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Difficult Bible Passages - Part 1 - FF S2 E11
8 Plays19 hours ago
In todays episode we dive into a couple difficult Bible passages that we struggle to know how to explain and understand. Like all good dads should, we try to help one another grasp ahold of what God is teaching us. Even if we don't always understand. Listen and be challenged, and maybe you will have the insight we need!
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Transcript
Introduction to Fatherhood Friday
00:00:11
Speaker
Well, hello everybody. Welcome to Fatherhood Friday brought to you by the Preacher Dad Podcast. My name is Jared. I'm the Preacher Dad and I'm glad you're here. Thanks for joining
Understanding Confusing Bible Verses
00:00:20
Speaker
us. You know, have you ever been reading your Bible and you come across a verse and you go, whoa, what is that there for?
00:00:28
Speaker
I do not understand what that was saying. Well, that's what we're going to talk about on this episode. We're just going to throw out some verses. We're going to try to help each other understand them. And I don't know, maybe you'll know the answer and you can tell us your insight upon the scriptures. But we just discussed some difficult Bible passages on this episode of Fatherhood Friday. I hope you'll stick around. But I also want to remind you that this podcast is brought to you by...
Cornerstone Fellowship Invitation
00:00:54
Speaker
Cornerstone Fellowship. Cornerstone Fellowship is that small little country church that you just kind of always pass up as you're driving on your way from your farm to the grocery store. And yet we're here in the middle of nowhere, Georgia. We're just loving Jesus and loving people. And trying to be faithful to him. So if you want to check us out just a little north of Tombsboro, Georgia, you come on down. You can find our address at the website. The website is cornerstonefellowship-ga.org. That's cornerstonefellowship-ga.org. You come down and check us out and we'll just point you to Jesus and we'll love you love you with him. So I hope that we can see you. But in the meantime, i hope you enjoy this episode ah Fatherhood Friday.
Panel Introduction and Topic of Bible Passages
00:01:46
Speaker
Well, hello, everybody. You made it to Fatherhood Friday, brought to you by the Preacher Dad podcast. And my name is Jared. I'm the Preacher Dad, and I'm here with my fatherhood panel this evening. Our beloved brother, Tony, the bald one, is there, and he is ready and raring to go. And locked and loaded with all of his beautiful one-tooth fans there at the Alabama Stadium is my brother, Matt Stewart, there with us tonight. Roll tight.
00:02:13
Speaker
Roll tight, he says. I do apologize. I do apologize. Anyway, no we we love to pick on each other about sports, but tonight we're not talking about sports. We're talking about the Bible and we're gonna address some difficult Bible passages and things that just sort of make your head scratch a little. And I've asked Matt to get us started tonight. Matt, what's our first challenging scripture?
00:02:39
Speaker
but before we get there, i want to say a couple of things. um You know, I was thinking about like what makes, why are some of these verses hard? And I have to admit, think a lot of times I just skip over them.
00:02:51
Speaker
And whether it's like, I don't, I don't think I'm going to figure out the answer or I'm just like, yeah, God's ways are higher than my ways and and move on from it. But even some of these crazy, seems crazy, i seems crazy. They're not really, but some of these you know laws in Deuteronomy that were like, what in the world? Like, there's a reason why they're in Scripture.
00:03:16
Speaker
yeah And um so I've kind of had to repent a little bit and just kind of, you know, um make sure I don't skip over some of these that that seem a little difficult. Some of the ones we're going to talking about tonight, like, or I think they're, you know, theologically just difficult. Some are just almost like gross passages, like extremely, like,
00:03:39
Speaker
ah politically incorrect. just There's going to be some tough ones. um the so So we can get into
Trusting the Bible's Teachings
00:03:47
Speaker
it. Well, i want to make sure everybody understands too that part of the reason we're doing this is to kind of express the idea that we trust and believe the Bible even when we don't understand what is being taught there.
00:04:01
Speaker
But we do believe that every word is God-breathed and is profitable We might not understand why God put it there sometimes, but we do believe that he did on purpose and that there is profit for us. So anyway, just want to make sure that we set the table correctly for that.
00:04:18
Speaker
But go ahead. Absolutely. Yeah, we're excited excited about these these verses.
