Category Archives: Tough texts

Lk 17:21 – “The kingdom of God is in your midst”

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Lk 17:20 Now at one point the Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God was coming, so he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, 17:21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is in your midst.”

Various interpretations have been proposed:

(a) Some think that this is a later addition to the Gospel, attempting to deal with the so-called ‘delay of the Parousia’ and seeking to ‘spiritualise’ the notion of the kingdom of God.…

Rev 19:13 – ‘He is dressed in clothing dipped in blood’

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Rev 19:11 Then I saw heaven opened and here came a white horse! The one riding it was called “Faithful” and “True,” and with justice he judges and goes to war. 19:12 His eyes are like a fiery flame and there are many diadem crowns on his head. He has a name written that no one knows except himself. 19:13 He is dressed in clothing dipped in blood, and he is called the Word of God.…

1 Cor 10:8 – ‘Twenty-three thousand died’

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10:6 These things happened as examples for us, so that we will not crave evil things as they did. 10:7 So do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” 10:8 And let us not be immoral, as some of them were, and twenty-three thousand died in a single day.

The reference is to Num 25:9 which, however, puts the number who died in the plague as twenty-four thousand. …

1 Sam 15 – Saul and the Amalekites

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1 Samuel 15 tells of the command of God to Saul that he should completely destroy a people called the Amalekites.

What are we to make of this?

Steve McAlpine tackles it as follows (this is a precis):

(a) From a philosophical perspective, the Christian apologist should refuse to allow the discussion to be framed by secular thinking.  Such thinking demands that we not only prove that God exists, but that he/she/it is that kind of god we find believable. …

1 Tim 6:11; 2 Tim 3:18 – ‘Man of God’

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1 Tim 6:9 Those who long to be rich, however, stumble into temptation and a trap and many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evils. Some people in reaching for it have strayed from the faith and stabbed themselves with many pains.
6:11 But you, as a person dedicated to God [lit. ‘O man of God’], keep away from all that.…

Eze 28:11-19 – Is Satan a fallen angel?

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28:11 The word of the LORD came to me: 28:12 “Son of man, sing a lament for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘This is what the sovereign LORD says:
“ ‘You were the sealer of perfection,
full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
28:13 You were in Eden, the garden of God.
Every precious stone was your covering,
the ruby, topaz, and emerald,
the chrysolite, onyx, and jasper,
the sapphire, turquoise, and beryl;
your settings and mounts were made of gold.…

Mk 6:8f; Mt 10:10; Lk 9:3 – Staff, or no staff?

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Mk 6:8 He instructed them to take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts—6:9 and to put on sandals but not to wear two tunics.

Mt 10:9f ‘”Do not take gold, silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for the journey, or an extra tunic, or sandals or staff, for the worker deserves his provisions.”‘

Lk 9:3 ‘He said to them, “Take nothing for your journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, and do not take an extra tunic.”‘…

Acts 9:7/22:9 – What did Paul’s companions see and hear?

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Acts 9:7 (Now the men who were traveling with him stood there speechless, because they heard the voice but saw no one.)

22:9 “Those who were with me saw the light, but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me.”

Acts 9:7 appears to be saying that Paul’s companions heard but did not see, whereas according to Acts 22:9 they saw but did not hear.

This apparent discrepancy is discussed as a ‘test case’ in Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (Zondervan).…

Exodus 6:2 – When was the name ‘Yahweh’ first made known?

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Exodus 6:2 “I am the LORD. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.”

The Issue

Source critics point out that this (attributed to ‘P’) appears to contradict Gen 4:26 (attributed to ‘J’), which says that men called upon the name of the LORD as early as the days of Enosh (see also Gen 12:8; 28:13).

Steven DiMattei asks:

‘When was the name Yahweh first invoked: in the earliest generations of man OR not till Moses at Sinai?

…

1 Sam 34:1-4; 2 Sam 1:1-10 – How did King Saul die?

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According to 1 Samuel 34:1-14, Saul asked his armor-bearer to kill him, but the armor-bearer refused, and so Saul fell on his own sword and committed suicide.

However in 2 Samuel 1:1-10 an Amalekite claims to have killed Saul, at his (Saul’s) request.

What should we make of this discrepancy?

Some, such as Ackroyd, think that the two accounts represent two incompatible ‘traditions’ concerning Saul’s death.

Others, such as Brueggemann, are unwilling to adjudicate on the relative historicity of the two accounts.…