WHY I BELIEVE, PART TWO Several days ago, I wrote: Because of my conversion, I never looked at anything quite the same way that I had before, and that is why I still believe. Before my conversion, I had read the Bible here and there and found some parts boring, others, interesting, even inspiring, but after my conversion, I discovered a whole new book. Never before had I connected with a book this way. Immediately after my conversion, I read the Bible as the Word of God, as his Word to me; whereas, before I just wasnt sure what I believed about it, bouncing around between self-professed atheism, on the one hand, and a haunting dread that the Bible might actually be true, a superstitious fear, on the other. It wasnt long before my new found faith was challenged. I remember a question that our English Five teacher put to us as she set about to teach the Book of Job as literature: Does anyone here believe that the Bible is infallible, the actual Word of God? I raised my hand. No one else did. Later I approached a fellow student privately and asked her why she had not raised her hand. She told me, I havent read the whole Bible through yet, so I cannot say that it is infallible. I thought a lot about her answer. My approach was quite different: immediately following my conversion that Friday night, I simply accepted the Bible as true -- nobody told me this, but it was a package deal for me. Perhaps I should comment further about my conversion. It was not an emotional experience. I did not weep or laugh. I saw no vision and heard no audible voice. I felt no goosebumps or any other sensation. Its simply that somewhere around 10:00 oclock that Friday night, as four young men prayed for me while I prayed, it was as if a light came on in my mind, and I knew that God loved and accepted me just the way that I was. I had begged the Lord Jesus to come inside me that night, and I didnt stop begging him, on and on, until somehow I knew that he had done what I asked. Ive had ups and downs since then, of course. I have gone through some dry periods and gotten angry with God, but I have never lost that sense of his presence from that Friday night on -- September 4th, 1964 -- I now knew God, and I accepted the Bible as his Word because . . . well, because from that point on, I simply knew that it was his Word. As I said earlier, I was following St. Augustines dictum without knowing it: Crede, ut intelligas (Believe so that you may understand). And that confidence became the starting point in all my intellectual pursuits. It wasnt long before my new faith was challenged again. That December, the old _Life Magazine_ put out a double Christmas issue on the Bible (), and I devoured it. The authors wrote that the Bible contradicted itself and cited a number of passages, two of which had to do with King Davids numbering Israel: And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah (2 Samuel 24:1). And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel (1 Chronicles 21:1). As I pondered this, a 17 year-old, new Christian with very little education, I prayed for an answer, and I got it: both Satan and the LORD were involved in Davids actions -- Satan because he hated David -- the LORD because he was disciplining David for his pride, and he used Satan as a means of correcting David. It was then that I saw for the first time something that I have seen over and over again as I have read the English Bible through over sixty times: the Bible is a BOTH/AND book, rather than an EITHER/OR book. It was not so worked out for me back then, of course, but thats how I saw it: even when Satan comes against us with all his great craft and power, he never operates independently of God -- God who works all things together for our good (Romans 8:28; Ephesians 1:11). Jesus is BOTH truly God AND truly Man. The Bible is BOTH a fully human book AND fully a divine book. God is BOTH fully sovereign AND humankind is fully responsible for its actions. The point I would make is that from the time of my conversion, I no longer picked up the Bible as its intellectual judge; I came rather so it would judge me: my motives, ambitions, desires, attitudes, and beliefs. From then on, I have never approached anything with neutrality and certainly not how I read the Bible. Thats why I have never discovered any reason to reject Scripture as untrue. I had now come to know the ultimate Author, and I knew there would always be an answer as I studied and asked questions. After I completed a major in philosophy, I began to come to grips with the philosophical reality that nobody ever approaches anything with neutrality, after all. We all have a bias, a starting point. When we recognize where our biases are, we can have meaningful discussions with people with whom we might disagree. When we fail to recognize our own biases, we begin to exhibit bigotry. Before my conversion, I was a bigot who imagined himself to be neutral; now I freely confess that I have a bias in favor of Scripture. Some years later I wrestled with another problem in the biblical text, the three accounts of the Apostle Pauls conversion. Here are the examples from the King James Version. And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? . . . And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man (Acts 9:4, 7). And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me (Acts 22:9). And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks (Act 26:14). So . . . did the men hear the voice or not? Acts 9:7 says they did; Acts 22:9 says they didnt. An outright contradiction, plain and simple, end of the matter, shut the book. Right? Before I finished my senior year in high school, one of my friends challenged me from the perspective of the Jehovahs Witnesses