Did God really say …? Genesis 3:1
Once again this year, I’m following Nicky Gumbel’s ‘Bible in One Year’ for my daily bible reading. It’s a resource I highly recommend. On Jan 2nd it included the first question in the Bible in which the serpent opens his assault on Eve by asking, “Did God really say … ?” The question has been rattling around in my mind ever since. Re-examining aspects of our faith in the light of personal experience or external challenges is a normal part of our spiritual growth. But there is a real danger when this process leads to that question, or variants of it. All too frequently, it seems, people find a way to answer “No” because the implications of “Yes” do not fit with their perception of God. Questions such as, “I don’t understand how God could be like that!” or, to go a step further, “I cannot accept a God like that!”
If the issue is a Bible text (it usually is), finding an excuse to say “No” is not too hard. Some people ignore or discount the Old Testament as no longer relevant or consider much of it mythical or otherwise unreliable. For passages in the New Testament one can challenge the author’s prejudice, query the context or question the intended meaning of the original Greek. One may even find an apparently contradictory passage elsewhere and feel one’s really hit the jackpot!
The problem is that finding a way to justify the answer I want (whether “Yes” or “No”) is no answer at all. Rather than playing the barrister, searching for a technical loophole to support my argument, I need to put my preference aside and play the judge, considering matters in their widest context. So, I invite you to join me through this Lent as I touch on some potentially tricky “Did God really say …?” topics.
Who knows what we may discover?
Thoughts for the Day 
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