Has God Spoken?

The Bible claims to be revelation from God–God revealing Himself through what He has spoken to mankind. Only a handful of written sources even claim to be words from the divine. So there’s not an endless amount of material to sift through to determine whether God may have spoken in one source versus another source. In fact, the few sources that claim to be a divine word can be critiqued according to internal consistency (whether the materials’ own claims can be harmonized or shown to be false and self-contradictory) and external coherence (whether supporting materials can corroborate or undermine the claims; whether the content coheres with the reality of the world we live in).

This post will not go into critiques of other materials such as the Book of Mormon, the Koran, Buddhist sutras, Hindu scriptures, and so on. Each could be critiqued according to internal consistency and external coherence. And of course the Bible is subjected to these critiques as well. Suffice it to say, the Bible is far more than a moral system to live by (like many of the other supposed divine sources are limited to); the moral system found in the Bible is built on a metanarrative (the one true storyline of reality of this world) and doctrine (teachings grounded in truth).

Reality–>Truth–>Moral Living: no other book coheres as the Bible does. They’re either cheap rip-offs of the Bible, borrowing from it (e.g., the Book of Mormon and the Koran) or limited to pragmatic moralistic living in a world never fully explained (e.g., the Buddhist sutras, Confucianism). But more on that would have to be demonstrated in a separate post.

Interestingly enough, the Bible does not spend much time defending itself as the Word of God. It simply proclaims itself to be the Word of God. And it expects that the content itself is sufficient to convince the reader of its own truth claims. If you’re wanting someone to prove to you or to somehow persuade you that the Bible is true before you’ll read it then there is little hope for you. How could a human’s logical or emotional arguments be more effective than God’s own powerful and wise words? No, you’ll have to read the Bible for yourself–and upon reading it be convinced or not of its truthfulness.

The Christian need not rest on his or her own logical and persuasive powers. The Word of God itself is what will be sufficient and powerful to convince (Hebrews 4:12). The Holy Spirit must draw and convince the reader (John 16:8; Romans 8:30). The Christian can and should refute false accusations that the Bible lacks internal consistency and external coherence (2 Corinthians 10:5). The Christian should provide a testimony of his or her own confident hope in the Word of Truth, even in the midst of persecution and suffering (1 Peter 3:15). But at the end of the day, it is the foolishness of the gospel message (the content itself) that must break through into hearts that God Himself works in, resulting in the humility to accept that message (1 Corinthians 1-2; Romans 1:16-17). Jesus draws His sheep to Himself (John 6:37; 10:27).

So the goal of this blog isn’t primarily to prove the Bible, as if I could do that through my own arguments and appeals. The goal of this blog is to present the Bible’s message clearly. If the reader will accept the challenge to read the Bible, the reader will surely need someone to explain some of what he reads (Acts 8:30-31). The goal of this blog is to orient the reader, to guide the reader through the message the Bible proclaims. The Bible can seem long, confusing, and archaic to someone new to it. The goal of this blog is to encourage and to help someone to read and understand the Bible. Its central message is in fact simple enough for a child to understand (despite some difficult sections). Its teachings are in fact just as relevant today as they were in ancient times. The setting and cultural context may have changed. But the underlying principles remain relevant. Human nature hasn’t changed. The reality of the world we live in hasn’t changed. Truth hasn’t changed. God hasn’t changed. And the way of salvation has never changed.

Has God spoken? Has He spoken in the Bible? The only way to answer those questions is to read the Bible for yourself. If you want a resource that will guide you and give you a condensed overview, let me recommend this one here. Otherwise, keep reading my blog and work through the Bible studies posted on the home page.

 

My Story of Living with Muscular Dystrophy

Background

My growing up years were marked by the normal activities of any kid who was athletic. I played basketball out in the driveway almost every day–even if I had to shovel off the snow first. I played soccer from preschool to high school. I went through swimming lessons from the baby classes until I was a certified lifeguard. I lived on two and a half acres of rolling wooded hills in which I would blaze bike trails and pedal my bike up the steep hills. Looking back now I can tell that I was a slower runner than even the inactive, non-athletic kids in my class. I was always second or third to last in all the races during elementary field day. I was also generally weaker in arm wrestling contests. But there was never any indication and I never would have imagined that I had a disease. I just blamed myself for being slower and weaker; it was just my lot in life.