Humor and Context in Bible Stories
00:04:23
Speaker
I'm going to jump into one extremely difficult one. It's Ecclesiastes 10, 2. A wise man's heart directs him to the right, but the foolish man's heart directs him to the left.
00:04:35
Speaker
and I'm just kidding. That's not hard one. That's easy. Yeah, that's I don't struggle with that at all. That makes complete sense. No, that wasn't an easy one. That was just, just wanted to to get a little laugh in. All right, for real. 2 Kings 2, 23 through 24. This is about Elisha.
00:04:54
Speaker
After Elijah has ah already been taken up, um Elisha's passing through um to Bethel. And as he was going up by the road, some young boys came out from the city and rid ridiculed him and said to him, go up, you bald head, go up, you bald head. When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up 42 of the boys.
00:05:21
Speaker
He then went on up to Mount Carmel and returned to Samaria. You know, I forgot about that passage when I made fun of Tony's bald head. So the the funny thing is, is I had a bald head when I was a a children's counselor ah overseeing third, fourth, and fifth grade boys. And we would read this passage as our devotional the very first night they were all there.
00:05:44
Speaker
So we were well in the woods too. So it was not hard for their imaginations to keep them in check for me. Yeah. Don't make fun of the baldy. Oh, man.
00:05:55
Speaker
So that is. Go ahead. No. So. um I did have to do a little bit of research. I mean, honestly, I get it again. I probably hadn't spent much time on this verse at all. I just always remembered it being like, that's a weird one. Like, why would Elisha just send bears to mall 42 young boys? Like, what in the world?
00:06:17
Speaker
So I got some. Go ahead. I was going to say, I did a study on this passage for a Sunday school class, and I don't know how much of it I actually remember um because that's that's not where my horsepower lies. but Thank you. That was so helpful. that's do The two things that I do remember that stuck out to me is is the one that the terminology that's used here for boys is actually like teenage young men. that's not It's not little children that don't know any better and have no capacity of understanding the magnitude of what they're doing. It's people that would be accountable. um And the the second thing is that phrase, go up thou bald head, was actually um something that in their time would have been kind of a akin to saying, go kill yourself.
00:07:01
Speaker
it was It was not a light phrase. it was What they're telling him is to basically go die. You're God's worthless. You're useless. None of your ministry matters. Baal is our king. And that it was... they were, um these young children too are most likely given where they're at in the story, part of a discipleship community for the, for the worship of Baal.
00:07:27
Speaker
So these are likely young priests, young prophets in the making that come out to find Elisha and try to challenge him and tell him to go kill himself because his God is no, no good and not, not real. And so ah the response to that was she bears eating them and mulling them to pieces. And it doesn't actually say they died.
00:07:45
Speaker
but they definitely knew the she bears were there. They remembered it the rest of their lives. They, whatever tore up means, that's what happened.
00:07:56
Speaker
yeah Yeah. That
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00:07:58
Speaker
sets some context. I think that's important. Yeah. It is important to know too, that Elisha didn't do this because they hurt his feelings and called him a bald head. That wasn't the, and very similar to what you were saying, Tony. um It's, it's more like if you,
00:08:16
Speaker
if you're rejecting the prophet of God, you are rejecting God. um Deuteronomy 28 talks about curses that will fall on the ones who do not obey God.
00:08:28
Speaker
and um so, yeah, I think that's the that's the reason why he made that decision is because they're, you It's important to remember too, Elisha's ministry was a double mirror of Elijah's ministry.
00:08:40
Speaker
And Elijah's ministry was dominated by contests between God Yahweh, and Baal. And that's ah joshua or of joshua sorry Elisha kept on that same general tradition of the the double portion miracles. Not only were they um ah a double amount of miracles that were recorded for his ministry, but they were very much the same kind. um And you know where Elijah is confronted with the prophets, this is kind of seen as a mirror to that in some regards. that this is Elisha's response to the future prophets that would come in. And then there's, you know, the miracles of Elijah bringing a young child back to life. Elisha does that twice. um There's, there's a little, there's, there's essentially mirror mechanism in the way his ministry is to unfold. And this fits very well with that paradigm of him contesting, not just the prophets of Baal, but the future prophets of Baal.
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Did you know that if you counted up all of Elijah's miracles and Elisha's miracles, Elisha did exactly double of what Elijah did? Wow.
