Recently, my wife read the Dutch Sheets blog post entitled, Increase Your Faith - It's Time! In it, he talks about an often misunderstood passage of scripture.
It's easy to look at the Bible and see God's judgment in certain circumstances as harsh or unfair or simply over-reactive. One part of the Bible where this often happens is in Numbers 15:32-36. In this verse, God actually commands the Israelites to kill somebody with stones because he was picking up sticks.
If God is so loving, then why not have multiple ways to seek him? It would mean more people would come to him after all. Wouldn't it? Well, not exactly.
We live in an age of love that has overcome judgment. So if we want to hold onto God, do we need to forget about God's judgment or downplay it? I mean, isn't judgment old testament stuff? Doesn't Jesus say it's wrong to judge?
It can be hard to understand an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God. How do we wrap our minds around the idea that God knew Adam and Eve would sin in the Garden and still allowed it?
A relationship with God sounds nice, but what exactly is that? How does a relationship even work if you can't hear or see the person you are in a relationship with? Are Christians the spiritual equivalent of the nerd at band camp who says they have a girlfriend that doesn't exist?
Is knowledge always a good thing? By increasing our knowledge, we can get better jobs, improve our lives, and better understand our universe. Knowledge is the foundation of our modern world. For without knowledge, where would we be? We would probably still be living in caves, without electricity, smartphones, or toilet paper. Who would want that kind of life?
Is obedience really necessary? Do we need to obey God? An all-powerful God shouldn't need us to accomplish His will. If he was omnipotent, why would he need us? He doesn't, but the point of obedience isn't because God needs us or that He can't carry out his will without us. It's not because it makes God feel good about himself to boss us around either.
Were Adam and Eve innocent? It's easy to chalk up their sin to a simple mistake or claim they didn't know what they were doing. They were relatively young. They were the only human beings ever to skip over childhood entirely and go right to adulthood. They were inexperienced. In a way, it is easy to see that they were still children mentally. Children make mistakes. In this light, how can we blame them?
There are many misconceptions about the garden of Eden. It’s in these errors that the world gets an incorrect understanding of it. It’s no wonder that, as a result, many people have trouble coming to terms with God’s actions in Genesis and have difficulty grasping the fullness of His love.