Turning Point

In high school I began to have recurring knee injuries while playing soccer. But the reason for my dislocated knees was simply explained as my having floating knee caps. The last time I dislocated my knee was at the end of summer camp where I had been working on the grounds crew and as a lifeguard (I was 16 to 17 years old). All I did was plant my foot to swing my other leg to go over a three foot fence. As I pivoted my knee dislocated. I sat out of soccer my whole junior year and joined again my senior year of high school but could no longer run. My coordination and ability to kick the soccer ball for a shot had totally disappeared. I just blamed my knees and myself, never imagining I could have a disease out of the blue. I had grown up healthy all my life. The only thing I knew had changed was the multiple knee injuries.

A Revelation

In the summer of 2002 I returned to work at the summer camp as a counselor. I thought I just needed to work hard at getting back in shape. But I couldn’t run; I could only jog. I couldn’t play some of the games that required carrying kids. I blamed myself, not imagining I had a disease. In the Fall of 2002, I went on a college outing to hike a trail in the Smoky Mountains. I couldn’t even walk up a moderate to steep incline. My friends had to carry me. I still just blamed myself for being out of shape. I had changed from my athletic pursuits to completely academic pursuits—sitting in my dorm room studying all day every day to get a 4.0. That was my new competition. I knew my muscles had atrophied around my knee and that my eating habits at college stunk so I blamed that.

In 2003, my Junior year of college, I couldn’t carry boxes and climb the stairs at the same time. I had to have one hand free to pull myself up by the railing. So I got a first floor room and talked to my family doctor at Christmas. I was simply told to work out at the fitness center to strengthen my knees because I had slight atrophy around my kneecaps, which was still being blamed on old soccer injuries and a lack of exercise or poor diet at college. I worked out several days a week just on my legs. I could barely walk after getting done with a 20-30 min. work out on the leg press. In the summer of 2004, before my Senior year of college, I went to a physical therapist hoping that she could direct me on how to work out correctly and gradually strengthen my knees. When she saw me enter the room and walk to her, she immediately told me that I had a muscle problem and not a knee problem. I was elated—I could stop blaming myself and get to the bottom of the cause of this problem. I would get it fixed and go back to my normal athletic self.

False Diagnosis and Harmful Treatment

My family doctor ran blood tests and discovered elevated CPK levels—dead muscle in the blood (ranging from 2000 to 8000—above the normal high range of 200). After getting a muscle biopsy, which was inconclusive, and testing my nerves with an EMG, which were fine, I was diagnosed with Polymyositis. I was treated by a Rheumatologist with 60mg of Prednisone pretty constantly, with the addition of Methotrexate, for a whole year (2004-2005). I was treated with the promise that I just needed to gut it out to see if it would eventually work. When I felt like my muscles were only getting catastrophically weaker and I just wanted to die and my parents thought the Rheumatologist was killing me, they put a stop to the treatments. They took me to an internal medicine doctor who taught at Wayne State University’s medical school and who sat on many boards and spoke for the NIH. He was horrified at my treatment, which should have followed the basic principle of do no harm to the patient. I was diagnosed with Idiopathic Myopathy until a true diagnosis could be determined.

Recovery

My new doctor weaned me off all of the meds and put me on a vitamin regimen. I lost weight and began to feel healthy again. I could walk on level ground again without feeling like I would collapse at every step. I got back to walking fairly normal again for the next four or five years.

My internal medicine doctor, with a research specialty in infectious disease, researched and tested me thoroughly. My muscle biopsy was reviewed again at the University of Michigan by boards of doctors but was still inconclusive. My case was also reviewed by the Muscular Dystrophy Association but they couldn’t be sure of anything without genetic testing. However, I didn’t feel comfortable with doing genetic testing in 2008 because of 1) cost (This was during the economic downturn in MI.) and 2) insurance (I was losing my dad’s insurance and applying for individual insurance because I was turning 26.). I seemed to be fairly steady or only worsening very slowly from 2006 to 2012.

Downward Spiral Again

From 2011 to 2013 I was working 60-70 hours a week as a teacher. In 2012 I had to use a walker for the first time because all of a sudden I could no longer walk from my apartment a short distance to my car without collapsing. I rarely collapsed before this, but now I couldn’t walk at all without my knee giving out or my muscles stiffening up to just try to hold me up. It was a massive and sudden change that I could observe. It could be overwork as a teacher or just the disease running its course.

