31. The Bible can say anything you want it to, can’t it?

32. Job's Leviathan and Behemoth sound like fairy tales to me.

33. Why was incest acceptable in Genesis but illegal in Exodus?

34. Why must there be a hell?

35. Why does God bless wicked people?

31. The Bible can say anything you want it to, can’t it?

Yes. We’d agree that people have twisted the interpretation of the Bible so that it comes out saying everything imaginable. However, such distortions typically arise from a desire of certain individuals to justify actions or ideas that run counter to the obvious message of the Biblical texts. We see this all the time, especially nowadays on the internet.

Here is a warning that the apostle Paul gives in I Timothy 4: "Some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron."

In 11 Timothy 3 Paul warns again of those who seek to control others for their own gain; he says they are "loaded with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth."

This is why it is always a good idea to test the motives of anyone departing from the plain teaching of the Bible. Find out where they are coming from. Look through their words and see what’s going on in their heart.

Use common sense and ask questions, but remember the apostle Peter's exhortation to do so in a respectful, gentle, non-hypocritical manner. Many people have been hurt in the church, through fundamentalism and other brow-beating hyper-dogmatic Christians. Be sensitive!

32. Job's Leviathan and Behemoth sound like fairy tales to me.

A casual reading of Job chapters 40 and 41 evokes images of legendary dragons or other mythical big old creatures. A more careful study, however, reveals a metaphoric depiction of two animal species which pose the most fearsome threat to man. The use of more than a dozen figures of speech, mostly metaphors and hyperbole, suggests that the text is describing not only the physical attributes of these creatures but also the terror they engender in the heart of anyone so unfortunate as to encounter them.

Hebrew lexicons offer little help in identifying what kind of animal the leviathan may be. There is no doubt, however, that the behemoth is a wild, quadruped mammal.

Here’s some speculation. Some simple research into statistics on human deaths worldwide caused by wild animals reveals that two species, the crocodile and the hippopotamus (yes, the hippo), together account for more killings than all other animals combined.

Significantly, the hippopotamus and the crocodile more closely match the description in Job for the behemoth and the leviathan than any other creatures. To our humble and simple minds, it seems then, that Job provides a remarkably accurate depiction of one facet of the world of nature.

33. Why was incest acceptable in Genesis but illegal in Exodus?

Incest is too strong a word to use for what happened back then. Cousins and even brothers and sisters are recorded in Genesis as marrying one another with the full consent of their parents and their societies. But, as Genesis 19 makes clear, relations between parents and children have always been off limits.

The law given to Moses, as recorded in Exodus and Leviticus, laid down stricter precepts. By the time of Moses, brothers were forbidden to marry sisters and half-sisters were forbidden to marry half-brothers.

The difference between Genesis and Exodus has more to do with genetics than with morality, we believe. God was trying to protect us from ourselves millennia before we knew anything about genes and chromosomes. If brothers were to marry sisters from generation to generation, a significant risk of propagating genetic defects would begin to develop after about twenty generations.

Confirmation comes from dog breeding experiments (think cocker spaniels) and from historical records of ancient Egyptian dynasties. Genesis records man's history before the risk of such defects would have become a factor. There was no need for a prohibition of brother-sister marriages. From the time of Exodus onward, however, the risk was substantial enough to warrant such a prohibition. Of course, most of us nowadays see it not from a genetic point of view but from a yucky!-he-married-his-sister-you-just-don’t-do-thaT perspective.

34. Why must there be a hell?

Human beings were endowed by God with a quality we call spirit. According to the Bible, spiritual beings exist forever. In this part of life, our physical life on Earth, we decide where we will spend the rest of eternity. Heaven is for those who choose a life of submission to God's authority. Hell is for those who decide that they would rather ignore or fight against God's authority.

The reward of heaven is God Himself, access to and communion with Him, in all His splendor and goodness. (Someone say “amen!”) The torment of hell is the absence of God and thus of all goodness. The Bible assures us that no one is forced to go to hell. It's a choice to go there. Strange as it seems, some people abhor obedience to God and fellowship with Him more than they abhor hell. Sartre said that the gates of hell are locked from the inside.

Eternal torment seems cruel and unjust to many people, and yet, as foreign as this may sound, it has a good purpose (!). If God imposed no torment in hell, residents there, in their concentrated evil, would torment one another to an unthinkable degree. God's torment serves to restrain the expression of this evil.

35. Why does God bless wicked people?

God always reaches out to us in mercy and generosity, and, when needed, in correction. According to Psalm 73, God blesses those who are going astray so that they might acknowledge Him as the source of their blessings and worship Him. If they refuse to acknowledge God as the source of their blessings, God may remove the blessings and, thus, open their eyes and hearts to sense they deepest need to repent and live for Him. It's important to note that if God's people gloat when the wicked lose their blessings, they disrupt God's message and break the effectiveness of the cycle.

After all, when God humbles the wicked, the response they need to see is compassion, humility, and wisdom - not a childish smirk that infuriates and reinforces pride. Sadly, Christians (including us here) fall into that smart-alecky way all too often. So let’s knock it off.

God's desire is that everyone might come to repentance. He asks his children to behave in such a way as to encourage as many as possible to come to Him for life. Nevertheless, if the wicked persist in their evil, eventually they will receive what they have chosen - eternal separation from God and His blessings.