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• Should women still wear head coverings in church?

This quandary is from 1 Corinthians 11 in which Paul clearly instructs women to wear head coverings, there are no two ways about it. He states that if they did not wear coverings then it is their disgrace. Most religious commentators on the issue, whether Jew, Muslim, or Christian, will mention that the prostitutes of Corinth shaved their heads as a prerequisite to serving in the temple of Aphrodite’s. Despite different agendas in their saying so, there seems to be consensus on the practices of temple prostitutes. This is very much worth noting.

This issue I place among a few issues I like to call “give unto Caesar” issues. I take that from Jesus’ remark that we should give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s in regards to paying taxes in Mark 12:

13 Then they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Him in order to trap Him in a statement.14They came and said to Him, “Teacher, we know that You are truthful and defer to no one; for You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to pay a poll-tax to Caesar, or not? 15 Shall we pay or shall we not pay?” But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, “Why are you testing Me? Bring Me a denarius to look at.” 16 They brought one. And He said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?”And they said to Him, “Caesar’s.” 17 And Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were amazed at Him.

What shall we say then? If our currency has the likeness of a person on it, then we ought give it to that person? Surely not. I submit that Jesus is teaching a different principle here entirely. Could it be the same principle expressed in Rom 12:18 “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.” I consider the issues both of Paul’s comments on slavery and on most topics regarding women to be in the same vein of thinking. Heb 12:14 writes “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” The conclusion of this sentence strikes me. Is not being at peace so far as you are able a crucial part of sharing the message of Christ? If it is, then it is very reasonable to suppose that Paul may well write instructions that apply only to the environment and peoples to which He is writing; giving cultural instructions on how to keep peace.

I find it also noteworthy to look at Paul’s case against everyone speaking in tongues within the church 1 Cr 14:23 “Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad?” Paul is in fact concerned with whether or not non-believers think they are mad. Why? Because that could ultimately keep them from the Gospel! This is important to remember in any and every day and age. We need not make useless barriers between us and the world. I therefore conclude that this guideline was a conditional recommendation based on the cultural expectation of women. It is Paul’s agenda to arm each church with the tools best for reaching their respective communities. A great article on this for further reading can be found here: http://www.faithdefenders.com/church-life/headcoverings.html

• Why do we no longer have to follow all of the old testament laws, just certain ones? Isn’t that just picking what you want to believe?

There are at least a hundred ways to approach this question, but lets say you are on your lunch break with a co-worker and they pose this question to you, what can be said? Much depends on what sort of previous exposure the person may have with the Bible, but let us assume they know next to nothing. I would start with Matthew 5:

17“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. …20“For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

He goes on to the meat of the sermon on the mount, where everything which seemed possible, is raised to nearly unreachable standards (see http://nathanaelw.com/2013/05/07/is-the-law-too-hard-on-purpose/ ) . The mosaic law was provisional, as within itself it could not judge or purify the heart; which has always been the core issue. The penal system of the mosaic law has been satisfied in Christ. It is not a picking and choosing from the old testament that we live, but instead it is based solely on what Christ taught, believing that His teachings encompass the purpose of the mosaic law. It is clear that Jesus and all of His apostles revered the Law, but that it was not enough within itself. Many refer to it as sort of the necessary framework for redemption, as God would need to both expose our wickedness, and subsequently offer atonement. Rom 8:3-4

For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

There is so much more than can be said on this topic. Much scholastic thought goes into the subject. I would assure any seeker that they are not alone, and that robust satisfying answers exist for all the nuances of the matter. I would refer them to investigate the workings of Douglas J Moo and F.F. Bruce.

• What is the purpose of church and how should I decide which one to attend?

This one is pretty subjective. In the Bible bodies of believers were divided simply by proximity from each other. Paul doesn’t seem to have any distinction of denominations, rather much more he rebukes the idea that groups may ascribe to a certain teacher. 1 Cr 1:13 Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? There really is no exegetical guidance we can extrapolate from the Scriptures to guide us to any particular denomination. We can, however, make sure we find churches that adhere minimally to the standards disclosed in Apostolic letters.