Genetic Testing

When I came back home to live with my parents in South Carolina I had to begin using a scooter to get around any lengthy distance. The scooter actually was a blessing because I was able to get out and do things that I hadn’t done in a long time. I had been just not going out that far since I couldn’t walk all that much. After getting the scooter I could go out on “hikes” again. It gave me a lot of freedom.

Soon after moving to South Carolina I met someone who recommended Greenwood Genetics and encouraged me to get tested to figure out what I really had. Since I had a job with good group health insurance I was willing to try it. It was through the grants at Greenwood Genetics that I was able to get, cost effectively, the whole exome sequencing. After over ten years of not knowing what I had, it was a relief to finally get a diagnosis: Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy type 2A (Calpainopathy). Since this is a recessive condition (only passed on from a mistake in both parents’ calpain gene), there was no family history and I’m unlikely to pass it on.

Continuing to Live My Life by the Grace of God

For many years I thought I would never be able to get married. Most people would keep me at arms length. Certainly most girls wouldn’t risk a friendship let alone a relationship (And my goodness parents jumped in to put a stop to anything as soon as something seemed to be going toward the slightest friendship). People fear the unknown and won’t take risks in relationships. The same is true of many employers. I felt very alone for many years.

That’s why I thank the Lord for bringing me together with my wife and giving me a wonderful family. I want to be a testimony to those who, whether they’ll admit it or not, degrade the sanctity of life in people like me. Many won’t degrade me explicitly, but when there’s skin in the game they won’t “risk” giving me a chance. My wife is to be praised for giving me a chance to develop a relationship and serve her as her husband.

You can hear more about my testimony of how I live with this disease by the grace of God in this video here.

 

Does God Exist?

For someone to show interest in studying the Bible, two basic questions must be answered:

• Does God exist?
• Has God spoken?

Obviously it would be pointless to study the Bible if God did not really exist or had not spoken. In this post, we’ll focus on answering the first question.

Over the years philosophers have defended the existence of God in a variety of ways. I’ve found the best argument to be what’s called the Transcendental Argument. You can listen to an excellent example of this argument in use in “The Great Debate” between Greg Bahnsen and Gordon Stein here.

This argument is also called the Impossibility of the Contrary argument. Here is a brief summary of the argument.

One person claims that God exists. For another person to say contrary is logically impossible.

Really? Why?

The argument is that that person has no basis for a logical argument upon which he or she can argue to the contrary without in the end supporting his or her own worldview by necessarily borrowing from the Christian worldview. Because of this necessary borrowing from the Christian’s worldview, the atheist falsifies his or her own worldview.

How so?

Where does the atheist get certainty about the laws of logic, science, morality, and so on. He or she has no basis for this kind of absolute uniformity. Yet, without absolute laws he cannot do science or argue for laws of logical consistency or for laws of morality. He cannot be absolutely sure about anything. And yet people necessarily operate in this universe with some surety in the workability of the universe and in laws of logic (or we couldn’t even live and communicate in this world). Total relativity is not realistically possible. There are absolutes in this universe. The atheist can’t account for them.

An atheist has to use the laws of logic to make his arguments. However in so doing he must borrow from the Christian worldview which allows for these laws of logic to exist. These are abstract (metaphysical), universal, non-varying concepts, which cannot extend from the atheistic worldview – which only allows for material, always evolving, and varying/relative concepts that are based on sociological agreement.

Here’s an example: Mathematics’ rules are not just a convention that people make up that works – people discovered these laws that are inherently true (the communication of these laws through symbols may be a construct but the law itself is real/discovered and not just a construct). The atheistic worldview cannot justify the laws of mathematics because they have no valid basis for any universal, invariant, abstract entities that exist. A naturalist can never justify something being universal, invariant, abstract. Yet they use these to try to make their logical arguments (they use something to support their worldview which rules out these very things). What accounts for this? They borrow from my Christian worldview which says that this is one example of the existence of God – since this extends from the mind of the Creator God that made our world this way.

So here is the Transcendental argument: God is in fact a precondition for the experiences that we have (in order for our experiences to be possible). God exists. To say contrary is impossible because the reality of this world can never support that logically because of the absolutes that God has built into this world that cannot be accounted for otherwise.

This is demonstrated by the example of the existence of the laws of logic for which an atheist cannot justify or account for all the while trying to use them – the same is true for accounting for laws of science and morality. The laws of logic are justified in Christianity because they are derived from God and it must be the God of the Bible because that is the only self-coherent worldview (but that will have to be further argued elsewhere).

