Apparent Contradictions in the Bible

We Can Trust Scriptures vs. Can We Trust Scriptures?

For a Christian, Scriptures are the basis of what he believes. Scriptures are inspired by God and one can be sure that Scriptures never lie, because God simply cannot lie. God leads us ONLY to the truth: “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come” (John 16:13). The Bible itself tells us that it is a good teacher and we may use it to teach others: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3:16)

Nevertheless, if the Bible does contain contradictions, that has to mean that God is contradicting Himself. But, God cannot contradict Himself, thus one has to conclude that the Bible was written by man. Moreover, if Scriptures tell us that they were not written by man (“And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe” (1 Thessalonians 2:13)) but they were, that in itself is a contradiction. So if man is able to find even one true contradiction in the Bible, the whole book may be discarded.

However, what should one do if he does find an apparent contradiction in the Bible? Well, for one thing, maybe it is not a contradiction at all. The reader might be, simply, incorrectly interpreting Scriptures: “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthian...

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...heir way into heaven – they may fool people into believing that they are saved, but they won’t receive God mercy. Moreover, if one sincerely thinks that he can get to heaven by doing good works – he still won’t be able to do it. The only hope he’ll have is to truly understand the point James was making and change his beliefs ASAP! (Of course that’s easier said than done – but either way, it has to be done).

So, in conclusion, we must remember that the Bible does not contradict itself. The only reason why we might think that way is because we misinterpreted the Scriptures. It’s just like John Piper wrote: “The inspiration of the Word of God is like the incarnation of the Son of God. When the Son of God became a human being he became vulnerable to abuse and death. When the Word of God became human language, it became vulnerable to ambiguity and misunderstanding”.