"The
book is wrong" my math students would proclaim indignantly back in my yonder
years of teaching at the local high school. How did they know this? Well,
the books answer didn't match their answer so of course the book was
wrong. Was it? No. Most likely they had made an error. Maybe it was a
computational error, maybe they skipped a crucial step, or maybe they
used a faulty method leading to a wrong answer. But rather than redo
the problem, ask someone who knew more, or dig deeper into the concepts
involved, it was just easier to decide it was the book that needed to
change. It must need an update. Now while there may have been a typo in
this math book regarding an inconsequential number, the essentials of
the book, the math theorems, the math definitions, those have not
changed.
We
are living in a world where I hear this all the time. The Book is
wrong. It needs an update. It's answers don't match mine. But this Book
isn't just a three year old math book put together by some pretty
smart math guys that might contain some errors. The Book accused of
being outdated has proven true for over 2000 years. Proven true.
But
let's go back to the math book for a minute. Imagine this scene with
me. A student, Jenny, raises her hand in Algebra class and with
certainty proclaims, "the book is wrong." So I check it out, look at her
work, and point out the procedural error and try to move on. "No," she
insists, the book is wrong, I like my way better, it makes sense to me"
So I call in the head of the math department and teacher of calculus to
try and explain to no avail. "No" Jenny decides. "I want to divide one
side of the equation by 2 and divide the other side by 4. I know you are
saying that I have to divide both sides by two to keep it equal, but
that was then, this is now. It is equal because I say it is equal. I am
going to divide only one side of the equation by 2 and I declare that
both sides are equal. Those math laws work for you, but they don't apply
to me."
Do
you see how ridiculous it is for an algebra student to debate the
veracity of math laws with a someone who has studied math and all of the
complexities of math for longer then said student has been alive? No ,
these laws are not up for debate. They have already been vetted with
rigorous proofs for hundreds of years by the greatest math minds of our
time.
Likewise,
the Bible has been proven, its standards have been set for thousands of
years. So if you want to start changing laws and standards established
since the beginning of time, you better have more sound reasoning than "it
works for me."
Psalm 119:160 The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.
********P.S.
for the answer to the question "how come you Christians decide to
follow some laws in the Old Testament but not others" look at this link
for a complete and exhaustive answer.
