Logical Consistency

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Section: Slavery ⋅ Persecution ⋅ Trends

𝕎hat does it matter if my worldview is fully aligned or only somewhat aligned with the Bible? "What difference does it make?" "God and I have an understanding, so why do I need to take the Bible seriously?" If only close enough, was good enough in this case. Here are a couple examples why a weak Biblical worldview has had disastrous results for humanity. As the literal word of God incarnate (John 1:1) Jesus had a strong Biblical worldview, as did the apostles, and He and they made the world a radically better place.

Slavery

The nation of Israel was the most Jewish nation on Earth, meaning it was God's chosen people, the nation that God would bless the whole world through (Genesis 12:3). And yet after it'd been around a while, God had some pretty harsh words for it:

Isaiah 1:4, 10-17 hub
Jeremiah 2:4-9 hub
Ezekiel 20:1-44 hub
Ezekiel 36:20-23 hub
Hosea 1:2, 9 hub
Amos 2:11-14 hub
Amos 5:21-24 hub
Zephaniah 3:1-5 hub
Malachi 1:10-14 hub

My nation has been around a while too. At one time it could easily have been called the most Christian nation on Earth. And it could easily be argued it was the most blessed. But we have a huge blemish in our history.

The people who originally settled in the southern colonies in the 1500s and 1600s realized there was tremendous wealth to be had if only enough people could work the fields. But people were scarce enough that everyone could afford to expect a decent wage. So for no other reason than to meet their own arbitrary expectations for a high standard of living (greed) they needed slave labor. Slavery is actually endorsed in the Bible, but before you start yelling at me, it's critical to understand that the slavery permitted by God looked nothing like slavery that was rampant in the United States of America (sometimes called antebellum or chattel slavery). This is my first example of the difference between a strong and weak Biblical worldview.

There were specific reasons a person could become a slave:

Exodus 22:3 hub
Leviticus 25:44-46 hub

There were specific expectations for how a slave was to be treated:

Exodus 20:10 hub
Exodus 21:20-21 hub
Exodus 21:32 hub
Exodus 23:12 hub
Deuteronomy 5:13-14 hub
Leviticus 22:11 hub
Jeremiah 34:16 hub
Ephesians 6:5-9 hub
Colossians 4:1 hub

There were numerous reasons a slave was to be freed:

Exodus 21:2-4 hub
Exodus 21:7-11 hub
Exodus 21:26-27 hub
Leviticus 25:47-55 hub
Deuteronomy 15:12-15 hub
Deuteronomy 23:15-16 hub

As a precursor to 2 Corinthians 9:7 was Deuteronomy 15:18. And it's interesting that even though slavery as a category is allowed, it certainly was not characterized as a best practice: 1 Timothy 1:9-10. And notice Paul points out that making an industry out of the concept was condemned. Back in Bible times, there was neither social security nor welfare. Extreme poverty often lead to death. Slavery was seen as a last resort safety net, and didn't have as much of the racist baggage it has today.

The point is not to defend slavery. I'm certainly not saying it ever used to be all peachy and rosey. The point is, when we use a weak Biblical association to justify our behavior, bad things happen. Just because slavery as a category was allowed in God's word doesn't mean we can take that singular point and then act any way we choose. The overwhelming majority of slaves who ended up in the Americas were kidnapped, or their ancestors were. But the "how" matters. If you're going to say slavery is tolerable then how you aquire, treat, and free them matters. Besides this should be obvious when reading the whole of scripture, there are Exodus 20:15, 21:16 and Deuteronomy 24:7. Christians are supposed to be the protagonist of verses like Zechariah 7:8-10 and James 1:27, not the antagonist. There is no Biblical rationale for segregating the intent of these verses to mean they refer to one set of foreigners or fatherless but not another, based on how they look, where they're from, the language they speak, the contents of their possessions, or their economic or political power.