Romans 1:18-20 reveals that all humans have received God’s clear and unquestionable communication of His existence. God has made plain to all people certain things that can be known about Him. It is so plain that all people are without excuse. God has revealed His existence and power in the created order, in history, and in every individual’s own conscience. There is only one reason a person denies God’s existence. And it is not for lack of evidence. It is a purposeful rebellion, a suppression of the truth. Psalm 53:1 explains the reason: only a fool could deny the evidence of God’s existence. And such a person does so because he or she is corrupt. Such a person does not want to admit that he or she is in danger of judgment. So like a two year old who closes his eyes to pretend he is out of reach of his parents’ discipline, so also is the fool who denies his creator who made him to have embedded into his conscience the intrinsic knowledge of the Creator.

There’s a better way to deal with one’s own corruption. And it’s not to pretend it doesn’t exist or that God doesn’t exist. It’s to own it and to reckon with God. In fact, God has provided a way to rescue you from corruption and judgment. So there is no need to deny it or God and His coming judgment.

Romans 1:16-17

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

 

The Message of the Bible

Although the Bible is a long book with some complicated passages, the central message of the Bible can be easily understood. The message of the Bible can be summarized in one sentence:

The Bible is the one true story of what God is doing to glorify Himself by redeeming His fallen creation.

In fact, the central message of the Bible can be summarized in just three words: Creation, Fall, Redemption.

First, notice that the Bible is one story or storyline. From Genesis (the first book of the Bible) to Revelation (the last book of the Bible), one overarching plotline unfolds. All of the individual accounts fit into one bigger storyline (called the metanarrative).

Second, notice that the Bible claims to be a true story. The Bible is written as history, explaining all of reality and the truth that is founded on that reality. Its morality has no basis apart from its truth claims grounded in historical reality.

Third, notice that the main character and focus of the Bible centers on who God is and what He is doing. The Bible is not primarily about ourselves. It is about getting to know God and what He is accomplishing in the one true overarching story of the world.

Fourth, notice that all that God is doing is for HIs own glory. Glory refers to showcasing one’s own greatness. Who God is gets demonstrated by what God does. We are designed to stand in awe and bow in worship (recognizing HIs worth). The Bible reveals God’s glory by highlighting what He has done at selective turning points in the history of the world as He accomplishes His redemptive plan.

Fifth, notice that the central message of the Bible reveals how God glorifies Himself: by redeeming His fallen creation. The entire message of the Bible is summed up in the first three chapters of the Bible: Genesis 1-3. The rest of the Bible simply unfolds the storyline outlined in these chapters. God created all things. Humans were designed to reflect God’s glory by ruling this world in submission to His greater rule (Gen 1-2). But God’s image-bearers rebelled in sin, desiring to please themselves and be their own rulers. As a result, God justly judged the world and all humans with a curse of death and suffering (Gen.3). However, the sin that separates man from God, that puts man at odds against God, can be fixed and the curse reversed. The first hint of redemption, of restoration, is found in Genesis 3:15. God plans to send a descendent of man to crush the head of the serpent (the Devil). Even though that descendant’s heel will be bruised, that same heel will come smashing down on the head of the serpent.

Genesis 3:15 is like the thesis statement of an epic story. And the rest of the Bible’s many subplots unfold the coming of this descendent and the challenges to his coming.

Spoiler Alert:

Many have heard about who this descendent is and what He accomplished to crush the serpent’s head. But imagine reading the Bible for the first time without anyone telling you what was coming up later in the story. The Bible is a page-turner when you focus on the central thread of the story that needs to be fulfilled to rescue humanity from certain death. Each account in Scripture reveals a challenge to that fulfillment and God’s power to overcome those challenges. In the end, Jesus Christ (the promised Messiah) comes as the descendent predicted in Genesis 3:15. The very act that was meant to stop and to destroy Him (the cross) was the very act that crushed the serpent’s head. The perfectly innocent God-man provided the eternal substitutionary sacrifice that was necessary to rescue all those who would believe on Him, repent of sin, and confess Him as Lord and ruler over their lives. One day He will return to judge the earth. Salvation (deliverance) can only be found for those who are sheltered in Christ’s forgiveness.

This is the message, the good news, found in the Bible. We’ve only traced some outlines. You’ll have to explore more to fill in the details and to answer your questions about what is truth and what is reality. The Bible is God’s revelation to man so that he can know truth and reality and find salvation in Jesus.