2 Timothy 3:16 is not referring to "The Holy Bible"

If the Holy Bible, as we know it today, formed by counsels of men (no women), with agenda of their own, with simple majority votes for what to include and what to discard, were the Scriptures referred to in 2 Timothy 3:16, we would expect that those said Scriptures would make sense.  After all, if the Bible is God-breathed, wouldn't we expect that nothing in those pages would ever contradict itself?

In simple terms, we can declare that a contradiction proves a fallacy.  If a statement about something is true and yet another statement about that something contradicts the first statement, one of those statements must be false.  It doesn't necessarily disprove the something being statemented, but it does prove that the two statements are both false until one of them can be proven true, rejecting the other.

Unfortunately, the Bible cannot, as a single organism, be declared to be contradiction free.  Those who claim it is, are doing themselves a disservice when the time comes to defend their belief system, being that they have to use pretzelified explanations to spelunk through many of their holy book's premises.  If the Bible contradicts itself, then we must reject the Bible as the sole source of truth.  We cannot view it as God's word (I'll explain why, in a bit). 

Does that mean we reject everything from the ancient pages of this book?  Absolutely not!  But it does mean that you can decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong.  You do not have to take the Bible as one organism, but can take away anything you desire from it or nothing at all.  But again, you simply cannot treat it as holy words from an all knowing, all powerful being.  This cannot be true.

Let me explain in six verses:

Malachi 3:6 - For I am the Lord, I do not change...

Hebrews 13:8 - Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.

We can use Jesus Christ in this example because, according to John (yes, using the full Bible as a single organism), Jesus was God as God was Jesus.  They both, together, whether they were one or two, transcended all of history, past, present, and future, as God.  Thus, if God does not change and Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever, God simply cannot change.  If God cannot change, then nothing in what is considered his word can say one thing about God and then, somewhere else in that same "Word" say the opposite.  If he cannot change, he cannot change.  Now that we have established the iron-man status of God, let's move on.

Deuteronomy 6:16 - You shall not put the Lord your God to the test...

Luke 4:12 - And Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

Matthew 4:7 - "Jesus said to him, "Again, it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test'."

We have now established that testing God is forbidden.  But what about Malachi?

Malachi 3:10 - "Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need."

Here, we see God telling the Israelites to test him.  Now, it has been argued that God was really just telling them to test him with something good and in Deuteronomy, he was referring to testing him with something evil.  In saying this, the person making the argument misses a key point of logic.

After all, when God tells the Israelites to test him, what exactly is he saying?  Simple.  He is saying, if you give me the tithes you are supposed to give me, as I decreed in my law to you, nothing but good will come of it.  But then, he also tells his people to test him with evil, rob him, don't give him his due tithes, and what will he do?  Curse them.  Not just the individual who isn't tithing, but the whole nation of Israel.

As you can see, God clearly contradicts himself in the Bible, provided you are treating the Bible as an infallible, inerrant, singular organism - the holy and final words of God.

This begs many questions.  What is 2 Timothy 3:16 really referring to?  I have illuminated just one of the many contradictions in the book we know as the Holy Bible.  Is the Holy Bible the Scriptures?  It doesn't appear so.  Then, if not, what of the Bible is true, and what of the Bible is simply fiction, a work of men's minds, attempting to make the best word picture of things not able to be explained by the limited knowledge of their day?  If the Bible is not God's word, can we really stand on any of it as unadulterated truth?  Can we simply use logic and reason and take from the Holy Bible what we desire to live by and nothing more, nothing less?

The Golden Rule is a great example of what I would harvest from the pages of the Bible.  What about loving your enemies?  What about not killing and really not killing.  Take it as common sense, not as an absolute truth from a god who has broken every one of his laws - especially the killing one.  How about giving to others and being sacrificial when people are in need.  Turning the other cheek comes to mind.  What about working your rear end off to be successful?  Many awesome ideas about life can be gleaned from this book's pages.  And yet, many other ideas about life can be discovered in other books, from other people, from culture, from your own brilliant mind.

