Apparent Faith by Karl Forehand

Author:Karl Forehand [Forehand, Karl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quoir
Published: 2019-06-30T22:00:00+00:00

For Christians, the focus should be primarily on Jesus Christ. After all, we were first labeled as “little Christ’s” in the New Testament.

Over the years as I allowed more things to become a question mark instead of a statement, the answers became clearer. I began to see a Christlike God who is loving, merciful, and full of grace. I understood what he said about not coming to judge the world, I saw his compassion and felt his love for the whole world. I read several authors like Peter Enns, Keith Giles and Brad Jersak who encouraged me to interpret the Bible through the lens of Jesus. Jesus’ words and actions became the starting pointing for understanding what the Bible says, and sometimes, what it did not. Through my pastor, Brian Zahnd, I came to understand Christianity as a tree and the Bible as the soil out of which it grows. Both need each other, but they are separate and different. And, by the way, we do not need to idolize either one of them. For Christians, the focus should be primarily on Jesus Christ. After all, we were first labeled as “little Christ’s” in the New Testament.

Taking the Bible literally and claiming that it is inerrant requires some prerequisites. One of those prerequisites is to consider how the Bible came together. In the year 325 A. D., multiple councils met to formalize the Scriptures to include both the Hebrew Scriptures and some 1st Century writings in one coherent volume or canon. This coincides with Constantine’s action to unite the church with Empire and his desire to have 50 copies of a standard canon in the Church of Constantinople around 331 A.D. By the 5th century, a series of councils had met and agreed on the Canon of Scripture. Questions still lingered for me though and I wondered, “How do I, we, know that they got it right?”

A great example of my struggle with this is found in interpreting 2 Kings 1 (Old Testament for those following along in their Bibles). Moab rebels against Israel, Ahaziah has an accident and wants to know if he will recover. So, he sends messengers to ask the god of Ekron to make the call. Apparently, this upsets the angel of the Lord who sends the prophet Elijah to ask him, “Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?” The angel adds, “You shall surely die.” God seems to go out of his way here just because he did not get consulted.

After Elijah delivers the message, the king sends a captain and fifty men to invite Elijah to come visit with these words: “O man of God, the king says, ‘Come down.’” Apparently, that is the wrong thing to say to a prophet because he responds, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” And, according to the account, fire came down and consumed them.

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