Remember, everything a Christian knows about Christ (the Messiah) we learned (or the people who taught us learned) from the Bible. (At least, everything that most believers can agree on. Anyone can make up lies.) Jesus quoted Moses numerous times, even criticizing His contemporaries for not taking Moses seriously (John 5:45-47) (Moses wrote the Torah, the first five books of our Bible, starting with Genesis). The Bible is supposed to be a package deal and it is logically consistent. (Actually everything God makes is consistent, or in other words, authentic. That means whatever you see on the outside is indicative of what you find on the inside.) To the large majority of slave traders and slave owners of my nation's past, when a human became a slave they forfeited their humanity in the process of becoming property. To God, a slave is still fully human and must be treated as such, they just have radically less freedom of choice. Paul reminded Philemon that his runaway slave, Onesimus, should be treated not just as a slave, but as a brother and fellow believer in Christ (Philemon 1:16-17). The slavery allowed by God wasn't so bad, but slavery in America was horrific, excessive, and wrong. The Christians who supported slavery in America were at best demonstrating a weak Biblical worldview, and this is a strong example of how bad it is ("what difference does it make") to show contentment with a weak Biblical worldview.

Some people were so selfish about their unfairly high lifestyle that it took a civil war to get them to stop forcing slavery on other people.¹ That helped, but sadly didn't solve the problem.² Some of the southern states to this day continue the spirit of the rebellion by teaching in public schools that the Civil War was instead specifically "the war of northern aggression" or "Lincoln's war between the states". A century after the war there was still so much residual animosity to people who looked like descendents of slaves that a whole series of civil rights were necessary in the courts and congress. Even today, the persistence of the KKK and other so called racial tensions (not limited to southern states) shows the legacy of the paradigm that fueled slavery is still stronger than the rest of us would like. But even this prejudice is unbiblical, for we are all part of one family, regardless of the melatonin in our skin (Galatians 3:28). Every human is a descendent of Adam & Eve and so we are from a single genetic line (Genesis 3:20). The labeling of our skin as either black or white is technically inaccurate, for we are all just different shades of brown. Our Creator never said, implied, nor accepted discrimination in the Bible based on demographics (biological characteristics, location, family, wealth, intelligence, style preference, etc.) He was very discriminatory based on worldview and beliefs (Exodus 34:10-16, Malachi 2:11-12). If Christians demonstrate discrimination then it's a byproduct of their culture, not their religion.

It's been said that people who defended antebellum/chattel slavery used Genesis 9:24-27 as a defense. If these verses hadn't been used as an excuse to justify unthinkable atrocities against humankind for generations, it would be a joke to say these verses have anything to do with anything.

Noah pronounced this curse, not God.
As far as we can tell, the curse was only Noah's idea, never explicitly endorsed by God, and invalidated by God in Deuteronomy 24:16 and Ezekiel 18:4, 20.
While this is commonly referred to as the "Curse of Ham," Noah's curse was specifically on Canaan, not Ham. Nowhere does it even hint of, or otherwise give reason to believe, Canaan was the direct ancestors of all the people who would ever have darker skin tones. (Injecting this detail into the story a few millennia later is a little late.) Anthropologic evidence indicates that Ham's descendents migrated to Africa after the events at Babel, Shem and his descendents went east, and Japheth went north and was the progenitor of the Europeans.
The Bible clearly spells out that many of Canaan's descendents lived in the Middle East, not Africa. Compare Genesis 10:15-18 with Exodus 23:23 and Joshua 3:10. Canaan's descendents were the ones who were evicted after the Israelites were brought out of Egypt.

Using Noah's curse, 4000 years later, to draw any extrapolation about enslaving an entire people group, is crazy, at best. This is a perfect example of the dangers of a weak Biblical worldview (or worse, being anti-Biblical and yet pulling verses from scripture to justify ourselves).

