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I once got into a discussion with a fellow Christian about some topic. One of us brought up a verse that supposedly proved the point and the conversation was over.<\/p>\n
Sound familiar?<\/p>\n
Sure it does. You\u2019ve been there too.<\/p>\n
So let me pretend. I\u2019m going to ask a question and answer it: should you, as a Christian, have fear? Should you, Christian, be afraid?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n No, never! <\/em><\/strong>The Bible repeatedly has God sending his messengers saying \u201cfear not\u201d and \u201cbe not afraid\u201d (Deut 1:29; Isaiah 44:8). The Bible says that if we have love we won\u2019t have fear because perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). And the Bible says that God hasn\u2019t given us a spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7).<\/p>\n Yes, of course!<\/em><\/strong> The Bible outright tells Believers that we should have fear (Heb 4:1). In fact, it tells us that we should work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12).<\/p>\n An Obvious Problem<\/strong><\/p>\n There, two opposite answers. And it only happened because we came to the Bible like it was a magic eight ball.<\/p>\n Folk today don\u2019t know what a Magic Eight Ball is. Back in the day the Magic Eight Ball was this plastic sphere filled with oil and a little pyramid. You would ask it a Yes or No question, shake it, then you would see the words come to the surface \u201cYes, most definitely\u201d or \u201cNo. Unlikely.\u201d Or the dreaded \u201cMaybe\u201d and \u201cAsk again later\u201d.<\/p>\n Since the Bible talks about a lot of things, and since the Word of God is fundamental to the believer\u2019s life, we rightly come to it with questions. But since it is divided into books, chapters, verse and verse sections we don\u2019t always see how one sentence connects with the next.<\/p>\n We miss the thought flow<\/a>.<\/p>\n For example, if I were to examine the verses that I gave for both answers their context would tell me that although they had bearing on the subject, they really weren\u2019t answering the question. I don\u2019t do this to remove a verse from consideration but I rather use it to see if the verse is actually talking about what the answer says.<\/p>\n Deut 1:29<\/strong> sits in the middle of a discussion between Moses and Israel. Moses is talking about the people who were afraid to go fight their enemies that God had handed over to them. They were to act knowing that God had their back.<\/p>\n Isaiah 44:8<\/strong> isn\u2019t talking about generally being afraid but rather not being afraid that God is different from Idols: God is the real deal.<\/p>\n 1 John 4:18<\/strong> starts off in verse 17 telling us about how love is perfected in us so that we have confidence in the Day of Judgment.<\/p>\n 2 Timothy 1:7<\/strong> is a private letter between Paul and Timothy where Paul is encouraging Timothy to keep suffering for the gospel like Paul (v 8).<\/p>\n Hebrews 4:1<\/strong> is talking about a concern for the community to ensure that the professing Christians are holding fast to their confession. This is Phil 2:4 in action: not being only concerned with personal interests but the needs of others.<\/p>\n Phil 2:12<\/strong> can\u2019t be talking about people only concerned with their own salvation because Phil 2:4 talks about the needs of the others. He might be saying to be concerned with the salvation of the church as a whole. Maybe in light of Phil 1:28-30 Paul is saying the church as a whole will be saved through suffering while Phil 3:20\u201321 might mean the salvation that comes at the end of time. But either way the church is to be concerned with that work within the group as a whole because God is working in the group as a whole.<\/p>\n You see, some questions are bigger than a yes or no answer. The yes or no answer might ignore the context of the text<\/a> just so that it proves a point.<\/p>\n When we run up against a question, we need to peel away layers to see what the question is asking. If this is a discussion with a person we\u2019d ask the person \u201cwhat do you mean?\u201d but when it\u2019s a discussion with words we have to use Calculatus Eliminatus<\/em>.<\/p>\n The Cat in the Hat said \u201cWhen you’ve mislaid a certain something, keep your cool and don’t get hot. Calculatus eliminatus<\/em> is the best friend that you’ve got. Calculatus eliminatus <\/em>always helps an awful lot. The way to find a missing something is to find out where it’s not.\u201d<\/p>\nA Closer Look<\/h2>\n
Asking and Answering the Right Way<\/h2>\n