How do we know the Bible is true, if it seems to contradict itself. Also includes a song by Bob Smith.

the following program is made possible by the friends and partners of God quest ministries. How do we know the bible is true if it seems to contradict itself from the Ctn studio in Pensacola florida, this is the creation of a show with Erica vin and paul taylor and we’re gonna be tackling issues today, like what was the reason why the bible was written? And it’s the bible actually accurate when it talks about the number of legs the locust has or the value that you can calculate for pie, I like pie, but also as a special treat. Be listening to a superb song by singer songwriter bob smith, You are gonna enjoy today’s show. If you’ve got questions, we’ve got the answers, send them into questions at creation today dot org. And we’re really looking forward to today’s show. Welcome back. The new year is in full swing and we’re enjoying 2012, isn’t God supposed to be coming back this year, a great comic on that, It’s the guy going to the Mayan emperor saying, hey, I only had room to go out till 2012 with this calendar and the emperor goes, that’s really gonna freak somebody out one day. Now, of course, we’re not saying that jesus wouldn’t return this year, it is perfectly possible because that’s up to, that’s up to God God’s got the timing, but we do know that in 2011 we saw two predictions just passed by, the important thing is to stick to what scripture says and concentrate on that and it says he that wins souls is wise, So when souls have we got some great announcements of something’s going on this year that are just incredible, some amazing things going on, remember that the registration is now open for the proof of God conference, which is going to be in october of this year in Orlando in florida, there’s going to be some great speakers there, you and I will be there obviously and we’ve got carl Kirby reason for hope ministry, we’ve got site in Bruggen cate proof that God exists, we’ve got Mark Spence from where the Master and hopefully we’ll have you Yes, registration is a discount and you know how christians love discounts, we do like discounts, we like free, we’re gonna have some free stuff there, but you got to pay to get there, what else have we got? We also, Hey, this february 11th paul and I will be at the Northwest creation conference in quite close support at the Holiday Inn. So if you can either travel there or get there, you need to go go to the website is creation in W for creation Northwest dot org Creation in W dot org and get ahold of the guys putting that on and register for that conference, we’d love to see you there, this february that’s going to be great. So we got that we got the proof of God conference, the genesis series is amazing, Oh man, we were gonna have to bring to you guys some of the behind the scenes footage of what’s going on with the genesis project so far. He’s been modeling an entire garden of Eden that all this is gonna take place in. And so I’m really excited about the three D portion of this whole film that we’re putting together. It is it is really, really excited. I’d love for you to get on board and uh and just look at the trailer, go to genesis series dot com. You can also sign up to get more information about details on that project. It’s going to be a nice one. That’s going to be amazing. And again, it was genesis series dot com. That’s great stuff. We got some great questions today. We have indeed, we’ve got some superb questions. Let’s start with one from matt and matt starts by saying, he says, I need a little help here we all do, we’ll try and do our best because I know the bible clearly states that we should be prepared to give an answer and defend our faith in all situations. A few weeks ago, my boss and I began talking about religion and he quickly pointed out that he did not believe in God. He said he believes the bible was invented by Old World kings and all leaders to keep slaves from misbehaving and rebelling and that kind of makes sense, He says, because it probably would keep slaves in line anyway. I’d never heard of this belief. He says, nor do I have a good answer or response to the statement while I was able to discuss other aspects of my faith, I wasn’t able to respond directly in regards to his belief. Can you help give me some direction on what would have been or can be a good reply? You know, this ties in real closely with something we hear on a regular basis from scoffers or skeptics who say religion was just created to control people. You know, all that’s designed to do is just control people and that’s why it was made. And this is a very broad brush statement it really is. And you know, you should all always watch out when anyone comes out with any broad statement because it’s usually it means that they don’t know anything at all about the details. Well, here’s just from our perspective, as we talked about this question, we said. First of all, if somebody was going to invent a religion to try to control slaves, this ain’t the one that you would invent. I’ll tell you that right now talks about slaves going free. Well, yeah, what about the book of exodus? I mean, what’s all that about? The very name means getting away from from slavery is talking about an entire nation of people getting out from under the yoke of slavery. God