Persecution

My second example of the difference between a strong and weak Biblical worldview is self-proclaimed Christians persecuting other believers (or non-believers) over supposed doctrinal violations that are really just style preferences. First, let's look at some ways God tried to warn us from this sin:

Exodus 20:16 hub
Deuteronomy 18:6-8 hub
Matthew 7:1-5 hub

Additionally, Moses was commanded to write the word of God down. Contrary to atheist propaganda that Moses's words were passed down exclusively orally for generations, the Torah (also known as the Pentateuch) was written down from the beginning. God surely has more reasons for doing anything than we'll ever realize, but one must have been so His word would be accurately preserved and to minimize/slow the corruption by man:

Exodus 17:14 hub
Exodus 34:1 hub
Exodus 34:27 hub
Deuteronomy 6:9 hub
Deuteronomy 10:2 hub
Deuteronomy 11:20 hub
Deuteronomy 12:32 hub
Deuteronomy 17:18 hub
Deuteronomy 27:3 hub
Deuteronomy 27:8 hub
Deuteronomy 31:19 hub

Jesus ran into this problem numerous times. The religious leaders of his day had either mutilated scripture or accepted the mutilation of their predecessors, and preferred their own interpretation of God's word over God's interpretation of His own word. They felt so strongly about this, they believed Jesus should die for his obstinance, without really giving a care that Jesus was God (John 1:1-4), was the one they were supposed to be worshiping and obeying (John 5:46, 1 Samuel 15:22), and had a right to speak for Himself (Isaiah 45:19). Read about it:

Matthew 12:14 hub
Matthew 22:15 hub
Matthew 26:3-4 hub
Matthew 26:59 hub
Mark 3:6 hub
Mark 11:18 hub
Mark 14:1 hub
Mark 14:55 hub
Luke 4:28-29 hub
Luke 6:7 hub
Luke 19:47 hub
Luke 22:2 hub
John 5:16 hub
John 5:18 hub
John 7:1 hub
John 7:19-20 hub
John 8:6 hub
John 8:37 hub
John 8:40 hub
John 8:59 hub
John 11:53 hub

Jesus had advice to the rest of us on this theme in Matthew 5:10-12 and 10:24-25. And He addressed these people directly in Matthew 23. Then there were examples in Acts where Stephen, Peter, and Paul (who grew up Jews) were persecuted by Jews:

Acts 6:11 hub
Acts 12:1-4 hub
Acts 21:27-32 hub
Acts 23:12, 24 hub

And there were two times Jesus criticized (will criticize) groups that claim to be followers of God but are really follwers of Satan, described in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9. One takeaway is to be very intentional who we're following, and to admit it is easy to fall astray (Matthew 7:13-15).

There are two extra-Biblical examples to highlight. One of my favorites was the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther was possibly the most famous catalist, who called the Catholic Church leaders out on numerous acts of heresy and lesser offenses (which were still offenses). His infamous 95 theses was posted on the door of the All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, Germany (map) in 1517 as what we today might call an "open letter" invitation to dialogue. The Pope, Leo X at the time, didn't appreciate the candor and excommunicated him.

A couple decades later, another reformer, William Tyndale, dared to translate the New Testament of the Bible into English (he lived in England). The Roman Catholic Church equated this to high treason, he was judged a heretic, given over to the state, and executed. Why was Tyndale (a) a Church reformer and (b) persecuted by believers in Jesus? Here's a comment by Michael Farris in his documentary, The History of Religious Liberty:

Throughout his writings, [Tyndale] demonstrates how the ceremonies that the Roman Church contends were revealed by God to the church authorities are better understood as money-making opportunities for the clergy. The sale of indulgences is the best known of these practices.³ People are denied the freedom to know God's Word, Tyndale suggests, because if they could read it for themselves they would stop paying for religious services that are contrary to the teaching of Scripture.

