The Bible Unfiltered; A Book Review

 A lot of people think of the Bible as a rule book. They read it from their perspective and time period. It’s a supernatural book that should be approached on its own terms. 

Micheal S. Heiser does that in this next book we’ll look at…

The Bible Unfiltered: Approaching Scripture on Its Own Terms

“The Bible is mysterious, surprising―and often deeply misunderstood.

Dr. Michael S. Heiser, an expert in the ancient near east and author of the best-selling The Unseen Realm, explores the most unusual, interesting, and least understood parts of the Bible and offers insights that will inspire, inform, and surprise you on every page.

Dr. Heiser has helped to remind the Church of the supernatural worldview of the Bible. In The Bible Unfiltered, you will see his methods and expertise applied to dozens of specific passages and topics. Gleaned from his years working as Faithlife’s scholar-in-residence, this is some of the very best of Dr. Heiser’s work.”

So what is Scripture about? How do we understand it?

“Ultimately, Scripture is about God—what he did, what he is doing, and what he will do—not about you. You’ll never appreciate God’s story if your story—and solving your problems—is what you focus on when you study Scripture.”

“Rather than substitute the Spirit for personal effort, ask the Spirit for insight to expose flawed thinking (your own and that of whomever you’re reading) when you’re engaged in Bible study. The more of God’s word you’ve devoted attention to, the more the Spirit has to work with.”

“There are many contexts to which an interpreter needs to pay attention. • Historical context situates a passage in a specific time period against the backdrop of certain events. • Cultural context concerns the way people lived and how they thought about their lives and their world. • Literary context focuses on how a given piece of biblical literature conforms (or not) to how the same type of literature was written during biblical times.”

We tend to view the Bible through our denominations or creeds. Heiser has some thoughts on that too.

“As certain as this observation is, there is a pervasive tendency in the believing Church to filter the Bible through creeds, confessions, and denominational preferences. That’s not a bad thing. It’s a human thing. Creeds are useful for distilling important points of theology. But they are far from the whole counsel of God, and even farther from the biblical world. This is something to be aware of at all times.”

Is this pure hermeneutics? No, it’s about having a richer view of the Bible. 

In today’s postmodern culture, you can make or find your own meaning. We’ve stripped the magic out of the world, at least in First World cultures. Because of this, we don’t see the supernatural as vivid in the Bible.

“The biblical context includes its supernaturalism. The biblical writers believed in an active, animate spiritual world. That world was home to a lot more than the triune God, angels, Satan, and demons. It included other gods (i.e., the gods of the nations were not merely idols) and territorial spiritual beings that were not demons—and were, in fact, superior to demons.”

“But understanding Scripture isn’t about making it palatable or comfortable to modern readers. It’s about discerning what the biblical writer believed and was seeking to communicate to readers who thought the same way.”

Heiser also talks about the “problematic” parts of Scripture that moderns have.

“The biblical material simply reflects the cultural attitudes of the people who wrote it. Again, all this is obvious—but so many students of Scripture seem to approach such issues with the assumption that the Bible endorses a culture. God wasn’t trying to endorse a culture from the first millennium BC or the first century AD for all time and in all places among all peoples. The reason ought to be apparent: God knew that the truths he wanted to get across through the biblical writers would transcend all cultures. Endorsing the prejudices the writers grew up with wasn’t what God had in mind. Some parts of Scripture reveal culture simply as part of Israel’s history. Others focus on behavior. With respect to the latter, God let the writers be who they were (i.e., he knew what he was getting when he chose them for their task), knowing they were capable of communicating timeless principles of conduct by means of their culture. “

The rest of the book is the author applying the principles and opening the Bible up in a new way. Like an old black and white TV compared to 4K HD TV. 

It brings the magic back. Five stars. 

No One Is To Big To Fail, or To Fallen To Be Irredeemable

Update: Ravi turned out to be a sexual predator. With that information, I have deleted any post or mention of him on this blog.

1st Timothy 5:19-20 says, "Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. ²⁰ But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning."

Mike Winger reads the report on his YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/PcWeZS3cnNo

It’s said that you should never meet your heroes. Why? They will fail you in their humanity. 

We put famous people on a pedestal and are surprised when they fall off. It’s worse when a Christian falls off the pedestal. 

Christians stand for something and someone other than themselves. When they fail catastrophically, it puts Jesus in a bad light to the world. Younger Christians like Carl Lentz or John Crist made ripples when they fell. 