It’s interesting to wonder what the purpose of church is, in so much as to say, it reminds me of asking what purpose a car, or house, or a gym might have. There purposes are often pronounced in detail in the vision statements. Paul’s letter were written to churches, and if that in itself doesn’t validate the need for church, consider how much content is spent on instructing followers how to behave and how to lead in church. Buildings are merely vehicles through which groups of people share in a common identity. I would also consider Church like a spiritual gym for our inner man. In the same way a gym is designed to be tasking and stretch every part of you until it hurts, so that outside of the gym you will have more strength. I think God designed the church in such a way that the social elements and difficulties we encounter are there only in order to strength us for the “real life” situations we will face. It’s like training in general: of course it’s going to be difficult, that’s the point exactly.

• Noah’s ark, one man and his wife hand build a boat capable of carrying two of every creature, one of each sex.

Well, this I think could be disarmed a number of ways. I’ve addressed this issue elsewhere aswell (http://nathanaelw.com/2013/01/26/6-claims-plagues-flood-plants-dragons-james-and-paul/ ) but I would add a bit here:

In Genesis 6, and throughout the narrative of the flood, we have the word ‘erets [Strong’s H776] beings used for earth. Instead of appealing simply to the optional definitions of that word, why don’t we just look at some other places it’s used? We are only going to look at passages that don’t define it within with surrounding words like Gen 4:19 “Then Cain went out from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land[H776] of Nod, east of Eden.” That one is explicit that he doesn’t mean the whole planet. So then does it mean the earth in the global sense unless it says otherwise? Let us see:

Lev 25:10 ‘You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land[H776] to all its inhabitants…

Jos 6:27 So the LORD was with Joshua, and his fame was in all the land[H776].

These are really only two from such a huge collection of examples. Are we meaning to suppose Moses meant the entire global world in these instances? Surely not! Look for yourself at the many times that word appears, a majority of which is it not translated to mean the global earth, but rather, the known world at the time. Even today when we say universe we really ought to be saying observable universe because we cannot say anything of the universe we do not know exists yet. http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H776&t=NASB

Also worth noting, is that Noah in no way had to have two of every modern species of animal and subspecies. In early human history there would have been many less animals, I personal adhere to the concept that God made only the parenting phylum, thus Noah may have need much less space and food that we would today when trying to care for all the animals of a single region. The flood only needs to be large enough to kill of all of humanity at the time.

• Then you have the boy swallowed by a whale who survived in the belly of a whale or giant fish regardless of which both are equally ridiculous, so you have the story of Jonah who bathed in stomach acid for three days without oxygen and survived.

As I looked into this, it wasn’t quite as clean cut as I would have liked. In the past I had read an article that told of a man who reportedly was swallowed up by a sperm whale and survived unconscious for three days until a team gutting the whale and found him. It turns out the story is very likely fictional, though a very very old story which has been republished a number of times. The story originate very close to the date of this article from the “Academy of Sciences in late December 1895, in which the Prince of Monaco had reported the capture of a sperm whale near the Azores. Just before it died, the animal vomited up several large cephalopods, including specimens of three new species. When the whale’s stomach was opened, it contained the remains of more cephalopods, at least one of which was judged to have exceeded two meters in length.” (http://www.reasons.org/articles/a-modern-jonah)

This means that there are at least sea creatures that could potentially carry a human sized specimen still intact. Also, it is always worth noting it doesn’t have to be a whale by any means, just a sea dwelling fish and/or mammal.

I myself don’t believe we live in a causally closed universe. This means that by whatever means He should like, He is able to. What makes people so uncomfortable with this, is law of entropy, or the 2^nd law of thermodynamics. These law are extremely useful, but within their definition they state outright that it applies only to an isolated system. But do we or don’t we live in an isolated system? Well that’s a philosophical question isn’t it? I am currently under the impression that God uses primarily the available nuances of quantum mechanics for His special interactions with us. Particles are bouncing back in forth in our solar system in just moments, embodying and disembodying material states. I don’t mean to be making a claim from our ignorance, but just as God inspired as a gust of wind perhaps pushing you out of harms way, so also would Gods tinkering in particle clouds.