Important backstory, according to Farris, was that since "1408, it was illegal to translate any portion of the Bible into English without permission from a bishop. [It was] also prohibited anyone [should own] such an English Bible." Violation of this law was deemed a captial offense, or "heresy, a crime traditionally punishable by being burned at the stake." If we call Tyndale the protagonist of a story, his antagonist would be Thomas More (yes, the same More who the Catholics today consider a Saint, who wrote the book Utopia, and died what some consider a martyr's death). More hated Tyndale, or more specifically his work of translating the Bible. More, as all Catholics are taught, prefered the teachings of the hierarchy of the church (beginning with but not limited to the Pope) over the Bible. He considered the word of the Pople "as if it were written in parchment with golden letters and Christ's own hand." Further, if readers of a Bible didn't come to the same conclusions as the official stances of the Church, then the Bible, said More, "had been better to have left all together unwritten, and [we] never had scripture at all." However, remember, God wanted His word to be accurately preserved for future generations, in part to minimize/slow the corruption by man. There was even precedence built into Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:18 to make clear and reinforce God's opion on the matter. So what are we to think of people who prefer the word of their spiritual leaders, even church leaders, over the written word of God? Well, what would Jesus think? What did He say? For one, He said Matthew 15:3, then immediately quoted Isaiah 29:13, and later He critiqued the "progressive" shift of His time in Matthew 23:27-28. For the crime of ruining More's and the Catholic shared fantasy, Tyndale was persecuted and eventually executed. (By the way, about 85% of the wording in the 1611 King James Version of the Holy Bible can be traced back to Tyndale.)

To people who opposed Jesus, He said in Matthew 12:30 NIV "whoever is not with me is against me." But regarding people who were acting as His ambassadors without being official members of the in-crowd of leadership, He said in Mark 9:40 and Luke 9:50 NIV "whoever is not against us is for us." Yes, He said Matthew 16:18-19, but the establishment of a single, official, human-governed church, lead by a Pope, is contrary to pretty much all the rest of scripture, so Jesus must not have intended to establish a papacy. As succinct examples, Jesus also said Matthew 18:20 and 23:8-10, plus there are Hebrews 3:1, 4:14-15, and 1 Peter 2:5.

Arguably, the single biggest contention is how emphatically the Catholics think theirs is the only valid Church and all others are heretics. Though really, they aren't cornering the market with that idea. A lot of humans fall into this trap. Calling a people group a heretic can easily be a pretense for persecution. While Jesus said so much about being at peace with fellow believers (and everyone) it's obvious that people who persecute each other are really just persecuting over their own pride, not because God asked them to. That nuance could possibly be related to the real meaning of the 3rd of the 10 Commandments (Exodus 20:7 hub int, Deuteronomy 5:11 hub int). Most people interpret this as not to "speak" or "take" His name in vain. But a more literal understanding of the Hebrew says "carry", which would mean we shouldn't claim to be acting as God's ambassador (taking His name and carrying it like a military flag as a symbol of our righteousness) when He didn't really ask us to, or worse, when we do something He specifically told us not to.⁴ Sometimes people are jerks, and when that happens, it's important to remember that they are that way in spite of their religion, not because of it. They are who they are, they like a certain religion, even claim membership to it, but don't let it change (improve) them. Sometimes we're just looking for external justification of who we already are. Atheists are just as guilty, but they do it with popular opinion rather than a deity or scripture. Christians with a weak Biblical worldview can be just as cruel as anyone else. Which makes John 1:14 a bolder statement. Jesus came full of grace & truth for our benefit, while the world will inevitably bring brutality & lies for their own benefit. What a great God we serve.

