When we hear God, but misunderstand him.

Whenever we pray, and hear what we think is God’s voice, we gotta properly confirm it is. Every single time.

And no, not because the devil’s always trying to trick us. I know fearful Christians who most definitely think that way, and I’ll talk about them another time. But it’s not always the devil. More often it’s people tripping ourselves up—talking to our own inner voice, confusing it with God, and claiming our own bright ideas are really God-ideas when they’re not. And no, I don’t mean “bright ideas” sarcastically; some of them are very good ideas. Like when David thought it’d be a great idea to build the LORD a temple. Sounded great to the prophet Nathan, but it wasn’t a God-idea! 2Sa 7.3-7 God’s idea is actually for us to be his temple.

But sometimes the issue is we actually did hear God—but our own hangups or ego garbled his message. Sorta like what happened with Simon Peter at the end of John.

John 21.20-23 NTFE

20Peter turned and saw, following them, the disciple that Jesus loved. This was the disciple who had leaned back against Jesus’ chest at the supper, and had asked, “Master, who is it that’s going to betray you?”

21“Master,” said Peter to Jesus, seeing him there, “what about him?”

22“If it’s my intention,” replied Jesus, “that he should remain here until I come, what’s that got to do with you? You must follow me!”

23So the rumor went around the Christian family that this disciple wouldn’t die. But Jesus didn’t say he wouldn’t die. What he said, rather, was this: “If it’s my intention that he should remain here until I come, what’s that got to do with you?”

Jesus didn’t answer “What about him?”; he said, “What’s that got to do with you?” But notice the other Christians got it in their heads Jesus did answer—and said the disciple he loved (i.e. John bar Zebedee) would live till his second coming. And John did outlive the rest of the Twelve—if he’s the same John who wrote Jesus’s Revelation. John the Revelator certainly had visions of the second coming. But Jesus never said what they imagined he did. The Christians wanted an answer to Simon Peter’s question so much, they actually invented one and put it in Jesus’s mouth.

And sometimes we’re gonna do that. We’ll ask God a question, and he’ll respond, “It’s not your business to know about times and dates,” Ac 1.7 NTFE or whatever other thing which isn’t our business. But we’ll ignore that, take what little he’s told us, and try to extrapolate the data we want out of it. And it won’t be God. It’ll be our creative—but fallible and depraved—little minds, filling in blanks which God deliberately wants blank. It’ll be us trying to make an end-run round the LORD. Not smart! But Christians do this all the time. Without even thinking.

And this is why a Christian accountability partner who likewise hears God, comes in extremely handy. We’ll bounce our misbegotten ideas off on them—“I think the LORD told me this”—and they’ll respond, “Well he told me no such thing.” Or even “No he didn’t; he warned me you’d come up with that, and he wants you to stop putting words in his mouth.”

Yep, sometimes confirmation protects us from ourselves.

John the baptist’s appearance in 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘬.

Mark 1.2-6, Exodus 23.20, Isaiah 40.1-8, Malachi 3.1.

The very first appearance of John the baptist we see in ancient literature is in the Gospel According to Mark, which was written sometime in the 60s CE. The other synoptic gospels quote Mark, and John is likely a response to Luke and fills in some of its blanks. So since Mark was written first, here’s how he described John.

Mark 1.2-6 KWL

2Just as it was written by the prophet Isaiah—

“Look, I send my messenger before your¹ face,

who will prepare my way” for you.¹ Ex 23.20

3“A voice shouting in the wilderness,

‘Prepare the Lord’s way!

Make his paths straight!’ ” Is 40.3

4—so comes John,

who baptizes in the wilderness

and preaches a baptism of repentance

for the forgiveness of sins.

5All the land of Judea are going out to John,ᴾ

and all the Jerusalemites.

They’re being baptized by him in the river Jordan,

confessing their sins.

6John was wearing camelhair,

a leather moneybelt round his waist,

and eating locusts and undomesticated honey.

7John is preaching,

“One stronger than me,

comes after me.

I’m not worthy

to bend down and loose his sandal strap.

8I baptize you² in water;

he will baptize you² in the Holy Spirit.”

Mark begins his gospel by quoting Exodus and mixing it up with the prophet Isaiah. Yep, it’s a “bible difficulty,” for those who refuse to acknowledge any errors in the bible. But it’s not a bible difficulty for a lot of ’em, because they go with the way the Textus Receptus puts it, and with New Testaments based on the Textus:

Mark 1.2 KWL (from TR)

According to what was written in the Prophets—

“Look, I send my messenger before your¹ face,

who will prepare my way” before you.¹ Ex 23.20

Yep, later generations of Christians corrected Mark’s error. Nice of ’em! But this is one of the many reasons I dismiss the inerrantists’ claim the bible had no errors in the originals. It’s entirely possible there were more errors in the originals.