The resurrection, walking on water, are not arguments made for a causally closed system. No one is arguing these things can be done unassisted, but rather that God can assist if He should so choose. Furthermore if you should like to believe we exist in a causally closed universe then you must reconcile the strong appears of freewill. If the classical view of freewill is ture, and our biochemistry doesn’t define our humanity, then supernatural intervention with the material world happens all day long in our brains as we excessive free agency. The placebo effect is another great example to me which suggests it is not the chemicals which mediate our thoughts, but our thoughts that mediate our chemicals.

• Why would god leave out the presence of dinosaurs in his tale of creation (minus the one or two giant lizard references) when they clearly had a role on this planet before us.

Why would God not tell Moses the earth is round, or about bacteria or germs? The lists could go on and on. The simple answer is that the Bible was never intended to be a science book. Every book has an author who has a specific reason for which they are writing; an agenda which I believe God inspired. I perhaps would like to know how the Muslim would rebuttal your question, as they firmly believe their holy book was strictly dictated as through directly from God and onto paper. Much like we see happen with the ten commandments where Moses brings the stone and God writes directly on it. Even then however, it doesn’t necessarily follow that God ought to disclose unique scientific facts unless it benefits them.

Furthermore if God grants the intellect of man, then He may have intentionally wanted to mankind of find dinosaurs in the manner in which we did. He has always been an all knowing God, but also a personal God, in the sense that He concerns Himself when our concerns. Also consider if God told Moses all sorts of crazy sounding theories about dinosaurs that once ruled the earth, long before anyone had evidence of them. Would that not ultimately create a hindrance to the spreading of His Gospel? People of the day would think Israel believed crazy nonsense. Gosh, and what about germs, imagine if they tried making sense of that! It’s a bit ironic to me that God has always appealed to the science of the day in that sense. Yet, in our day I know people who will gladly appear mad to the world. Never considering that maybe the world around us does want to believe, but that they have a legitimate intellectual barrier keeping them from it; it’s just no help at all to say “leave you brain at the door” and then later say “love the Lord with all your mind.”

Why the Hell? see http://www.str.org/articles/can-the-idea-of-hell-be-defended#.UYw7m7Xvh8E

He says it better than I can anyways.

On the problem of evil: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-problem-of-evil

Some Comments:

Cody WalshThe big question about per-destination is my sin

Nathanael Patrick WalshYou don’t think a God outside of time satisfies the quandary?

Cody WalshI think I know how to explain it, I just was throwing out a fun topic. I’ll say it this way. Was I, and am I destined to sin? Was my parents divorce pre-destined? Was that guy who went hell pre-destined?

Nathanael Patrick WalshWas it “already” known? Yes. Did God make it happen? No. Did God allow it? Yes. Is it loving for God to allow people to do things other than what He wants them to do? I wager the answer is yes

Lynsie ArgentiI had a friend who asked me the other night if God is so loving why does he let bad things happen or not intervene….

Nathanael Patrick WalshThere’s a lot we could say, but sometimes its possible to appeal to a persons own intuition. First maybe ask why should he? And they may try to answer or just say “well why shouldn’t he?”

Then offer some example: if I give you a car and you use it to rob banks, and I hate robbing banks, is it my right to take my car back? Wouldn’t that infringe on your free choice to do what you want with what I gave you? Even if you use it in a way I despise, doesn’t mean I can just take it back. The logic people use it “well he’s all powerful and all loving soooo..” to which I would say “so He should restrict the freewill He gave you?” At which point, He should have just made robots if He wanted creatures that would only do what He wanted them to. See also http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-problem-of-evil

Questions provided by Ellie Bledsoe & Michael Peters. Links provided for subsequent issues.