leading them doing things to bring them out and actually taking them to a promised land. And I mean that that’s not very much a manifesto for slavery, is it? No, it’s not. This is a historical account. It’s a historical record. Now, I know what the skeptics the scoffers would say when we say, well, what about that? They’re gonna say, but hang on. Doesn’t the bible say that you need to be a good slave if you are a slave. And that’s a total, maybe that’s a whole another topic for another day. But that brings up the difference between that kind of slavery that the Israelites or that the Egyptians had over the Israelites and the type of slavery that later talked about the bond serving and things like that. Well, I mean, that’s that’s right. And I mean, I don’t know whether you’ve noticed or not eric, but I’m british, you can probably tell by the way that I talk and you know, there was a famous british politician called William Wilberforce and he he was the one who introduced the bill to get rid of the slave trade from Britain and slavery, slavery was removed from Britain by peaceful means. Therefore elsewhere it took warfare, but in in Britain, it was removed by peaceful means. But what you need to remember about William Wilberforce is he was a man who believed the bible to be absolutely true. That was all based on scripture, was the reason he was doing that, What people need to do is read things in context, don’t this. So when you have a verse in scripture that says, you know, slaves should be good slaves for their masters. That is not in any way condoning slavery. It’s simply talking to them in their situation, saying that’s the situation you’re in globally. That’s not a good thing. That’s not what the bible teaches. But there is the situation you’re in, you’ve got to be a good witness in that situation. Yeah. So how would you answer this question when it comes right down to it, was the bible invented to control, help control slaves or the broader brush picture? It was religion created just to help control people. Well, it’s it’s an interesting point, isn’t it? And I think what you need to do with a question like that is you need to start by looking at whats the presupposition behind the question. This is the thing that we like to to hammer home all the time on this show. What’s the presupposition behind a question like that? The priests opposition seems to be the bible is wrong and it’s not the word of God. It was invented by people. You know, there’s plenty of other philosophers that have been developed that really are for controlling people. Have you tried reading the communist manifesto? You know, I pulled that up? Because that is a very interesting thing. If you really want to look at what people would create to control people. That’s the kind of system you come up with, that’s right And it’s got 10 planes, the communist manifesto does abolition of private property, Nobody has private property heavy progressive graduated income tax. This is disturbing. It sounded kind of familiar abolition of rights of inheritance, confiscation of property of all immigrants and rebels, centralist credit centralization. That’s easy for you to have credit in the hands of the state, you know, Central Bank. It goes through these 10 planes and here’s how to bring it in, and that’s the kind of thing you would do if you really wanted to control. And of course, the communist manifesto was written by Karl Marx, who was, of course an evangelical bible believing, oh, no, he won’t, no, no, let me that’s right. That’s right. When you go according to God’s word, here’s what you’ll discover, you’ll discover exactly what we’ve put right here in the autonomic series that God has given man the ability of liberty, so that we can have prosperity. The most prosperity comes from liberty from freedom, and that’s what our country was founded on, and that’s what we love to talk about. That’s so important that it is so important that the british and I can probably recommend the Citizens Rule book. So you can find out more about the Godly foundations of this nation that we’re in here. That is a great book on the subject, because it really goes, it just gives our constitution and and other great things of here. Here’s the way our country was founded. Well, speaking about great things in the next segment, we’re going to be sitting back and listening, we’re going to be listening to a song by singer songwriter bob smith. And then I got the opportunity to interview him about why he wrote the song a couple of weeks ago. Nice, Welcome back. You’re watching the Creation Today show with me, paul, taylor and with eric Hovan and what you get, if you’ve got a musician who wants to proclaim the creation message, you get someone like bob smith, bob smith. He’s been writing music for over 20 years. Used to do secular music now doing all christian music, isn’t he? That’s right. And he has a cd out called Eagle’s Wings, which you can get from. Let me, I think, I think I can get that at Creation store dot org. That’s what this, because there’s lots of good products. There is a creation story dot org gorilla. Good stuff. Well, I got to meet bob recently because he came by Pensacola, dropped in at the officers and I got the chance to chat to him, have a look at the video of the song and I got the chance to talk to him about his ministry and about his song. Now