And in case this idea makes you anxious, I remind you none of the “difficulties” we find in the bible undermine the truth of the gospel. Jesus is still Lord, still the way the truth and the life, still should be followed, still saves us from sin, still returning. Still uses fallible men, like Mark, to share the gospel. Still can use you to do it too—and when you make mistakes, he can easily work around them. Don’t worry about being perfect; just follow Jesus as best you can, and trust him considerably more than your resources.

Okay, mini-sermon over. So the Textus changed the original to “the Prophets” instead of “the prophet Isaiah.” Well that doesn’t look like a difficulty! Except… it still is. To the Jews, “the Prophets” either refers to

• the second batch of Old Testament books written before the Babylonian exile (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi), or
• the books of prophecy written by the LORD’s prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi).

Exodus falls into neither of those groups. It’s in the Law, not the Prophets. So, still a difficulty. The inerrantists try to weasel out of it by pretending the quote in Mark 1.2 comes from Malachi 3.1, not Exodus—and Malachi is in the Prophets, no matter which definition of “the Prophets” you go with. But it’s not from Malachi at all, which I’ll show you in the next section.

Ungodly biblical principles.

Slavery is a biblical principle.

Seriously. It’s a well-established principle too. Abraham ben Terah had slaves. Ge 24.2 Many a bible will translate עֶבֶד/evéd as “servant” in order to downplay this, or because they figure ancient Hebrew slavery was entirely different from American chattel slavery, so the slaveholder/slave relationship was considerably far less like owner/cattle, and more like warden/ward. But not every slaveholder thought of it like warden/ward, and most definitely treated their slaves like cattle. Or their sexual property. Abraham’s son Ishmael was the son of Sarah’s slave. Five of Israel’s tribes were descended from children he begat with his wives’ slaves. (Oh by the way—polygamy is a biblical principle too.)

When the Egyptians made Israel’s descendants their slaves, the bible’s objection was they had been wrongly made slaves; not that slavery in itself was wrong. When slavery gets addressed in the Law of Moses, the LORD didn’t ban or forbid it; he put rules on it. Fr’instance slaves didn’t work on sabbath. Dt 5.14 Or if fellow Hebrews had to sell themselves into slavery, you were to treat them like employees, not slaves. Lv 25.39-43 The LORD mitigated slavery instead of outlawing it.

But because slavery’s a well-established biblical principle, the bible was regularly used throughout American history to support and defend the practice. Including its most evil excesses.

Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m absolutely not defending slavery. Certainly not saying we oughta bring it back. It’s illegal and needs to stay illegal; it needs to be banned in every country which still permits it, and slaveholders should be prosecuted as kidnappers, rapists, and murderers.

Today’s Christians largely agree with me; we recognize slavery is evil and wrong, and needs to be eradicated. But they also incorrectly think, because slavery is evil and wrong, it’s somehow not a biblical principle. Because they have some false ideas about what constitutes a biblical principle.

Y’see, when preachers talk about biblical principles, they insist all these principles are God-things. They’re God’s ideas. God’s expectations. God’s instructions. God’s commands—except they’re not actually commands, ’cause if they were commands God would’ve commanded them. But those who preach ’em, and those who believe in ’em, regularly treat them as functional commands.

So if slavery’s a legitimate biblical principle… that’d mean they have to obey it, don’t they? But slavery is evil and wrong. So, to their minds, it must not be a legitimate biblical principle. Scriptures must’ve been taken out of context, or misused, or they’re part of the old dispensation and we don’t follow those commands anymore. And this is why they’ll insist it’s not a biblical principle: Biblical principles must be followed, and they’re surely not gonna follow that one.

So here’s what they misunderstand about biblical principles:

1. Not every biblical principle is of God.
2. Not every biblical principle must be followed. (Especially the ones which aren’t of God!)

Slavery is a biblical principle because it’s in the bible, because the ancient Hebrews and other ancient peoples practiced it, because God had things to say about it (and often condemned its excesses), and because sometimes God and his prophets used its ideas to teach people about God. Israel was Egypt’s slave, and God purchased them. Dt 15.15 Jesus gave his life to ransom everyone 1Ti 2.6 from our slavery to sin. Ro 6.16 It’s a legit principle.

But does this mean we should practice it? Absolutely not: It’s not of God. He’s set us free, and we should likewise set all the slaves free. Liberty, which Jesus came to declare to God’s people, Lk 4.18 is the biblical principle we should practice.

