think, that is what it is properly translated as. Otherwise there would be a contradiction with people being allowed to kill someone before they arrived at the safe cities. In the old testament, if you murdered someone, you had to flee to one of the safe cities. If you were caught before you arrived, God deemed it okay for the family of the murdered person to in turn kill you.
People misquote that so often. As far as the rest, maybe another time.
David pursued God's heart with his love. Of course he made serious mistakes, but we serve a God of second chances. According to the Bible, we can try to do all the right things, but if we do them without love, it's in vain. It's all about love and pursuing a relationship with the One who took on our sins.
As for the questions about spiritual warfare, for some reason, God chose not to take us out of the world when we became believers. He decided to allow us to battle with sin until we die. The good news: He has promised us that He'll never leave or forsake us. And the lessons we learn through the struggle help prepare us for our new home.