00:09:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Yeah. I mean, the picture I get in my mind is that of, you know, these these crazy videos you see online of riots happening where like at malls or or other places where teenagers are just kind of.
00:10:08
Speaker
going crazy, they're vandalizing things, they're they're beating people up randomly for no good reason. It's like, you know, those people deserve a punch in the face. You know, it's like those young people need to be taught a lesson. And yeah based on the context you're giving us, Tony, it sounds like these guys needed to be taught a lesson. And, you know, if they got to lose an ear or a finger or two in the process, I'm i'm sure that that, you know, telling the prophet of God to go kill himself you know is kind of um has consequences. yeah I don't think they would do that again. and i think that that that justifies it as we read it if we have that kind of understanding. and these These young men were not saying this without knowledge. This is something they definitely would have been aware of. yeah This wasn't a random bald guy. yeah it was no They knew who he was. It was very deliberate for him and it was very deliberate against
00:11:04
Speaker
ah Yahweh. It was meant to be an attack on God to tell his prophet, to try to put his prophet in his place. And of course they get revenanted instead. All right.
00:11:18
Speaker
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00:12:58
Speaker
All right, one down. Sealed that one off. Let's get another hard one in here. Yeah, this is going to fun one. um
Women's Roles in Church
00:13:06
Speaker
All right. So 1 Corinthians 14, 34 through 35 and 1 Timothy 2, 11 through 12 are about women. This is you, Jared. I don't know anything about this one.
00:13:19
Speaker
All right. So i'm just ah I'm just going to read one of the passages. Actually, I think it's 1 Timothy, but I didn't. Yeah, 1 Timothy. A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness,
00:13:30
Speaker
But I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created and then Eve, and it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman was deceived ah deceived and became a wrongdoer.
00:13:45
Speaker
But women will be preserved through childbirth if they continue in faith, love, and sanctity with moderation. So you've got the um the parts here about, you know, obviously being submissive.
00:13:59
Speaker
um The women night being allowed to speak in a church service. um And then that last part where they will be preserved through childbirth, that's a confusing one to me as well. So what you got?
00:14:17
Speaker
Let me just say from the outset, i have no idea what it means by being saved through childbirth. I think that that just means that, um, The woman has great significance even though she brought the sin, you know she she yeah enticed Adam to sin, which could potentially put women in this category that the Greeks put them in as as an absolute evil, a completely necessary ah evil, but evil nonetheless, completely corrupted. But they're essentially because they are the one through whom life comes and ultimately through whom Christ came,
00:14:56
Speaker
there is a sort of a redemption for their gender to some degree, even though it's our fault, man's fault that the world is, you know, ah in iniquity. But that's the only only understanding I can ever get from that, save through childbearing. I think it's talking about not each individual woman, but womankind is is redeemed from that blight that would have been upon them if, you know,
00:15:25
Speaker
committing the first sin was the only thing they ever did that was significant. Well, they also gave birth to the first child and continue to give birth to children. So that's very, very important. So i say what their value is only found in childbirth. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that that's the only way I know how to understand that verse. But but really the focus is, you know, a woman's place ah within within the church.
00:15:49
Speaker
But I think if I remember this correctly, Matt, that when it says I do not allow a woman to teach a man. I think that the word translated a man is maybe better translated husband.
00:16:04
Speaker
and And so that that is then saying she should not be teaching her husband or having authority over her husband because that would be a violation of God's design for the family that if she has authority in the church and he has authority in the home, who has the authority? it's it's It's completely upside down. So I don't think that it means that a woman can never say anything. Oh, I believe a woman should be allowed to testify and even give teaching at times, but she shouldn't be the person in authority.
00:16:40
Speaker
But, ah you know, I think that we get a better understanding of that scripture if we see that the word a man is probably better rendered husband.
00:16:51
Speaker
She's so not to teach her husband. So in 1 Corinthians 14, it actually talks about remaining silent in church. And in this one's more of teaching and exercising authority. But are you saying that though, Jared, that it's okay for a woman to teach in some capacity at a church it ah to men and women?
00:17:13
Speaker
I wouldn't be comfortable with her preaching from the pulpit because that's a position of authority. I think in a Sunday school class, um if she was clearly under the authority of her husband and her husband was assenting essentially to her doing this and she was basically kind of his spokesman almost or, you know, she's doing the talking, but he's kind of agreeing and and it is She is under his authority, essentially. I think that's acceptable within scriptural limits.
