Month: February 2025

Two More Deadly Mistakes

In my last blog, I told how there are a number of false ideas popular in our culture, regarding the Bible and the Christian faith. These ideas are not only incorrect, but are also quite deadly, as they teach falsehoods that can lead people into soul-condemning beliefs. For example, if a false belief causes a person to deny Jesus Christ is God, that denial will lead that person to miss the salvation Christ purchased for them. As John 3:18 warns, “whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

The first two deadly mistakes people make were covered in the last blog:     A. “Jesus never said he was God,” and B. “A loving God would never send anyone to hell.”

Now, we’re going to look at two more deadly mistakes:

C. “Love is love.” Especially, advocates for same-sex activity push the idea that all love is the same. Therefore, just so you love someone, it doesn’t matter if the Bible condemns sexual actions with the person whom you love (i.e., want to have sex with). Since the core message of the Bible is “love each other,” we modern people know the full meaning of that term. We expand love to everybody we are fond of.

So, are they right? Well, no. There are three things wrong with such thinking.

1.  Love has many meanings. The Bible uses the appropriate words in the original languages to convey the writers’ intent. The New Testament Greek words for “love” include phileo (brotherly love, friendship), storge (comfort, familial love), eros (romantic love, sexual love), and agape, (selfless love, sacrificial acts for the benefit of other people).

The word used most in the New Testament for love is agape. John 3:16 says, “God so agaped* the world”; Jesus said the first commandment was “You shall agape the Lord your God with all your heart . . . And a second is like it: You shall agape your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).  And another use: “God shows his agape for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The love which God in Christ has for us, is the same type of love he commands for us to have toward him and each other. While a husband and wife must also have apape for each other, the other form of spousal love, eros, is not proper with anyone else.

2. The second reason they are wrong is because God has expressly forbidden, in both Testaments, sexual activity with anyone of the same sex (or with animals). “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” (Leviticus 18:22). “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable” (Leviticus 20:13). In Romans 1:26-27, we read, “For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” Finally, we read, “Understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine.” 

And as for animals, “And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion” (Leviticus 18:23).

3. The third reason people are wrong to promote same-sex relations, is they are interfering with God’s creative intent to fill the earth with people created in his image. His creative design of men and women is to have them come together and create babies. In same-sex unions, this is impossible, and God’s will is stymied. The divine purpose is stated at the creation: Genesis 1:27-28, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it'”

D. “The Bible we have today has been corrupted over the centuries.” You commonly hear from people who want to diminish the impact or authority of Scripture by saying it can’t be trusted. They point to ancient books never included in the Bible, to variations in translations, or to supposed censorship by councils and churches. Some say the Bible has been corrupted by copying errors, sort of like a game of “whisper down the lane.”

The answers to these charges are so plentiful I don’t have enough room to cover them all here; there are entire books dedicated to refuting them. I will just cover the outlines of why such statements are false with the major arguments against them:

1. Which books are in the Bible: No church or council ever had control over the list of accepted Bible books. Churches around the entire Mediterranean Sea had copies of books they gathered and recognized as scripture. There existed early lists of the biblical canon as far back as the 2nd Century. Some other books were read but never included in the accepted scriptures.

2. Hand copied books always have some copyest errors. But Old Testament books had such stringent copying rules, that when a copy of Isaiah was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to 1000 years before the previously known Isaiah, they were almost exactly the same; the only differences made no significance. And the New Testament books have over 5,000 copies that can be studied with the rules of manuscript criticism to have confidence in the original text.

3. Certain books have been suggested by modern scholars as genuine, such as The Gospel of Judas, but they are late fictions full of heretical teachings and imaginary conversations between biblical figures and Jesus. Many were found in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, site of a heretical community, but were never used in the churches. Bible scholars term them as pseudepigrapha, meaning false writings. The Christian churches were very careful regarding which books they accepted; even books they liked, such as The Didache (The Teachings), they didn’t consider as part of the canon.

4. A couple of Mormon elders once told me the Bible had been corrupted over the centuries as it was passed down from church to church and from one language to another. Unlike, they said, the Book of Mormon, which was copied by Joseph Smith without error (Not mentioning the 70,000 changes since its first edition in 1830). Okay: quick recap of Bible history: The Old Testament Hebrew text was accepted by the Jews as the Masoretic Text in 900 AD.  The Greek text, known as the Septuagint around the third Century BC. Both have been preserved ever since (when the New Testament quotes the Old Testament, it uses the Septuagint wording. As it happened, our modern English version don’t go back over the centuries to copy from one language to another. Modern translations make uses of the best copies of the texts of original Hebrew, and Greek.

