The silence of God

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If there is a God, why is his presence not more obvious?

This is a question that has worried believers and unbelievers alike.

We cry out with Job:

Job 23:3 O that I knew where I might find him!

Or with the Psalmist:

Psa 28:1 To you, O LORD, I cry out!
My protector, do not ignore me!
If you do not respond to me,
I will join those who are descending into the grave.

Answers based on unbelief

  1. The answer of the deist is that God has made the cosmos, but has now withdrawn to leave it running by itself. 
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Exodus 3:1-3 – The burning bush

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3:1 Now Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. 3:2 The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from within a bush. He looked—and the bush was ablaze with fire, but it was not being consumed! 3:3 So Moses thought, “I will turn aside to see this amazing sight.…

Mt 19:24; Mk 10:25; Lk 18:25 – ‘A camel…through the eye of a needle’

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Mark 10:25 “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

See also Mt 19:24; Lk 18:25.

It is occasionally claimed either that:

(a) kamelos (camel) should be read as kamilos (rope): the two words sounded the same in the days of koine Greek (Cole).  According to Garland, the words of ‘rope’ and ‘camel’ are also similar in Aramaic.…

Paul and the Pastorals: seven questions for doubters

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The Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles (the letters to Timothy and Titus) is often doubted in scholarly circles.  Andrew Wilson notes some ‘probing questions’ from Gerald Bray:

1. Who would have been sufficiently motivated to impersonate Paul, and why?
2. Why did the pseudepigrapher(s) produce three letters when one would have been enough?
3. If (as many claim) the recipients of the Epistles were not deceived, why was their knowledge so easily lost in the next generation?…

12 things God cannot do

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We often focus on what God can do.  But think for a moment of what he cannot do:

He cannot

  • learn
  • be surprised
  • change his mind
  • be seen
  • bear to look at evil
  • change
  • be lonely
  • suffer
  • die
  • be tempted
  • lie
  • disown himself.

But consider, too, that in the Incarnation God did what he cannot do:

  • God cannot learn, yet Jesus grew in wisdom and knowledge
  • God cannot be tempted, yet Jesus knew the fullness of temptation
  • God cannot suffer and die, and yet Jesus experienced suffering and death

God cannot sleep. …

Discussion Starters, Acts 16:16-40

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(a) In the lead-up to this imprisonment, Paul deals with a slave girl ‘who had a spirit’. It is not immediately obvious that this was an evil spirit. Why might we suppose that this was indeed an evil spirit and that Paul was right to make it leave the girl?

(b) Paul’s (and his companions’) visit to Philippi was in direct response to a vision from God (verses 6-10). But it led them into big trouble with the authorities, and to flogging and imprisonment.…

Discussion Starters, Acts 16:11-15

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Lydia is described as a woman who ‘worshiped’ God, whose heart the Lord ‘opened…to respond to Paul’s message’.

(a) What do you think it meant for Lydia to have been a ‘worshiper of God’?  Who today might be similarly described, but has yet to hear and respond to the Christian message?

(b) Lydia’s experience of coming to Christian faith seems to have been quite calm and unspectacular.  Paul’s, on the other hand, had been much more dramatic. …

Acts 16:10, etc. – The ‘we’ passages

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Acts 16:10 After Paul saw the vision, we attempted immediately to go over to Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

16:11 We put out to sea from Troas and sailed a straight course to Samothrace, the next day to Neapolis, 16:12 and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of that district of Macedonia, a Roman colony. We stayed in this city for some days.…

1 Cor 11:29 – Eating and drinking ‘without careful regard for the body’

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11:27 Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 11:28 A person should examine himself first, and in this way let him eat the bread and drink of the cup. 11:29 For the one who eats and drinks without careful regard for the body eats and drinks judgment against himself.

What is meant by eating and drinking ‘without careful regard for the body’?…

Exhortation in the New Testament

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Exhortation in the preaching of Jesus

Characteristics of Jesus’ preaching:

  • Appeal to the OT (32 times in Matthew, quoting 11 different books).
  • Practical application of the text.
  • Use of illustrations.
  • Preaching for a verdict.

The Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7) presents practical applications of the law (e.g. anger (5:21–26), lust (5:27–30), loving your enemies (5:43–48), giving to the needy (6:1–4), and so on), but Jesus does not stop there.  He concludes his sermon with a series of exhortations (Mt 7:13-27):

‘As Jesus began his conclusion, he gave a powerful word picture showing that his sermon does, in fact, demand a response.

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