00:17:44
Speaker
I think it is. But um I know a lot of people are uncomfortable with that, but i that's where I am on it. I think as long as she's clearly submissive to her husband, her husband is is giving his approval and a thought and and stamp of approval, if you will, to the things that she's saying, then I think that falls within the scriptural guidelines for that.
00:18:07
Speaker
But I'd have to look a little closer about when it says, be silent, um because I think that's... ah Yeah, it says, to all as in all the churches of the saints, so all the churches, the women are to keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the law also says, if they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.
00:18:38
Speaker
I think that that's reference, I think in context, it's talking about the worship service itself. And because they were having a lot of people just barking out, you know, questions and they were causing a lot of disorder and disunity. And I think that Paul said, this needs to be done in in order and you need your worship services need to be structured better. And so let these women go learn from their own husbands.
00:19:00
Speaker
Let them not, you know, lash out during the worship service. It benefits... It benefits her husband for her to go to him and say, husband, what does this mean? When the pastor said whatever, like, what's that mean? How do I interpret the scripture? How do I apply this? Because if he doesn't know, it encourages him to to learn it.
00:19:22
Speaker
See, i i I wrestle with this because i've I've never had an issue with women standing up to testify in church, in a worship service. That's never bothered me. i've I've grown up in those types of circles, and it I think it's perfectly fine. Like give them their testimony.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah, like standing up to give their testimony. Well, yeah, that's fine. I was just talking about the... But how does that not violate the scripture you just mentioned?
00:19:47
Speaker
I think that might be acceptable, that that giving the testimony. I'm talking... Well, I was saying if if they have a question, referring to the 1 Corinthians whatever, if they have a question about something to the pastor, ask their husband first, and that benefits him. But yeah, so that was something different. I agree with you about the testimony. But I also see it like... And then, Tony, you can speak into it, but...
00:20:07
Speaker
I think you you teach through, obviously, standing up and in in reading scripture, exegeting it or whatever. you're teaching that's obvious That's obvious teaching that we all agree with. I think also teaching is through prayer.
00:20:22
Speaker
I do think that that is a form of teaching. um I do think that even singing, if if a woman is responsible for all of that, she's she's choosing what will be sung and is leading that. I think that is almost in a sense teaching as well. And that's kind of what we practice at our church, um that women cannot lead any of those.
00:20:45
Speaker
Now that's at church, at a community group on Tuesday nights, kind know does a woman pray? And absolutely she does, but like that's, but in a church service, we we kind of um stay away from that.
00:21:02
Speaker
ah kind of I kind of look at this from more of a 30,000 foot view kind of perspective on how would you apply this to today and how the church operates today.
Men's Leadership and Deception
00:21:12
Speaker
um And i don't I don't think it's terribly incongruent, but for me, the most important aspect of what is trying to be communicated here is the nature of of how men fell.
00:21:24
Speaker
um Because the s sin of Adam and Eve were different. And Adam... sin with his eyes open. He knew exactly what he was doing and he was rebellious. Eve sinned because she was deceived. And that's, those are distinctly different things. And because of that, now there's a following mechanic on how leadership is supposed to rule.
00:21:45
Speaker
um The, I think that the, the ultimate danger here that is trying to be warned against is that there is something inside of how women are made perfectly as they are made this way.
00:21:57
Speaker
that also allows them to be more susceptible to deception. um And that because of that, it's not that men can't be deceived. Of course men can. And not that, you know, somebody out there is thinking right now, I'm a woman, I'm smarter than my husband. Okay, fine, whatever. um That's probably 90% of y'all. I get that. The whole point is ah it's not about it's not about the intellect. It's not about the knowledge. It's not about having the right cross-references in your passages and stuff. It's about how you tie those things together. And there's something about the woman's deception in the garden of her being deceived by the snake.
00:22:31
Speaker
Something that should have been an obvious opponent was able to charm her and able to take her away from the word of God. And that is that is a threat. And that is a persistent threat.