I wanna hear that interview because I was out of town and I miss that. So I want to hear that here in just a second. But I want to hear a piece of one of his songs first because he’s got some music videos up? I know some of them are on Youtube with him talking about it. Um Which one are we gonna Here? Here we’re gonna hear is created. Which is his creation song. That’s right. It’s kind of catchy. The chorus will get stuck in your head. So let’s watch this and see if this chorus gets stuck in your head, your science book, do you? 500 million years ago, we crawled from the sea, breathe the air, gruesome legs, learn how to stand a few more 100 million to become modern man. Well, if the story’s true our lives don’t make any sense. And I’ve yet to see a shred of reliving, I won’t be misguided, I won’t be deceived. It’s how the bible tells us that I choose to we are creating the image of God made with eternity. Hearts to be persuaded. Vietnamese lies, Every life has purpose in my father’s eyes. Here we are special in the Father’s eyes. I’ve got with me in the studio here today, bob smith who is a singer and songwriter who produced that film clip, wrote the song and performed it that you’ve just seen and of course, as you heard this song is on the subject of creation and evolution. So, welcome to the Creation Today Studio. It’s great to have you with us and I mentioned that you’re a singer and songwriter and you have a music ministry, Is that right? That is correct. How long has that been going for? Approximately 1985? I went from writing secular music to giving it all of the Lord now. The song that we’ve just listened to is called We Are Created, Created. And that’s on the album Eagles, Eagles Wings. And now tell us a little bit about the background to this particular song, because in a sense, this song is a bit of a departure for you, isn’t it, from some of the material that you’ve done elsewhere? Well, it is paul I I wrote the song primarily for christians to become what I am now and not what I was five years ago. Right? So if you wrote it for christians and there’s a message in it is talking about creation, you think there’s a number of christians out there who have not got this message that, that genesis is true. Absolutely. I I was, you might say a new testament christian five years ago. I um believed in jesus christ as my Lord and Savior. But if somebody questioned me about genesis one, I was pretty ambivalent toward the subject. And um, I started to become interested when a friend of mine named eric turned me on to Kent heavens video series. And uh, I became more than interested, I became passionate about it and very recently I have decided that it was time to uh take what can be a scientifically complicated subject and turn it into a very simple three minute song and hopefully get people to dig deeper. Does it really matter that much to you whether people believe that or not, and surely we should just be believing in jesus? No, it’s very important if you’re going to believe that the bible is literal, if you’re going to believe that God inspired at all, you’ve got to believe that genesis 11 and 12 is God’s holy word too. What are you hoping? Going to be the outcomes from that? That somebody sees us this video? What are they going to get? Well, what I hope if the video they just saw did not have me speaking at the end. If they go to my website, go to the links page and click on the video, they get the Youtube version and when go to that version, they’re going to hear me talking at the end and referring people to certain sites and certain documents where they can dig deeper into this certain books. Your website is on there as well. You can get bob’s latest cd eagles wings from Creation store dot org and we’re back in the studio which is where we just were where you were where I was. But I recorded it. I recorded that a few weeks ago while ago because I can’t change my shirt quite that plaid. That was nice. Nice. I’m going to the dark hey this, this is a C d. You can get a bob singing, you can check that creation store dot org called on Eagle’s Wings and a really nice guy. Right? You tell me a little bit about him and his own website is message hyphen songs dot org. Message songs dot org. And all his songs do have a message. That’s right. And it’s great you know, when people want to take the opportunity to do something creative, you know, and maybe there’s others of you out there who think, you know, I’ve got talents and things. I can’t, I might not be a speaker, but there’s other things I can do. I can, I can write, I can sing, I can, I can do other things. It’d be great if if people are out there doing something creative and we need a creation dance creationists, that would be a good one. Yes, I like that idea, but I’m not taking part in that. Well, we got a great segment coming up here cause we’re gonna talk about the bible. What’s it say about locust? The locust have six legs or four legs. What about the pie? What’s the truth about? Well, I like pumpkin pumpkin pie. I ate my fair share at christmas, let me tell you. Yeah, that’s good. But we were actually talking about pipe er the greek letter 3.14159 and I saw a really boring book was the most boring book in the world is pi calculated to, is it 10 million places? Oh my goodness. So that if you want something really boring to get someone