My second extra-Biblical example of Christian's persecuting Christians is found in the world today. The culture war in America (and the rest of the world) can be summed up like this: is God's word authoritative over man's, or is man's word above God's? Christians who have bowed to popular opinion or political correctness (whether consciously or simply because that's all they've ever known) have bought into evolution (million of years), abortion, redefining marriage, and other sexual liberations, and often criticize their fellow believers who don't bow. However, bowing requires mutilation of scripture and denial of God's stated opinions (James 4:4, Matthew 6:24). And certainly atheists criticize Christians for holding to the Bible and not taking popular opinion as law. We can almost hear them saying "the Bible had been better left altogether unwritten, and we never had scripture at all, if it's going to contradict popular opinion (wokeness)." Sound familiar? The attitude of the Catholic Church in the 16th century (plus and minus a few centuries), which most atheists would agree was abhorant, is still alive and well in self described "progressive" atheists today, who condemn (or want to condemn) anyone who denies evolution and sexual freedom. This recent re-emergence of the tired old Roman Catholic Church sentiment, now by atheists, gives us fascinating perspective that it wasn't valid when Thomas More (or any Catholic) said it, and isn't now either. Because God did give us scripture, His word is more authoritative than ours, we are better with the Bible, and the world is a better place because of it. Or rather, the world is better because of people who demonstrated a strong Biblical worldview (or better yet, a strong relationship with God). It is logically inconsistent for any Christian to persecute anyone, or be satisfied with a weak Biblical worldview. We all start with a weak Biblical worldview, but we must be intentional to strengthen it all our lives.

Trends

To an atheist or other non-Christian, at least they're being consistent with their stated beliefs when they disregard the Word of God. (Secular Humanists often demonstrate an anti-Biblical worldview.) A weak Biblical worldview is synonymous with acknowledging that God is our Creator and yet not really caring about what He has declared as important. God has been recorded as getting pretty mad when we've patronized Him:

Isaiah 1:11-20 hub
Isaiah 29:13-16 hub
Malachi 1:6-14 hub
Malachi 3:8-12 hub
Revelation 3:15-16 hub

Patronization can be just as much a cause of God's wrath as flat out rebellion (1 Samuel 15:23). This is why Jesus got so mad at the religious leaders of His day while simultaneously having so much compassion on everyone else (for example, Matthew 23:27). It's logically inconsistent to call yourself Christian and be content with a weak Biblical worldview. There's an organization called the Nehemiah Institute (link) that has a Christian version of the ACT and SAT tests. Instead of testing college readiness in terms of math, science, and English, it tests a person's Biblical worldview. More specifically it's a PEERS test (politics, economics, education, religion, and social issues). The've been doing this for 30 years and collecting statistics. The trend is not pretty for the majority of the population.

A PEERS test is not an alternative to ACT or SAT (or equivalent) but it is valuable additional perspective on the comprehensiveness of a person's education. Surely it's not a coincidence that this decline in Biblical worldview happened right after a massive uptick of broken families represented by: children growing up with only their mother, high divorce rates, and legalized abortion. While abortion is more a symptom of destroyed than broken families, it does contribute to the demoralization of those who commit or even endorse it, which will then, sooner or later, result in greater family brokenness. Here's a chart:

Sources: fathers.com (link), randalolson.com (link), and johnstonsarchive.net (link)

Surely that jump in broken families doesn't just coincidentally follow the sexual revolution which began in the 1960s. Sadly, this revolution involved society deciding for itself that it had the authority to redefine family concepts (including marriage, divorce, and reproductive choice) which already had clear definitions given to us by God in His word. Returning our definition of family, and all right and wrong, back to the word of our Creator is the solution for less brokenness and more wholeness/stability/strength/vibrancy. As Solomon alludes to in Proverbs 4:7, do all you can to perpetually strengthen your Biblical worldview, and that of your family members, friends, and neighbors, no matter how much (especially because of the) personal change it may result in.