and told me: But the Greek says . . . Of course, he didnt read Greek, and neither did I, but his challenge sent me to my pastor, Mr. Williams, a scholarly man who read both Greek and Hebrew, and he was very helpful in explaining things to me. But listening to him made me want to study Greek for myself, and so I signed up for a correspondence course and began a study that continued with many hours of college and seminary courses. I have now read through the Greek New Testament over a dozen times, and as I have, I have learned so much. Reading the three accounts of Pauls conversion in the language in which the New Testament was first penned immediately resolves the conflict. Why? 173. Genitive with verbs of perception. (1) The classical rule for ἀκούειν (We get the word acoustic from this Greek verb to hear RBV) is: the person whose words are heard stands in the genitive, the thing (or person: E 4: 21 αὐτὸν ἠκούσατε) about which (or whom) one hears in the accusative (F. Blass, A. Debrunner, and R. Funk, (1960) _A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature_ (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press), p. 95). When we read Acts 9:7 and 22:9 in light of this rule, we see that Paul heard and understand the words that Jesus was saying to him. But the men who were with him heard only sounds but not the actual message that Jesus gave to Paul -- with my growing deafness, I really get this. The New International Version correctly translates the Greek text this way. He fell to the ground and heard a voice (accusative case) say to him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? . . . The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound (genitive case) but did not see anyone (Acts 9:7). My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice (accusative case) of him who was speaking to me (Acts 22:9). We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice (accusative case) saying to me in Aramaic, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads (Acts 26:14). If you can decipher the Greek text, here are those three passages, and you can see that they are completely consistent with each other. καὶ πεσὼν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν ἤκουσεν φωνὴν λέγουσαν αὐτῷ· Σαοὺλ Σαούλ, τί με διώκεις; . . . οἱ δὲ ἄνδρες οἱ συνοδεύοντες αὐτῷ εἱστήκεισαν ἐνεοί, ἀκούοντες μὲν τῆς φωνῆς μηδένα δὲ θεωροῦντες (Acts 9:4, 7). οἱ δὲ σὺν ἐμοὶ ὄντες τὸ μὲν φῶς ἐθεάσαντο τὴν δὲ φωνὴν οὐκ ἤκουσαν τοῦ λαλοῦντός μοι (Acts 22:9). πάντων τε καταπεσόντων ἡμῶν εἰς τὴν γῆν ἤκουσα φωνὴν λέγουσαν πρός με τῇ Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ· Σαοὺλ Σαούλ, τί με διώκεις; σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν (Acts 26:14). Before we leave this topic of the Greek verb to hear and whether the reference is to hearing ABOUT something or someone or hearing that person actually speak, we should look at Romans 10:14. Of the translations I have consulted, only the New American Standard Bible reflects Pauls actual words in his second question: How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? Notice that they render the text as, How will they believe in Him WHOM (genitive case) they have not heard? St. Paul uses the genitive case for his second question: πῶς δὲ πιστεύσωσιν οὗ οὐκ ἤκουσαν; Paul is not asking how people will believe in a person ABOUT whom they have not heard -- of course, people need to hear about Jesus and understand the gist of the gospel in order to believe. But Paul is saying more than this; he is asking how people will believe in a person WHOM they have not heard. There is all the difference in the world between hearing another human being explain the gospel, on the one hand, and hearing the Lord Jesus himself speak through that merely human persons words in the winsome power of the Holy Spirit. Horatius Bonar put it this way in his lovely hymn: I heard the voice of Jesus say, Come unto Me and rest; Lay down, thou weary one, lay down, Thy head upon My breast. I came to Jesus as I was, Weary and worn and sad; I found in Him a resting-place, And He has made me glad. I heard the voice of Jesus say, Behold, I freely give The living water; thirsty one, Stoop down and drink and live. I came to Jesus, and I drank Of that life-giving stream. My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, And now I live in Him. I heard the voice of Jesus say, I am this dark worlds Light. Look unto Me; thy morn shall rise And all thy day be bright. I looked to Jesus, and I found In Him my Star, my Sun; And in that Light of Life Ill walk Till traveling days are done. On that night almost fifty years ago, I, too, heard the voice of Jesus say, Come unto me and rest. I did not hear him vibrating my tympanic membranes with an audible voice. But I heard him, nonetheless, in the deepest place in my mind, and I sought him until I found him because he sought me first (1 John 4:19; Acts 13:48). That has made all the difference. In conclusion, I have heard God speak the gospel to me in the text of Scripture again and again, and in all my years of careful study, I have never found one reason to reject the Bible as the living Word of God, through which he still speaks by his Holy Spirit. I have seen the amazing fulfillment of the Bibles prophecies, and how God still changes people as they respond to the good news. And as I have grown in my trust in his promises, I have seen his Word confirmed time and again in amazing answers to prayer. I have shared some of those things before, but God willing, I will share more again. But this is why I believe. God bless you, Bob/Robert Benn Vincent, Sr.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 04:32:59 +0000
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