A hip pastor and a comedian. I barely blinked. However, when one of my evangelical/apologist heroes, Ravi, fell, that broke my heart. 

The implications and damage done are still being determined. It was an abuse of power that victimized many women. 

Personally, it’s harder for me to listen to his podcasts now. I doubt I’ll review his books like I planned too.

His supporters are leaving him and Christian radio is dropping his shows.

He was an evangelical superhero. 

I’m going with what Pastor Rod taught about having a system in place to keep you from falling. Billy Graham and his team crafted the Modesto Manifesto for them as they went worldwide on the Crusades. It all comes down to accountability.

Human heroes will fail. Only one person didn’t, and that’s Jesus. Even all twelve of his disciples failed, but all but one was redeemed and did great things. 

Even while failing in the middle of it. 

The main story isn’t that a Christian failed but the God who can save and restore them. They will have to earn the trust back again. 

But God can save anyone. Even you. 

I Dare You Not To Bore Me With The Bible; A Book Review

 I’ve become quite a fan of Michael S. Heiser’s work. Some books are heavily footnoted theological tomes that make my head hurt. Others are like a series of essays or articles, like the one I’ll review today. It answers the challenge that the Bible is boring.

Like Pastor Maury Davis said at our church, “That’s because you’re not reading it right.” Then he gave examples that made Pastor Rod uncomfortable. 

You can watch it on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/j-S5Oiyge7E

Back to the book…

I Dare You Not to Bore Me with the Bible

“The Bible is filled with passages that are so baffling we tend to ignore them. Yet, the passages that seem weird might be the most important. This collection of essays from Bible Study Magazine will shock you, intrigue you, and completely change the way you view the Bible. Dr. Michael S. Heiser visits some of the Bible’s most obscure passages, unveiling their ancient context to help you interpret them today. Read this book, and you’ll never be bored by the Bible again.

Part One: Old Testament

The Ancient’s Guide to the Galaxy

Walk Like an Israelite

Even the Bible Needed Upgrading

Spellchecking the Bible

Why Circumcision?

The Abandoned Child and the Basket Case

A Tale of Courage We Never Teach

Counting the Ten Commandments

Is There Really a Sin Offering?

There’s a Devil in the Details

Love Potion: Numbers 5

Is My Bible Right?

The Most Horrific Bible Story

Righting a Wrong

When Giants Walked the Earth

The Divine Arrow

Promise Undelivered?

Sanctified Dirt

1003 BC Census: Who Authorized It-God or Satan?

Cookin’ the Books

Slaying the Sea Monster

Does God Need a Co-Signer?

The Witness in the Clouds

Who Wrote the Book of Proverbs?

Immanuel’s Mother: Virgin or Not?

Standing in the Council

Jeremiah: Double Vision?

Why the Ark of the Covenant Will Never Be Found

He, Him, Me, Myself, and I

Bizarre Visions for the Worst of Times

Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Answer the Canon Question?

Part Two: New Testament

Burying Hell

My Guardian Angel

The New Testament Misquotes the Old Testament?

“I Saw Satan Fall like Lightning”: When?

The Healing Serpent

Who Took Verse 4 out of My Bible?

What Walking on Water Really Means

Born Again … and Again and Again?

Dumbledore Meets Philip & Peter

Paul’s Lost Letters

Destiny & Destination

A Female Apostle

Signed, Sealed, and Delivered-to Satan?

Treason & Translation

Charlton Heston Had Company

When Abraham Met Jesus

How Many Times Is Jesus Coming Back?

What’s Jesus Waiting For?

God’s Right-Hand Woman? Wisdom in Hebrews

Baptism as Spiritual Warfare

Jesus Is God: Jude and Peter Tell Me So

When Angels Do Time

Tough Love

Jesus, God, a.k.a., The Name

666: What Theories Add Up?

Perspective Changes Everything

Constantine, Conspiracy, and the Canon”

I could end it here. I mean, look at the list above. You can’t tell me nothing catches your eye.

I’ll post quotes from the last one about Constantine.