Elijah hides with a Sidonian widow.

1 Kings 17.8-16.

Ancient Sidón was a Phœnician city-state on the Mediterranean coast, about 40km north of Tyre, another city-state the Sidonians originally founded. (Both cities are now part of Lebanon.) The Phœnicians were a seafaring Canaanite ethnic group, and 𐤑𐤃𐤍/tsidún in their language probably means “fishing village.” They were decidedly Baalists. The royal family usually served as head priests of Hadád and Asheráh, the weather and fertility gods. Ahab ben Omri, king of Ephraim (the northern tribes which the Deuteronomistic Historian calls “israel”) had married into this family: His wife was Jezebel bat Ethbaal, daughter of the king. They were setting up worship of the Baals in the very same way the Sidonians did, in Ephraim. In Israel.

Hence the prophet Elijah of Tishbe told Ahab the rain would stop till he said so. Then he hid in a wadi till it went dry; then God sent him, of all places… to Sidón.

1 Kings 17.8-9 KWL

8The LORD’s word

comes to Elijahᴾ to say,

9“Stand up.

Go to Sarepta, to Sidón, and stay there.

Look, I ordered a woman there, a widow,

to provide for you.”¹

Sarepta (Phœnician 𐤑𐤓𐤐𐤕/Tsaríptu, “refinery”—of metal or dye; Hebrew צָֽרְפַת/Tsarfát, KJV “Zarephath,” in present-day Lebanon) was another coastal city-state 13km south of Sidon, just near Ephraim’s border, and at that point in history was Sidonian territory. Had a big shrine to Asheráh. Being on the coast meant it’d never run out of water; or food, if you know how to fish. But the drought would still affect wheat and barley farming, so bread would be harder to come by.

It’s kind of a clever place to hide, actually. Elijah was a prophet of YHWH, but because Sidon was decidedly Baalist, your average fool would presume Elijah was far too “holy” and “devout” to live among such pagans. As if he wasn’t already used to all the pagans in Ephraim.

The LORD’s word (i.e. Jesus before his incarnation) told Elijah he’d ordered this Sidonian woman to provide for him. So she wasn’t pagan; she heard God. People have a tendency to believe everyone in a particular people-group or country are monolithically of the same religion, or hold the same worldview, or have the same politics, or are otherwise uniformly alike. And even if their king or dictator or despot demands they all conform to his standards, you know that’s not how humans work. There are always holdouts. This woman was one of them. Let everyone else follow the Baals; she and her house followed the LORD.

Which really came in handy because she was destitute. Thankfully the LORD sent her a prophet who knew how to pray for miracles.

Christian leadership and age discrimination.

Arguably Timothy of Lystra first met Paul of Tarsus when he was a teenager. That’d make him old enough to come along with the apostles on their travels, but young enough for Paul to think of him as a son. Pp 2.22 When Timothy became the leader of a church in Ephesus in the 60s of the Christian era, Paul would’ve been in his 50s and Timothy in his 30s—certainly old enough to lead, but certainly not the oldest guy in that church. Quite possibly not even the one who’d been Christian longest, since Paul had evangelized Ephesus years before he ever met up with Timothy.

In any case being in your thirties meant it was necessary for Paul to make this comment in his first letter to Timothy:

1 Timothy 4.12 NKJV

Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.

Because people will look down on your youth.

I know from experience. When I was in my 30s, I was asked to run our church’s pre-service bible study. Our head pastor felt I was up to it. Others not so much, ’cause they wanted to run it. Yep, all the participants were older than me. But I had three advantages over them:

1. Our pastor did after all ask me to lead the group.
2. I had become Christian in my childhood. The rest became Christians as adults. So set our physical ages aside: I’d been Christian about 10 years longer than most. There was only one fella who’d become Christian in 1975, same as me. Of course you can be spiritually mature at any age… but when you get so worked up over something as minor as the youngster leading the bible study, y’ain’t showing any such maturity.
3. Trust me: When you’re leading a bible study, it helps when you can actually do bible study. I’d been to seminary, so I knew how. The others knew how to do bad word studies, and quote popular Christian authors. For all the good that does.

Admittedly, I didn’t let their hangup bother me any. I figured if it bothered them badly enough, they’d quit the group. They didn’t, and stuck with me for a year and a half. So no, don’t get the idea I was wringing my hands over their disapproval, and constantly meditating upon 1 Timothy 4.12 to keep my spirits up. My spirits were fine. Studying to prepare the lessons was teaching me all sorts of useful stuff. Hopefully teaching them this stuff too.