5. Often, people blame the Roman Catholic Church for censoring the ancient Bible to support their beliefs. But the Bible has never been the sole property of any church. While they had an official version of the Bible, The Latin Vulgate, other churches had their own, too. Therefore, any Catholic influences were held in check by Orthodox and Protestant scholars.

The result of the careful protection of the biblical text, is our confidence that we can trust the Bible as the Word of God, and our only authority for faith and life.

When I sent out the first blog of “Deadly Mistakes,” one of my readers replied with two more deadly mistakes he thought I should address. So, I have decided to take on two more mistakes in the next blog: You’ll have to tune in again to find out what they are!

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up he countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Deuteronomy 4:8; Isaiah 40:8; Psalm 119; 2 Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 4:12

*Grammatically, the forms of the word agapeo used in these passages follow the rules of Greek. I am using simplified forms for ease of reading.

Two Deadly Mistakes

There are a number of statements about Christianity that are popular in our culture today, that are unfortunately not only mistaken, but also dangerous to people’s spiritual well-being. Some of these ideas may sound true, but though they may use religious words and concepts, they are actually contrary to the true faith, and lead people astray to their eternal destruction.

So, what are some of these erroneous ideas and statements? Consider the following:

A. “Jesus was a moral teacher or prophet, but he never said he was God.” Many people hear this claim and repeat it without seeking the truth themselves. But, if they actually studied the Scriptures, they would find the following words of Jesus (besides the many passages where biblical writers called him God):

    1.  Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). The next verse said the Jews picked up stones to stone him, because they said he was claiming to be God.
    2.  Jesus said to Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
    3. When Jesus told the religious leaders that Abraham looked forward to his day, they argued that Jesus was too young to have known Abraham. Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am“ (John 8:58). By saying, “I am” Jesus was using the name for God from the Book of Exodus. As soon as he said that, the Jews recognized what he was saying,”So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple” (John 8:59).
    4. Jesus prayed to the Father, “That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,” (John 17:21-22)
    5. Jesus claimed to be “the Lord of the Sabbath,” a title that would be proper only for God himself to say (Matthew 12:8).
    6. Jesus forgave a paralytic his sins: “And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:5-7).
    7.  After Jesus calmed the stormy sea by command, the disciples marveled and asked, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” (Matthew 8:27).

These are in addition to the many miraculous things that Jesus did which were signs of his divinity. One of my favorite defense of Jesus’ godhood is this:

C.S. Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity, wrote, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

B. “A loving God could never send people to hell.” This false statement is due to wishful thinking based on the apparent contradiction between a God who loves the “whole world” (John 3:16) and yet sends any one (or many people) to eternal punishment. There are really two responses to that. First, How could a loving God NOT send some people to hell? Should a mass murderer, a rapist, a thief, people who disobey and disbelieve in God, who reject his offer of forgiveness in Christ, be welcomed into heaven along with faithful and obedient people who repent of their sins? What about Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, or others be treated the same as believers who were martyred for their faith? How could a loving God allow injustice to rule without punishment as its consequences? Such a God is unable to save or mete out true justice.

The second answer to this question is based on Scripture. The Bible teaches there is a place of punishment called, variously; Sheol, Tartarus, Hades, Hell, Gehenna, the Lake of Fire, and the “outer darkness.” These are used as warnings  and as places of divine punishment. Of these, the final eternal punishment punishment is called the lake of fire for both fallen angels (including the devil) and everyone not found in the Book of Life (Revelation 20:10-15). Specific warnings are given to unrepentant sinners: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). Another example of judgment is told by Jesus who tells of a rich man who is judged for ignoring the suffering of a poor man named Lazarus. When Lazarus dies, he goes to the bosom of Abraham (heaven) but the rich man goes to Hades, where he suffers burning heat (Luke 16:19-25).

Jesus warned of judgment for many people, saying “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13-14). Even the love promised in John 3:16, is followed immediately by the warning of John 3:18 – “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Then, there is the warning in Revelation 21:8, which says: “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Those who deny the judgment are, literally, “playing with fire.” They are betting their eternal future that if there’s a God, they will be fine, because God loves them too much to condemn them. But the Apostle warns us in Galatians 6:7, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.” The day will come when the reality of hell will be undeniable, and all self-deception will vanish in the lake of fire.

Unfortunately, there are other things commonly believed that are also false – and dangerous – that we need to address. Stay tuned to the next blog when we refute “Two More Deadly Mistakes.”

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Luke 16; Revelation 20.