Contents:
1. All Christians are Perfect
2. Only Church of Christ Members are True Christians
3. The Bible is Full of Contradictions

NOTE: this section is best read with a Bible at hand.  Have your own thoughts?  Send to: slcc.email@juno.com

1. All Christians are Perfect - The only perfect Christian was Christ Jesus.  He was the Son of God.  All other Christians are human and subject to human frailties.  Humans have free will which allows them to make their own choices concerning various courses of action.  In a perfect world Christians would be perfect at making the right choices.

But it's not a perfect world and humans aren't perfect either.  Not even the apostles were perfect.  "For all have fallen short of the glory of God."

Humans are prone to making errors in judgement.  They also tend to be stubborn and want to "do it my way."  Sometimes humans are blinded by their stubbornness or by temptation and disobey the Lord's commands and guidance.

Fortunately for Christians, Jesus died for their sins.  If a truly repentant Christian asks the Lord to forgive his or her sins, Christ Jesus has promised to do so.  Go Back to Contents List

2. Only Church of Christ Members are True Christians - Many groups other than Church of Christ congregations follow the teachings of Christ as recorded in the New Testament.

However, many others have embraced additional teachings or rewritten the scriptures to suit themselves.  With other groups, traditions have grown to have the weight of scripture and others have adopted local or cultural values and principles, sometimes even replacing Biblical principles.

Even within a Church of Christ congregation, not all who attend are true Christians.  Some are just going through the motions.  However, it is part of the Lord's job description to sort them out.  He sees into everyone's heart and knows the truth.

So how are you, as a human, to discern which groups (or individuals) are truly committed Christians?  Appearances can be deceiving.  Just because it says "Church" or "Christian" on the door does not mean that the attendees are actually Christians.  Any person or any group can call itself "Christian."

The Lord said that a tree is known by the fruit it bears.  If a tree's fruit looks like an apple, smells like an apple and tastes like an apple, it probably is an apple tree.  A good initial "look test" for a group or even an individual is: does the group or individual "do all things in love?"  A smell test might check to see if the teachings are Biblical (based on a Bible translation widely accepted by a large number of Christians), or are the teaching influenced by tradition, dogma and cultural values?  A taste test is the willingness to go back to the Bible when there is a question; an answer should not be derived from just one verse but be consistent with teachings throughout the Bible.

Being a Christian is not arriving at a destination but a life-long journey as a new person; finding Salvation in Christ is a commitment to a new life into which each Christian is born again.   Go Back to Contents List

3. The Bible is Full of Contradictions - Bible detractors often refer to the four Gospels, written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and point out that each is supposed to be the history of the life of Jesus on earth, but that they are all different.  The assumption is that if they are not all the same there must be contradictions.

One problem is the assumption that the Gospels were written to record the history of Christ's life.  True, the Gospels include historical events, but the primary reason they were written was to the spread the Word.  It was not just a record of Jesus being on the Earth, but it was what He taught and the context in which He brought His message, which was important to the apostles.

They all write mostly about the same basic events.  Some writers include events which the others don't.  Some provide much greater detail for certain events.  Each writer has his own individual appreciation for what was important and each placed greater emphasized on certain events and teachings than on others.

Go to a movie with a diverse group.  Afterwards, ask each individually what the movie meant to him or her.  A young woman might comment that it was a great love story and how romantic the hero was.  A young man might focus on the action sequences and how brave or strong the hero was.  An older viewer might be impressed by the moral of the story and point out that in the end "right" did prevail.  Although all watched the same movie, each remembers it differently.  But that doesn't make any of their versions wrong or necessarily contradictory to any of the others.

Each of the Gospel writers provides a different perspective on Jesus and furnishes additional detail.  It is like each is adding another layer of information and knowledge to the total.  By reading all four Gospels, one gets a perspective with much greater depth and meaning.

To be absolutely accurate, each writer would had to have included every finite detail of Christ's life and every word which He spoke.  John openly admitted the impossibility of doing that.  He concluded his gospel with, "Jesus did many other things as well. If everyone of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books which would be written."

Another source of contention is the difference between the Biblical record and what historians have otherwise surmised based on non-Biblical sources, including archaeological information.  Archaeologists have doubted that certain cities existed or that certain events could have happened at the time or place indicated by the Bible.  However, the more archaeologists uncover, the more the archaeological record confirms the Biblical accounts.  The Biblical record stays the same but apparently "scientific knowledge" can change.

The biggest source of controversy which promotes the concept of contradictions in the Bible, is scholarly debate.  Scholars regularly disagree on the interpretation of certain verses or passages.  Biblical research scholars also have a great penchant for speculation.  In reading the works of certain scholars, it is difficult not to wonder, what "movie" did he watch?  However, this is scholars contradicting each other, not contradictions within the Bible itself.

Occasionally there is a problem with how a verse or passage is translated.  Translating from Hellenistic Greek or ancient Hebrew to modern English is not an exact science.  A great deal of subjectivity is involved.  Some computer Bibles will allow you to display verses from various translations (King James, American Standard, New International Version, etc.) at the same time.  Most of the time they are much the same with only occasional subtle differences, but sometimes there are significant differences.  As with the scholars, this is a case of the translators contradicting each other, not contradictions within the Bible itself.   Go Back

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