But as Paul stated elsewhere in his pastoral letters, the main qualification for Christian leadership is good character. They gotta be trustworthy people. Hence his advice to Timothy: Become an example in word, lifestyle, love, faith, and purity. Be a solid Christian. Be of good character. If you’ve got that, age won’t matter to anybody but people who lack good character.

Yeah, I know. Lots of Christians lack good character. That’s why young people aren’t often put in charge of things. Either they themselves lack character, or they have plenty but the other leaders don’t.

“If you don’t listen to God, there are consequences.”

In last week’s prayer article, “Signs it’s God’s voice,” I brought up a pastor who wrote a list of ways we can tell God is talking to us. I took issue with them because they imply we can determine it’s God without properly confirming it. With confirmation they can be useful, but without confirmation they’re just ways we psyche ourselves into thinking it’s God when it may not be. At all.

There were two other items in his list which I didn’t yet bring up. That’s because they’re not really “signs it’s God’s voice”—they’re warnings. He wanted his readers to know if we don’t listen to God, there will be consequences.

And no, he wasn’t talking about natural consequences—that when God’s warns us away from something, but we’re not listening and go there anyway, bad stuff will happen, and God was trying to prevent that. Or when God tells us of an opportunity, but we’re not listening and miss it, and that’s wasted potential.

Nope; really he was talking about curses. If we don’t listen to God, he will punish us. He didn’t phrase it that way, and probably never would. But that’s exactly what he meant: God will hurt us if we won’t listen.

It’s a messed-up way of thinking, but he’s not the only pastor I’ve heard this from. Lots of Christians imagine God as a harsh Father, not a benevolent Father. A father who’s more like the harsh parents they grew up with, and they’re projecting that upon him instead of studying what Jesus has to say about him. So when they read the Old Testament passages about consequences for the Hebrews’ sins, they imagine God’s actively smiting them, instead of passively stepping back and letting nature and their enemies have at ’em. They proclaim, not a God who corrects his children, but a God who beats them and calls it “discipline.” Jesus teaches no such thing, so let’s be rid of this false idea.

God doesn’t need to add to the consequences of not listening to him. It’s gonna harm us aplenty when we don’t! I already mentioned missed opportunities, and you have no idea how many opportunities present themselves in our lives. And God knows about all of them. And so can we, if we’re listening and are obedient. And we’ll miss nearly all of them when we aren’t.

That alone should get us to pay attention. You know those Christians who appear to have tons of good luck, good fortune, and blessings coming their way? True, some of them are exaggerating, and some of them are big fat liars. But some of them are totally telling the truth: They’ll do anything God tells them, and they’re listening for it. So God’s pointing them towards every opportunity around them. He knows they’ll make the most of it, and bless him, and help him grow his kingdom. You can do that too, y’know.

John the baptist’s parents. Who were prophets.

Too many Christians claim the four centuries between the prophet Malachi, and the prophet John the baptist, were silent years, in which God turned off the miracles and stopped talking to Israel through prophets. That’s why there are no books of the bible between the days of Malachi and John: Nothing to record!

Thing is, the New Testament itself contradicts this idea. Jesus’s adoptive father Joseph had prophetic dreams. When Joseph took Jesus to temple for his dedication, they ran into two prophets—known prophets, who’d been prophesying there for years. Jesus’s mom prophesied. And John’s parents prophesied.

That’s right. John was the son of prophets.

People who grew up hearing and believing this “silent years” bushwa, can look right at the New Testament, read this for themselves in the gospels, and still think John’s parents weren’t prophets. That this was just a one-time-only freak occurrence. A sign God had turned the miracles back on, just for Jesus and the ancient Christians, soon to be turned back off once the New Testament was written and done. God, they imagine, is stingy with the miracles like that.

But really it makes no sense for John to have not been raised by prophets. (And for our Lord to have not been raised by prophets either.) If you’re meant to raise your kid to hear and serve the LORD, shouldn’t you yourself hear and serve the LORD? Shouldn’t you be able to hear and serve the LORD?—whether specially empowered to do it, as some believe; or whether you’re able to tap into every human’s innate ability to hear God, as most Christians believe?

John’s parents are the priest Zacharias and his wife Elisabeth. Both are Levites, ’cause only Levites could be priests. Zacharias was a descendant of Abijah, Lk 1.5 and Elisabeth a descendant of Aaron ben Amram, Lk 1.5 the first head priest. They lived in the hill country of Judea, Lk 1.39 which likely means they’re from the Aaronite city of Hebron, Js 20.7, 21.13 one of the 48 cities Levites possessed instead of tribal land.

And in Luke, we see God speak through the both of them.