as a birthday present sometime then I’d recommend that one. Send it in, send it in. Well that’s all coming up after this break. Help being taught evolution in my earth science class. This unique book gives public school earth science students like me practical steps to confront evolution in the classroom, written in an e conversation format between a student and dr Hoban. It is a fun, easy read that helps equip public school students to defend the truth in a respectful manner. The next question we have comes from rob and rob’s got a question here that I’ve heard too many times. But let’s talk about it. He says, would you guys mind if I ask you a question I want to ask, How do the leaders of your faith reconcile the scientific inaccuracies in the bible? Who are the leaders of our faith by the way? That’s a good question. Is is he asking if we’re the leaders or we need to go ask the leaders could be we need to ask the leaders of our faith, how do we reconcile the inaccuracies? Scientific inaccuracies in the bible because as everybody knows there’s lots of scientific inaccuracies in here. Right, Well that’s always a good question that people like to bring him. He said it’s a very very old one. There’s one in particular that he mentioned that he wanted to talk about this too. He mentioned. Well, I gotta I gotta stop right here. He’s assuming his question makes an assumption. It’s not exactly, it’s not really a valid. It’s a loaded question. It’s different than a leading question. A loaded question is making an assumption. He’s assuming that there are scientific inaccuracies in the bible. But alright, let’s go ahead and talk about the two that he talks about here. And uh and but your question has a wrong assumption. Just so, you know, First Kings Chapter seven and verse 23. And he made the sea of cast bronze 10 cubits from one room to the other. It was completely round its height was five cubits. And a line of 30 cubits measured its circumference. Hold on, that doesn’t work, does it? There’s the contradiction. You’ve got a diameter of 10 cubits. And this is where we talked about pie, right? Because this would be a big pie. 10 cubits. It’s a very big pie. I don’t know whether it’s a steak and kidney pie or whatever, but it’s a very, very large pie. But the point is that the circumference, if there’s 10 cubits across, then that’s 10 multiplied by 3.14 31.4 significant figures 31 Meet 31 Cubits around. And the Bible says 30. So clearly the Bible’s wrong. It has nothing to tell us on salvation. We should close down our ministry immediately. And all go home. There we go. Hold on. We’ve forgotten something. We’ve forgotten something. This thing had a brim hold on. It says here in this verse it had a brim and in actual fact, it goes on later to say how wide that Brim was verse 26. It says it was a hand breadth thick. Okay, now hand bread is one quarter of a cubit. That’s right. One quarter of a cubit. And my hand doesn’t quite work. I can probably fit a bit more because I got thin fingers. But the way that they did the cubit was certainly one quarter of a hand bread. So you got a quarter on this side, you’ve got a quarter on this side. That’s a half altogether. So the inside diameter 9.59 and a half cubits. Now get your calculators out here. So let’s punch some numbers in then 9.5 multiplied by 3.14. And that gives you the answer. 29.8 right, 29.8. So the nearest significant figure, because you’re not going to do 0.2 of a cubit, the nearest significant figure, it’s 30. So the bible is right there. The inside circumference is 30 cubits cubits outside is 10 cubits diameter. From outside outside. That’s right outside of the brim to brim And it actually specifically says from brim to brim. So the bible gives you the information. We’re not twisting anything here. We’re not reading anything. It’s exactly what it says from brim to brim. And then it goes on to say the brim is a quarter of a cubit. So the bible surprise, surprise is absolutely scientifically accurate. It fits. There isn’t a scientific contradiction or mathematical contradiction in the scripture. And you know, I’ve seen lots and lots of these supposed contradictions and we need to mention real quick that if I was really answering an atheist, if I was talking to somebody that was really just simply downplaying the bible, I don’t mind solving the contradictions, the supposed contradictions, because there aren’t any, and and there’s great books out there on that. But first of all, to the unbeliever, I would have to ask them, what’s wrong with contradictions? Are are contradictions absolutely wrong. Is it wrong to have contradictions? Because what you’ll find is that the atheist, the unbeliever continually uses our worldview, the Biblical worldview, which says there can’t be contradictions in order to try to argue against the biblical worldview, which says there can’t be contradictions. Yeah, you know, I’ve seen I mean, another good example of that is I’ve seen many websites mentioning my name, mentioning your name, mentioning the name of other well known creations surrounding the phrases often use of them is that these are liars for jesus have seen that quite a while quite a bit, you know, if you’re an atheist and you don’t believe the bible to be true? Why does it matter if we were liars? No, I had a debate with a guy recently on twitter and we were