While we're on the topic of slavery,⁵ there's one more point to make. There's another form of slavery that still saturates the world today, it's our slavery to sin:

Genesis 4:7 hub
John 8:32-35 hub
1 Peter 2:16 hub
2 Peter 2:19 hub

Are we really a Christian nation, or are we simply coasting on the fumes of what once was a Christian nation? There's plenty of evidence the USA was for a time the most Christian nation the world has ever known, or at least for it's size. I wish we still were, but we've experienced a hostile takeover (that's a technical business term for an involuntary change of leadership through perfectly legal means). Arguably this happened because we just abrogated (gave up and gave in to an assumption that freedom was both free and permanent). A Christian nation would not tolerate laws that protect any sin that is specifically spelled out in the Bible. Endorsing sin by protecting it with laws would be logically inconsistent with claiming to be Christian, and gives God a bad reputation in the word. (For example, Hindus and Muslims on the other side of the world can't see the difference between atheist Americans and Christian Americans, all they see are American laws and policies.) When deciding/voting on laws, the issue of whether they endorse, protect, and promote sin is infinitely more important than the economic or political consequences/implications of those laws. This doesn't minimize the value of economics and politics, it just means morals, ethics, and culture are still more valuable and we mustn't forget the priorities that actually lead to long term goal achievement. Specifically, honoring our Creator and taking Him seriously. Even from a selfish perspective, sin is a bad idea, because it looks great (tempting) but always disappoints (Proverbs 16:25). There is good news for believers in Jesus, though, succinctly described in Romans 6:14 (full thought is Romans 6:6-23). Though this isn't a free ride, it came with a price, and we must act like it's true (Matthew 7:21).

By the way, do the ends justify the means? In other words, can negative means (methods) ever produce positive ends (results)? Can we hope to be effective killing (or just bullying) our spiritual adversaries (people who disagree with us) to force society to be pure? A virtuous society cannot result from corrupt practices, or origins. We are commanded to be discerning (judge between right and wrong, including moral and immoral) but we are also commanded not to condemn one another (John 7:24, Matthew 7:1-2). God promises He'll judge everyone and condemn us if we don't accept Jesus and demonstrate that acceptance in our lives, but He also said this type of judgement is reserved for Him, and He doesn't ask for our help (John 3:18, Hebrews 10:30, Revelation 20:12-13). The good news is Jesus is our savior (John 3:16) but what do we do in the mean time? How do we best discern right and wrong? Not by simply knowing the 10 Commandments exist and having a few verses memorized, but rather with a strong (comprehensive) Biblical worldview.

Footnotes

Click here for a great YouTube video on the cause of the American Civil War (or here for PragerU site). (return)

Click here for a great YouTube video on the aftermath of the American Civil War (reconstruction) (or here for PragerU site). (return)

To those outside the Catholic Church, indulgences are indistinguishable from bribes. Bribes are mentioned 4 times in the Torah:
- Exodus 23:8 hub
- Deuteronomy 10:17 hub
- Deuteronomy 16:19-20 hub
- Deuteronomy 27:25 hub
The specific word then shows up almost two dozen more times in the rest of the Old Testament, and only once in the New (keyword search). Though Jesus did have a few comments about money. (return)

Dennis Prager, a Jew who taught the Torah for 18 years and hosted a radio talk show on the same subject for almost twice as long, has a great 5 minute video on the 3rd Commandment: here. (It's part of a series on the Ten Commandments, found here.) And here's a link to the original Hebrew wording of the 3rd Commandment. (return)

As bonus reading, here are more Bible verses on slavery that didn't quite fit into (though don't contradict) the above categorizations:
- Deuteronomy 21:10-14 hub
- 1 Corinthians 7:21-23 hub
- 1 Corinthians 9:19 hub
- 1 Corinthians 12:13 hub
- 2 Corinthians 3:17 hub
- Galatians 4:1-9 hub
- Galatians 5:1 hub
- Galatians 5:13 hub
- Colossians 3:11 hub
- Colossians 3:22-4:1 hub
- 1 Timothy 6:1-2 hub
- Titus 2:9-10 hub
- Hebrews 2:14-15 hub
- 1 Peter 2:18 hub
(return)

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Last Modified: Tuesday, December 1, 2020

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