There are many occasions in life where you can pick and choose what you want. If you are following Weight-Watcher's, for example, you may choose to stick with the prescribed diet plan on some days and not on others; that's up to you, although your weight goals will probably be easier to reach the closer you stick to the plan. At Subway, you can choose what meats and vegetables you want on your sandwich, and even choose whether they toast the bread before loading on the ingredients. If you sign up for college courses, you get a certain amount of latitude on your elective courses, as long as you sign up for the courses that are required for your degree. Of course, in each of those situations, your choices may have consequences: As I said, if you don’t stick to the diet plan, you probably aren’t going to lose as much weight; if you order a turkey sub, but then opt to not have turkey put in the sandwich, you don’t really have a turkey sub; if you neglect to take the required courses at college, you will never get your degree (I am reminded of the classic John Belushi line, “Seven years of college, down the drain”).
I was going to say that you can’t do that with the Bible, but, of course, that wouldn’t be true. You can ignore the Bible completely, if you want to, but there are consequences. My point is that, “All scripture is given by the inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” You have every right to ignore it if you choose, but you do so at your own peril. I’m not going to waste your time telling you what the threat is; I suspect that you know that very well. It is not my intention to scare you with threats, anyway, I want you to see how right you can be, and help you to be rewarded in the next life.
One of the great strengths of the Bible is the lack of contradiction. The Bible was written over the course of many centuries, by many different writers, and yet it holds together very well. I know that there are some that will argue that the Bible does have contradictions. For example, in Habakkuk 2:3, we are told that the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Wait, if it tarries, wait for it, because it won’t tarry? I will admit that this verse is, in and of itself, a little confusing, but, Habakkuk is giving instruction to people who do not yet know what the appointed time is. Think about that for a minute. If they don’t know when the appointed time is, how can they possibly know if it is late? So, clearly, the first use of the word ‘tarry’ refers to when they grow impatient, and think that, “Surely, if the appointed time were coming, it would have been here by now,” even though they have no frame of reference. So, the second time the word ‘tarry’ is used, he is assuring them that, no matter how late it might seem, the time will come, but on God’s clock, not ours.
Some people may point out that there are variations in the Gospels. Each account gives a different list of names of the women who went to the tomb on Sunday morning, for example (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:1, Luke 24:1-10, John 20:1). That, of course, isn’t necessarily a contradiction, since none of them claim to present a complete list of the women involved. If I told you that Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert held a Rally to Restore Sanity, you wouldn’t assume that they were the only two people there, would you? There are also minor differences in some of the other accounts, for example, Matthew 20 and Mark 10 are very similar, except that Matthew relates that James and John’s mother asked Him for special dispensation for her sons, while Mark says that it was James and John themselves, and Matthew says that after that, Jesus healed two blind men, but Mark says He only healed one. These are minor details, and really only show that there was no collusion between Matthew and Mark when they wrote their respective accounts; they have nothing to do with the overall ‘big picture’ of the Gospel message.
The thing that concerns me is that some people will disregard what Peter said, in order to believe what Paul wrote, or discount Paul and trust James. Paul chided the Church at Corinth for claiming loyalties to individuals other than the Lord: “For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.” Clearly, our faith should not be in Paul, or Peter, or James, or Apollos, but in the God that directed them in their actions and in their writings.
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