going back and forth and he called me a liar for jesus. I said, what’s the matter with lying in your world view? And he he couldn’t give me an answer. He said, well, lying, you’re you’re stealing money from people. I said, well, what’s wrong with stealing money from people? Well, they could be using it for something else. Said, well, who cares, what difference does it make if your worldview is true, survival of the fittest would suggest that it’s a good idea to steal money from people so that you can that’s right, The stronger person should have the money So they can survive and pass on their genes to the next generation so the next generation can evolve better. Well then, I’m not going to fight with you. It makes, it makes a lot of sense. But isn’t it interesting those two things, lying and stealing are in the 10 commandments? Exactly. Where do you think they get these things from that they’re accusing Christians of there? Get them from God’s Word. They’re saying God’s word isn’t true and they’re using this standard in order to judge it? It’s wrong to lie. It’s wrong to lie. Why is it wrong to lie? Because the majority of people say so, there have been many nations in history where the majority of people have made mistakes and done something wrong. Don’t forget, you know, we could say something like the fact that Hitler was elected to power democratically remember in the first place. Now, people realize their mistakes subsequently, and you know, so I’m not accusing people of anything at any particular nation. There’s been plenty of things done wrong in the name of democracy and in the United States in the United Kingdom as well. That’s not that’s not the point. The point is that the only reason why we can say that a lie is wrong or that stealing is wrong is because God’s word. So otherwise it’s arbitrary. Otherwise there isn’t really a standard one. Atheists were arguing with and debating with said, you know, you guys tell lies to people. He said, well, tell us one lie that we’ve told. He said, okay, you guys say that that that everybody believes in God. And we went, well, that’s what the bible says. We’re quoting from the bible, and he said, well, you’re a liar for saying that for saying that everybody really does believe in God and everybody knows he exists. And I’m going, so basically, anybody that quotes from the scripture is a liar is what you’re saying. If I said that it’s a truth, universally acknowledged that a single man with a certain income is looking for a wife and that you said that’s a lie, then you’re not saying I’m a liar. You’re saying that jane Austen is a lie, which you could well be. But you know it’s who you’re quoting, isn’t it? That that matters. It’s a very important point. Of course, when you go to the 10 Commandments, only one of those commandments got a reason, hasn’t it? It’s the fourth commandment. And what’s the reason again? The reason is that God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh. So it brings us right back to creation and talking about creation things that God made people have a problem with the same question. I had a problem with things that God’s made. He says something about the leviticus 11 verse 20 talks about all flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. There are some winged creatures that fly on all fours. You made the ones that are jointed legs or hopping on the ground, like the locust, the cricket grasshopper, things like that. And he says, well that’s clearly wrong bibles in contradiction because Locusts do not have four legs or insects. So they have six legs. Well, I just pulled up a picture of a locust here on my screen to check out. And let me see here. Okay, I am seeing six appendages there. But if you notice how many does it walk on? It walks on four legs. Now, it’s got two big giant legs in the back and those are used for jumping, but the ones that it actually walks on are the four. It’s got four legs. I think the bible is accurate here exactly what it’s saying. You’ll even notice sometimes they’ll talk about the spider who take it hold with their hands and you’ll notice spiders don’t. I mean I know we say eight legs, which is what they got, but they really use the front two as their hands idiomatic as well, isn’t it? And that’s absolutely right. You can see from the picture at that point, but then you also got an idiom that it was a hebrew idiom to say something is walking on all fours. Didn’t necessarily mean four is saying they walk on all fours. Guys, we will never get tired of saying we believe God’s word is absolutely true and scientifically accurate from the very beginning. And that can be defended. The only reason you would refuse to accept that is if you don’t want to accept that you have to say that there’s contradictions and you can’t even account for contradictions. You have to say it’s got mathematical problems and you can’t even account for the laws of mathematics. God’s word is true from the beginning. Well we love answering your questions and if you’ve got any other questions, please send them to questions at Creation today dot org and you can join us on twitter at Creation today on facebook facebook dot com slash Creation today. This program is available on DVD by visiting Creation store dot org or by calling 877479 34 66. To order this episode used the item number displayed on your screen.”