“The notion that Constantine decided which books should constitute the New Testament springs from the ancient Life of Constantine by Eusebius of Caesarea (AD 263–339). Eusebius reports that in a letter written in AD 331, the emperor instructed him to … order fifty copies of the sacred Scriptures, the provision and use of which you know to be most needful for the instruction of the Church, to be written on prepared parchment in a legible manner, and in a convenient, portable form, by professional transcribers thoroughly practised in their art. This same Constantine had earlier convened the Council of Nicea (AD 325), famous for its focus on the full deity of Christ against Arianism, which taught that Jesus was a created being. Brown carelessly conflated the two events in The Da Vinci Code to put forth the preposterous idea that Constantine had decided at Nicea which books belonged in the New Testament. But can we be sure this didn’t happen? And if not, what exactly did Constantine demand in this letter? We can be certain that the Council of Nicea did not determine the books of the New Testament at Constantine’s request. The date of Eusebius’ correspondence tells us that Nicea did not consider the issue of the canon. Today, anyone can read the 20 decisions rendered at Nicea (coincidentally called “canons”).1 None of them concerns the New Testament Scriptures.”

“So what did Constantine want? During the first several centuries of the early Church, the issue of which books were to be considered sacred and authoritative was uncertain. Several early lists of sacred books have been recovered, as have records of rejected books. Constantine’s order brought the problem to a point of decision. Once the emperor commanded copies of the sacred books to be distributed, early church leaders were forced to produce the item that needed to be copied. The result was a minimalist consensus canon—books considered authoritative by the vast majority of Christian leaders throughout the empire. Books regularly disputed or already rejected were thus set aside in faith that the Holy Spirit had successfully enlightened His believing Church to reach consensus. We hold that consensus New Testament in our hands today.”

That’s not even the most exciting essay.

If you think the Bible is boring, I dare you to read the book. 5 Stars.

Reflections On Meaning

 There’s a “downside” to writing book reviews. It makes me want to reread them. So I read How (Not) To Be Secular again and reflected on how we make our own meaning and how flat the world is. 

Not flat like a flat Earth. I mean, spiritually. There is only one level, and we’re just going through the motions of religious and spiritual rites. Yet, the rise of new-age spiritualism and paganism indicates a hunger for it. 

As do our entertainment choices, like horror, sci-fi, and my personal favorite, superheroes. We long for something more, or greater, and in our postmodern world, we think we can declare it, and it will happen. 

We have a couple of views that we’re not even aware of about ourselves, according to the author. The first is the buffered self—finding and/or crafting our own identity. The second is the porous self, where your meaning comes from the outside, and you’re affected by the world. 

The latter is more common in cultures based on family or tribe, like 1st Century Judaism, where your surname came from your dad. The Apostle Peter was Peter bar Jonah. Or like Superman’s Kryptonian name is Kal-El, his name and his family name. 

Looking at it for myself, I’m from America, the clan of Gatlin/Gatland in England, a blue-collar family, centered in the South. 

Now a child of Yahweh on a mission for a kingdom that I wasn’t born into. That’s the reality of it.

The buffered self is like a shield against reality, according to the author. I’m well-acquainted with it. You are too. What/who did you emulate as a kid?

What character traits did you keep from them?

I copied and made my own versions of Spider-Man, Wolverine, Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Captain America, and the western heroes from William W. Johnstone’s books. At any point in school, I was trying to act like a fictional character. 

If you personally know me, you’ve probably seen me sporting a superhero shirt at one point or another. 

Ronin, the name I took for myself years ago, had a whole mythology and code crafted around him like armor until life broke it.

I tried to rebuild it, and the book I wrote five years ago was a product of it: Discovering You. That didn’t work out too well. 

Maybe we should think of ourselves as a filtered self. We don’t self-certify or deny reality. Instead, we take from family history, emulate good character, etc., to navigate the world.

I was going to write about spiritual topography in light of this, but it’s already long. That will just have to be a different post.

Your God Is Too Small; A Book Review

 In 2016 I bought a book that challenged the stereotypes we have for God and Jesus. I’ve since read it twice. The author, J.B. Phillips, says our concept of God is too small. He is actually much larger.

Your God is Too Small; A Guide for Believers and Skeptics Alike

“The trouble with many of us today, writes J.B. Phillips, is that we have not found a God big enough for our modern needs. In varying degrees we suffer from a limited idea of God. Phillips exposes such inadequate conceptions of God as “Resident Policeman, ” “Grand Old Man, ” “Meek-and-Mild, ” and “Managing Director, ” and explores ways in which we can find a truly meaningful and constructive God for ourselves.”

Part One deals with destructive concepts—unreal gods. Like their conscience is the voice of God, or thinking God is exactly like our parents. 

