Thursday, October 28, 2021

Suffering the Unbelieving Attacks

Scripture:
How lonely sits the city
that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become,
she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces
has become a vassal.
Lamentations 1:1

Observation: The writer of Lamentations introduces the entire topic of this book thusly ... "how lovely sits the city that once was full of people". This is a lament about the destruction of Jerusalem. The reasons for the destruction of known ... the people turned from God, so the Lord himself coordinated the destruction of all of Israel and Judah. However, this book can be read as if it is an ode to Jerusalem.

Application: I once started reading a book about the history of Jerusalem, which was written by a Muslim. I stopped very shortly into it when I discovered the 500 page book was going to spend ~3 pages discussing the history of the city from 1,500 BC to 60 AD, ~10 pages discussing 1948 to present, and the rest discussing the period between. I am paraphrasing, but the author dismissed the biblical historical record of the city with the following argument:

-- The entirety of scriptures is NOT the word of God, but is actually a history of Jerusalem.
-- We know every historical element mentioned in scriptures is proven false.
-- Therefore we know nothing true about Jerusalem during this period and cannot rightly study it.

It occurred to me that this is how almost every attack against Christianity is structured. First, they inaccurately paraphrase something about our faith and belief. This may be a misquoting of scripture, improperly contextualizing quotes or facts, or flat-out misrepresenting the truth. Second, they attack that inaccurate paraphrase with evidence. That evidence may range from very good and strong science, to completely incorrect historical information. Finally, declaring they have demonstrated the inaccurate paraphrase to be false, the dismiss all relevance of God, Jesus, and Christianity.

This is what the above-referenced author did. He misrepresented the content and theme of scripture (it's a history of a city, not the word of God demonstrating his love, mercy, and plan for human redemption), made a false declaration (historical information in scripture has been proven wrong, which is not true even IF the point of scripture were to document history), therefore the scriptures are a worthless source of information and without them nothing can be known about this time period.

Everyone who publicly and aggressively attacks Christianity on television or the internet seems to begin by declaring "what the bible says" and doing so completely inaccurately. I could list 100 falsehoods such people declare to begin their attacks. From there, they can easily present the 'wrongness' of such beliefs, and thus conclude that Christians are ... deluded, dangerous, vile, ignorant, intolerant, and any range of other marginalizing attributes.

I do hope such people repent and discover Jesus as their Lord and savior. However, if they persist, I release them to their doom.

Prayer: Lord, if I lament for the greatness of my nation, it does not mean that my life exists to only advance and serve my nation. My life's purpose is to worship you. May I do so all the better understanding your truths. Amen.

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