Think!  Think for yourself.  Grab wisdom and knowledge from every source available to you.  The Bible is an excellent resource for many things.  It is also a miserable failure in many other areas.  Feel free to reject any or all of it.  It isn't infallible.  It's not inerrant.  It isn't God's word.  It can't be. 

DFBNM: Part 2a

Make sure to familiarize yourself with the first Basic Need of a Husband, according to Bill Gothard - A man needs a wife who is loyal and supportive. You can read my response to this nonsense here:

Introduction
Part 1a
Part 1b: Women? Goals?  Who are YOU Kidding?!
Part 1c: Men are Fragile and Women are Manipulative Fools
Part 1d: Husbands are Omniscient and Wives Must Give Sex

Now, let's move on to the next Basic Need of a Husband. 

[#2.  A man needs a wife who honors his leadership.]

In my opinion, Bill is padding the numbers to get to God's "perfect number" of seven.  Honoring the husband's leadership is only slightly different than the first basic need of a husband which was, a wife must be loyal and supportive.  But, let's give Gothard the benefit of the doubt and assume he sees it differently. 

[Scripture instructs a wife to reverence her husband (emphasis Bill's). (See Ephesians 5:33.) What does that mean? To reverence a husband means “to respect, defer to, revere him; to honor, esteem, appreciate, prize, and in the human sense, to adore him, that is, to admire, praise, be devoted to, deeply love, and enjoy him.”]

Bah!  "defer to"?  Looks like Bill did a great job listing all the words in the Strong's Concordance.  Lucky for him, "defer to" showed up.  The rest of the words aren't anything more than you would find in a sappy wedding card.  But, the interesting part here is that Bill is only quoting half the verse.

The verse ACTUALLY says, "However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." It's a two-fer.  Husbands, whatever you do to your wife, make sure you would do it to yourself first.  If you wouldn't flog yourself, don't beat her with a stick.  If you wouldn't swear and spit on yourself, don't do the same to her.  If you want to come home from work, walk into the living room, toss your coat on the mantle, plop down on the couch, kick your shoes off, grab the remote, turn on the game, and pop open a brew, don't get angry at your wife for a dirty house.  Oh, and wives, respect that!

Who wouldn't want a tit for tat marriage?  If I'm going all out for my spouse, I'd really like it if I didn't get spit in the eye when I bought her flowers and had them delivered to her office.  We can look back at the New Testament culture and see that the writer was speaking from an era where the husband DID make all the decisions and the wife was really a second class citizen.  I get that.  But, here, I have a suspicion the writer was noting that, if the husband was going to do right by the wife, this unique way of treating her should be met with love and respect.  I don't see it as a rigid principle, though, as many do.  I see it as a great thing to strive for - if I don't feel the love from my wife, I'm going to figure out why, and change.  If I don't work at the relationship because, after all, I'm the MAN!, do I even deserve her?

[Honor your husband's God-given authority.]

Bill just doesn't get it, does he?  Everything is about authority.  Everything.  Reference those hierarchical wall charts baby!

Imagine this:  A woman needs to make a decision on what brand of diaper to buy to eliminate the incessant diaper rash on little Johnnie.  Unfortunately her husband passed away last week.  Her father recently ran away with another woman and became a Zen Buddhist so he's out.  She can't talk to her two brothers because one brother is an atheist and the other has a full body rash, which was obviously brought on by his low spiritual state.  Her pastor just swore from the pulpit last Sunday so he's out.  The only church deacon made a pass at his step-daughter and was promptly beheaded by his wife.  He's dead and Saul didn't get far with God when he hired a medium to call some knucklehead up from the bowels of the earth for counsel.  The chart ends.  The child goes diaperless, poops on the floor and loses the rash. 

Why make it all so complicated!  Life is difficult enough without adding a bunch of rules to it!

[When a wife observes her husband’s weaknesses, it can be difficult to reverence him, but God requires every wife to reverence her husband because of his God-given position of authority as her husband. The Lord will direct your life through your husband’s leadership and protection. As you reverence your husband—voluntarily and sincerely adore and be devoted to him—God will bless you. That is the plan, and it works. Trust God. Reverence your husband. (See I Peter 3:1-6.)]