Here’s a quote from thinking of God as a grand old man in the sky.

“They respect the Grand Old Man and His peculiarities, but they feel no inclination to worship Him as the living God.”

We think of Jesus as meek and mild, standing, holding a lamb, while staring into the distance. J.B. asks why “mild?” 

“This word “mild” is apparently deliberately used to describe a man who did not hesitate to challenge and expose the hypocrisies of the religious people of his day: a man who had such “personality” that He walked unscathed through a murderous crowd: a man so far from being a nonentity that He was regarded by the authorities as a public danger; a man who could be moved to violent anger by shameless exploitation or by smug complacent orthodoxy; a man of such courage that He deliberately walked to what He knew would mean death, despite the earnest pleas of well-meaning friends.”

“Jesus Christ might well be called “meek” in the sense of being selfless and humble and utterly devoted to what He considered right, whatever the personal cost; but “mild,” never!”

I like this quote later on…

“God will inevitably appear to disappoint the man who is attempting to use Him as a convenience, a prop, or a comfort, for his own plans. God has never been known to disappoint the man who is sincerely wanting to cooperate with His own purposes.”

Phillips then says Part One’s point isn’t to just add to your concept of God but to help break down the preconceptions so you can see God. That’s what he begins to do in Part Two. 

He builds his argument over the chapters I’ll list now. Because I highlighted heavily here and even wrote a post or two because of this book. 

• God Unfocused
• A Clue to Reality
• Further Clues to Reality
• Is There a Focused God?
• If God Were Focused (1)
• If God Were Focused (2)
• Has A Arrived?
• Life’s Basic Principles (1)
• Life’s Basic Principles (2)
• Further Basic Questions
• Christ and the Question of Sin
• Satisfactory Reconciliation
• Demonstration with the Enemy
• The Abolition of Death
• Theory into Practice
• Summary

The book is only 124 pages long. While writing this review, I want to read it for the third time. 

Because of that, it gets a rare 6-star rating. To date, only Immediate Obedience has earned that. 

Recommend it to all Christians and people who think they know God but don’t. 

“Why Didn’t God Answer My Prayer?”

My brother asked a question about a bumper sticker slogan he saw. It said faith didn’t require facts. I usually don’t answer theological questions on Facebook, but I answered because of who he is.

Another friend commented that he spent his childhood praying for God to stop his abusive father. He was praying for peace. 

The heavens were silent.

He asked if there is a God, and He has the power to answer prayers, why is there so much pain and suffering. How can evil exist?

“Why didn’t God answer my prayer to make the bad stop?”

I saved the thread so I could reflect on it. I could give the intellectual answers, yet the heart would be unreached. 

We can choose to love or hate and twist the concepts to rationalize our actions.

We are all fallen and imperfect. I recognize the evil left in my heart, and it shocks and terrifies me.

Even acknowledging evil indicates recognizing a moral lawgiver and a standard. Without that, it’s only a matter of opinion, and the issue is just to change your opinion.

God’s answer to the question of evil is Jesus. He didn’t stay in Heaven apart from it all. God came to Earth, and not as a king or a superhero.

He came as a baby.

Jesus experienced the good and the bad of life. He doesn’t just sympathize; he can empathize. 

People tried to kill him. Jesus grieved loved ones who died. He was betrayed and abandoned. 

Jesus even had an unanswered prayer.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, he asked God if there was a way to avoid the cross. Jesus, fully human and fully God, feared death, pain, and the wrath of God he faced the next day.

Jesus still chose to go to the cross. 

There, he reconciled God and man through himself. 

It will take time because there is a time when all will be judged. Either by what evil people had done or the good. 

If every evil act got a lightning bolt, there would be no one left. There would be no second chance, no mercy, and no chance at reconciliation. 

I would be dead and in Hell. So would you. 

Yet God is giving us every chance to stop and turn back to Him.

Why didn’t God answer your prayer?

We asked for a baby for years. People prayed over my wife on a night specifically for that at church. Women struggling with infertility got pregnant.

Casey got pregnant with Squiggles. An answered prayer. 

The first ultrasound revealed a dangerously slow heartbeat. I fasted and prayed that the baby would live. 

Squiggles didn’t. 

Why didn’t God answer my prayer?

The answer is…I don’t know.

I do know we were never promised an easy life. Jesus said this right before he went to the cross:

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
‭‭John‬ ‭16:33‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Evil will get it’s due.