00:22:43
Speaker
And because that is a persistent threat, Paul says, be alert. Be alert that this threat mechanic it still exists. Women can be enticed. by evil things and think that it's godly things think that it's sound things or okay and somehow reconcilable with godly things and the best evidence that that's correct is looking at all of the churches led by women today they're all garbage every last one of them there's not a single church run by a woman that pleases the lord and there there's
00:23:18
Speaker
It's not the design that God created for the system. Now, that is not to say that because a church is led by a man that it pleases the Lord. There's plenty of those that suck, too. I've been to a couple of them.
00:23:29
Speaker
Not the one I'm at now currently. i I love the church I'm at now, and I think that they have an incredibly good heart for trying to serve the Word of God and try to to serve his kingdom's purposes. But the threat here is that Paul is trying to warn against, and he gives some examples as to what you need to do as safeguards against those things. is don't let women lead the men because men are cowards.
00:23:49
Speaker
Men are weak and men will follow their lady to avoid conflict. Men will follow the voice of women in order to not have to confront women because that is the that's the mechanic of men. We'd rather protect. We'd rather serve. We'd rather not confront.
00:24:05
Speaker
Men have no problem confronting men. Men almost find that an inviting challenge to stand up and be the guy that can best the other guy. And because of that, there's a check mechanic there that helps a pastor be accountable to other people that are willing to step up and be bold to challenge whenever doctrine is being misrepresented or something is not as clear as it should be, or the direction is wrong.
00:24:29
Speaker
Men are way less likely to confront a lady leader when they think those things because they don't want to have to hear about it. They don't want to have to go through the argument process and enjoy all of the nag that follows.
00:24:40
Speaker
um there's There's just a dynamic that breaks down there that is very, very present and real that makes lady leadership extremely difficult for men to follow well.
00:24:53
Speaker
Well said. All right. now That was good, Tony. I don't have anything else to add. um
00:25:01
Speaker
Jared, you have anything else you wanted to say about that topic? Nope. I'm ready to move on. All of us are going to be unemployed in the morning. so it ah right Yeah, for real. I would only i only believe that threat if more than six people watch these things. So I think we're safe. so We're pretty safe.
00:25:24
Speaker
But no, just to agree with you, Tony, it is way easier for men to sit back and let let women run
Complementary Roles in Marriage
00:25:32
Speaker
things. we're We're lazy and don't want to confront. you know Yes, Jared.
00:25:36
Speaker
I'm sorry, I did think of something that as well. So I was speaking. um There's a passage, I think it's Ephesians, maybe, or Timothy, where it says to take care of your wife as the weaker vessel that describes her as the weaker vessel. And my my teacher in college used to say that that's the difference between a tin cup and a paper cup. If you look at the Greek there, it's not talking about weak as in physical strength. It's talking about more sensitive.
00:26:03
Speaker
A tin cup is hard and tough. and you know able to take a beating, whereas a paper cup, you just squeeze a little bit and it goes right through. But a paper cup is able to sense things better because it's softer. And so a woman is supposed to rest within the tin cup. The paper cup is supposed to go inside the tin cup because the tin cup can take the beating of the spiritual world, but the paper cup can sense things in the spiritual world that ah the tin cup cannot and was designed to not sense. So we need to listen to the spiritual discernment of our wives, but we also need to protect them from spiritual attacks.
00:26:40
Speaker
And so that's the way the two ah males and females work together in a marriage relationship. And I always thought that was a really great way to understand how they are a weaker vessel and how that's not a negative. It's just what the way they're designed to work in the relationship.
00:26:55
Speaker
Well, and spiritual attack is a significant part of being a church leader. Like you will absolutely encounter it only, you know, if you're good, if you're, if you're actually accomplishing the, the will that God has said before you, if you're about his kingdom, if you're doing his work, you're gonna have to be able to wield your shield high. And
00:27:16
Speaker
yeah. Amen. Well, before this becomes the marriage episode, let's move to the next passage.
00:27:24
Speaker
Well, folks, that's all the time we have for tonight, but we hope that you have enjoyed this discussion. hope that you'll join us next time for part two as we dive into some more of these difficult and challenging passages.
00:27:35
Speaker
I hope that you'll send us an email to dads at preacherdad.com. We love to hear from our audience, all seven of you. That would be great if all seven of you emailed us. We would read them all online.
00:27:48
Speaker
So see reach out to us, dads at preacherdad.com. And we look forward to seeing next time on Fatherhood Friday. God bless.