Weaknesses is a broad word here.  Abuse?  Trust God.  Gambling problem?  Trust God.  Beats the kids?  Trust God.  Cheats on taxes?  Trust God.  Oh, but we must do it because dear ole' Bill says, "it works".  After all, his Scripture reference says so.

The reference is a theory posited by the writer that a woman who does whatever her man tells her to do will be sweet before God.  What does the writer use as proof?  Sarah obeying ole' Abe.  What did ole' Abe have her do?  Pretend they were brother and sister - lie (which, last I checked, God wasn't all that keen on the idea) - so that the rich dude in the land they were passing through wouldn't kill Abe for Sarah, but would take her for a wife without force.  So Sarah obeyed and went.

Let me re-write that story and give you a woman to respect:

Abe: "Honey bags, we's goin' passin' through dis lan'.  Dude over yonder fancies thee.  How 'bout we bro and sis so he think he can get thee fer a matin' and not kill yours truly.  If he belee'dat than, we'll figger da res' out."

Sarah: "mmmhmmm."

Abe: "So, yes?"

Sarah: "Why you such a wimp Abe?  If that god you keep talking about told you to come here and your job isn't finished, why the hell would you be worried about some wimp over that wall?  You think you're going to pimp me out to save your ole' arse?  mmmhmmmm...  Heck to the heyyyyllll no!"  *wag of finger, side jiggle of neck, rest of body motionless.

Now THAT Is my kind of woman.  Sorry Bill, but a woman that can think is much better than a woman that looks at me with a "what the..." on her face and then decides to reverence me and go along for the ride.  I apologize to the writer of 1 Peter too.

In Part 2b, Gothard teaches a woman to flatter her husband.

The Mournful Wail of the Train Horn

I grew up in Northeast Minneapolis, Minnesota, a few blocks away from a major train line.  In fact, Soo Line, now swallowed by the larger Canadian Pacific Railway, had a yard not a half mile from my front steps.  Last I checked, this train yard is currently under development and has been sold off, no longer owned by the railroad.

I remember those nights when I was young.  I would be laying in my bed, thinking of whatever I was thinking of, feeling the soft summer breeze come through the window of my bedroom, lightly flapping the curtains.  Then, without fail, off in the distance, I would hear that mournful wail.  It would start low and last a long time.  Then, it would increase in volume and pitch.  As the train came nearer to our house, the loud sounds of metal on metal would fill the neighborhood, the horn would let out one last distant wail and then break free of it's yonder bonds as the train crossed the bridge over my front street.  The sound of the horn would wash over the whole house, shaking it to it's crumbling foundation.  Then, the pitch would lower and continue on into the distance, leaving only the clackety-clack of the wheels to lull me to sleep.


At the ripe old age of nineteen, I moved out of that house and headed slightly north to Spring Lake Park, Minnesota.  I lived there for a year and a half and never heard a train horn.  I never slept well.

Then I moved to Winona, Minnesota which had a river track across the Mississippi waters over in Wisconsin.  I began to sleep well again.  I would head down to the river just to watch the train drive the miles of track between the bluffs and let the sound of its horn bring back the flood of memories in my head.  I would imagine myself watching the threadbare blue curtains slowly moving toward me in my bed, lifted by the breeze of not the summer winds, but the traffic on Lowry Avenue, oddly heavy for that time of night.

After Winona, I moved to Rochester, Minnesota, and then Pine Island, Minnesota.  I don't remember any trains and I didn't sleep well in those years.

Then, we bought a house in Pipestone, Minnesota where we lived for six years.  This house was exactly two blocks from a major Burlington Northern Santa Fe train line where a train would pass every thirty-seven minutes.  Over those six years, I regained my health and had the best sleep since my childhood.

We sold that house and moved into my brother's home for a year.  No trains, no sleep.  Then, we moved to Eden Prairie, Minnesota where the far off wail of the horn could be heard, twice nightly, across the great Minnesota River.  My sleep began to improve.

Finally, we settled down in Farmington, Minnesota, three blocks from a track where trains are as common as butter on bread.  My life is now perfect.

I can see the real estate agent now. 

"So, I. C., what is most important to you for your next home purchase." 

"The audible, close, mournful sound of a train horn."

They don't list that feature on the MLS listings.