On Handling Evidence

If six people received the same (uninspired) letter from a friend, the basic elements involved in interpreting the letter would be: (1) the letter itself, and (2) the handling of the content of the letter. Similarly, before anyone can be a good student of the Bible (i.e., accurately interpret the message God has for man), he must understand that the basic elements involved in Biblical interpretation are: (1) the total evidence, and (2) the handling of that evidence.

Though God through Scripture was only giving one message (Acts 17:11) to everyone (just as the “friend” in his letter to the six meant to do), failure on either of these two basic elements may (and very likely will) result in conflicting Bible interpretations by different people. Since most of us use texts of the Bible that are alike, this practically eliminates the problem of our receiving a “different letter”as being the primary cause of contradictory interpretations and divisive doctrines. So what is left to claim responsibility for such? The “handling” of the content as it involves logic or illogic.

The Evidence Itself

The phrase, the evidence, is synonymous with the expression, the total context, and refers to the adding together of three things: (1) the specific statement of the Bible under consideration, (2) the immediate context of that statement, and (3 the remote context of that statement. It is important to understand the meaning of these expressions.

Handling the Evidence

The mere reading (or even memorization) of the Bible text is not sufficient to guarantee that one will understand what the Bible actually teaches. One must surely know what the Bible says, that is, he must know the actual (explicit) statements making up Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Additionally, one must learn how the various statements, paragraphs, chapters, and books relate to one another.

Rational or Irrational?

Basically, there are only two alternatives as to how one will react to evidence: (1) he can choose to be rational, or (2) he can choose to be irrational. Since the religious world has available for its use exactly the same totality of Bible statements or evidence, it should be perfectly clear to us all that it is not enough merely to know what the evidence consists of. One must also properly interpret that evidence. One can learn what the Bible means only by correctly reasoning about what the Bible says. In short, one must correctly apply the principles and rules of logic to the totality of statements making up the entire Bible.

Terry M. Hightower

“Quite an Accident”

The atheist says: 

There is no God. All wonders around us are accidental. No mighty hand made the thousand billion stars. They made themselves. The earth spins itself to keep the oceans from falling off. Infants teach themselves to cry when they are hungry or hurt. Faith is  the crutch for the ignorant, the opium of the masses.  

Has he examined the evidence? Whose faith is based on fact? Which makes more sense? 

• How does the sugar thermometer in the pancreas know the proper blood sugar level to keep us from falling into a coma and dying? 
• How does the heart beat for years without faltering? It rests between beats! It pumps 800 million times in a normal life span, pushing enough blood to fill a string of tank ears that would stretch  from New York to Boston. 
• The pattern of a person’s fingerprints never changes and no two persons are identical. What was “evolution’s” purpose in keeping these? 
• Kidneys filter poison from the blood, and leave those components that are useful. How does the kidney know one from another? 
• A brain weighs less than three pounds but directs all thoughts, feelings, and actions. Each cell dials messages to other cells in billions of different combinations. A cubic half inch of brain cells contains a lifetime of memories. Who gave the human tongue flexibility to form words, and a brain to understand  them, but denied it to the brute animals? Who showed a womb how to keep splitting a tiny ovum until a baby had the proper number of fingers, eyes, and ears in the right place and then release it into the world when it is strong enough to live? 

Certainly God exists! We are evidence of it. “For every house is builded by some man; but he  that built all things is God” (Hebrews 3:4). Let us join David in exclaiming to God, “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: Marvelous are thy works; And that my soul knoweth right well”  (Psalm 139:14). 

Paul told the Athenians about the “unknown God” (Acts 17:25) in whom “we live, and move,  and have our being” (17:28). Our secular society is forgetting that it is God who gives all the blessings we  enjoy (Jam. 1:17). May we magnify His name the true God of Heaven and earth. 

“Know ye that the Lord he is God: It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves” (Psalm 100:3). 

Terry Hightower