Ep. 59: How to Deal With Bible Verses That Seem Weird w/ John Neufeld

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, hope you’re doing well today. It’s Andrew from THE INDOUBT SHOW. We got a wonderful program today, a little bit different. We’re at the Apologetics Canada Conference and we’re with Dr. John Neufeld. So we got to do a live taping of the program, which was super fun, in front of a live studio audience. We’re talking about the significance of the scriptures and what to do when we have troublesome passages that we just can’t understand and the footnotes don’t help. So we hope you enjoy this program, that it encourages you, that it blesses you, and it’s a good resource as you dive into the word. God bless. Well, hello everybody. Welcome to THE INDOUBT SHOW. Welcome to THE INDOUBT SHOW. Yes, yes. Amazing. So for those in AudioWorld, if you’re listening, you’re probably thinking, “What’s going on? Did you upgrade your budget?”

No, we didn’t. In fact, we are at Apologetics Canada Conference. Come on, guys. This is awesome. This is amazing. I’m so excited to be here and we have a great conversation today, and so we’re going to just dive right into it. I was looking at the notes. Steve Kim from Apologetics gave me some questions and I’m looking through it. I’m like, “Man, I think we need…” I bring this phone with me everywhere actually, you guys might laugh at that, but I bring my cell phone and my Dr. John phone because you never know when we need to call Dr. John on demand. And so I’m going to use this. I don’t know if some of the young people in the room know what this phone is. It’s a rotary phone. That’s right. And so we’re going to call Dr. John here, 912. 912. This is an emergency, so let’s see if he picks up here. Oh, it’s ringing. I hope he’s not busy.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Hello?

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, Dr. John, it’s Andrew from THE INDOUBT SHOW. How are you?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Hey, Andrew. Hi. Yeah, I’m doing great. How are you doing?

Andrew Marcus:

I’m doing fantastic. Hey, I’m actually at Apologetics Conference, and I don’t know where you are right now in the world, but we’re going through some pretty tough conversations and some big topics, and I’m wondering, is there any chance you’re around Abbotsford? You can swing by, maybe help us.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I’m actually at The End Out booth right now because I heard the swag that you have, that’s top quality man.

Andrew Marcus:

Oh, wow.

Dr. John Neufeld:

I’ve heard the sweaters are such a good bang for your buck. These mugs are fantastic. I think everyone here had a sweater and a mug. I mean, this stuff is really expensive, but I’m buying some. I think I’ve maxed out my card.

Andrew Marcus:

Okay, that’s amazing. Thank you. So you’re able to possibly get out here to the breakout session. Is that possible?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah, of course. Now look, there’s no one at the booth here right now. I mean, you probably should have someone here to sell some of this stuff because I think some of the people here at Northview, they’re stealing some of this stuff.

Andrew Marcus:

Oh, boy. Okay. Yeah, I did see some people yesterday. They looked a little sketchy. Well, why don’t you just come out here and we’ll have a good time together.

Dr. John Neufeld:

That sounds good. I’ll make my way over.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow. Can you believe it guys? You guys got to get it, this is on Amazon, actually. You guys can all have access. So we actually have a theme song for him. He doesn’t know this. I made one for him yesterday and it’s his first time hearing it. I hope he’s okay with it. But ladies and gentlemen, Dr. John.

Speaker 4:

(Singing.)

Andrew Marcus:

Come on folks. Dr. John Neufeld in the house. Are you kidding me? This is amazing. You guys really should invest in this phone. It’s very expensive, but it’s super worth it if you have any theological questions. Praise, Lord, how are you?

Dr. John Neufeld:

As embarrassed as I’ve ever been in my life.

Andrew Marcus:

I was nervous. I’m like, “Should I let him hear the song first?” I’m like, “No, I can’t. He just has to hear it live.”

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah, I guess I do.

Andrew Marcus:

I say this often and I mean it, you’re one of my favorite Bible teachers in the world, and so I’m so honored that I get to do life with you, do ministry with you, and that we get to have this conversation together.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Well, for you to say that, I had to buy some of this swag.

Andrew Marcus:

I know. I really appreciate it. I’ll pay you back, I promise. You heard it here first, folks. Guys, this is really great quality and it is expensive, but it’s inflation, so it’s nothing we can do about that. It is what it is. So I want to dive into the conversation right away. We’re talking about when we’re going through passages of scripture and we see it and we’re confused, we don’t get it. We look at the footnotes, we’re still scratching our heads. Why is it even in here? And so I want to walk through when we have issues with specific passages of scripture, but maybe firstly, why is it important that we talk about the issue carefully and how to navigate the correct methods of going through the troublesome passages?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Well, we all know that as you study a scripture together, there are every amount of variances of interpretation of a Bible text. And so I think it’s important to standardize some form of approach to scripture itself. And one of the things that I’ve recognized going around the world, how quickly people will go to, for instance, a Holy Spirit interpretation of scripture. So, “This is what the spirit of God has told me and because the spirit of God told me this, this is what this text means,” and then it becomes authoritative, at least in some circles. And so I mean, I think one of the things that we need to do is begin to pay attention to the actual grammar of the text and use our reading skills, and say it no other way, but to use our reading skills to understand what the text actually says. And if we use proper reading skills, we can come to the meaning of most of the text there before us.

Andrew Marcus:

And the problem is I think a lot of people will just take, will Cherry-pick and take a scripture out of context and just read it and apply it to however we feel it needs to be applied, which gets very dangerous. I mean, one of the famous quotes of scripture, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” and people take that. Tell us about the danger, what that passage even is about and the dangers of just taking that and using it as we please.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah, that’s Philippians 4:13. And it’s interesting because as I’ve understood it now, that Steph Curry, who’s a basketball star has, I think, on his laces of his shoes. So I guess he’s doing a three-point jumper, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”. And so that sounds like he’s a man of faith, and I suppose he is, but that’s not what that text actually means. So the context, it’s one of the prison epistles of Paul. He’s writing to the Philippian Church because the Philippian Church in the ancient world, prisoners were not cared for by the Roman government. So if you’re going to have food, you’re going to have clothing, somebody’s going to have to take care of you. So the Philippian Church, which are of course in Greece, have sent one of their own, probably a deacon, named Paphrodites, all the way to Rome to visit Paul in prison.

They’ve raised money, a special offering, and they’re wanting to make sure that all of his needs are cared for. And so he writes the Philippian letter, which in a sense is a thank you letter back to the Philippian church. That’s also the church that has partnered most faithfully with Paul. So he writes the letter back and he wants to tell them how he’s doing because you can imagine, everyone in the church wants to know. And so as they’re wanting to know, Paul says, “I’m very thankful. I am well supplied. I have more than enough because I have learned,” he said “how to abound and how to go with want.” In other words, I’ve learned to be faithful to Christ when I have more than enough resources to take care of me. Some people can’t do that, by the way. And Paul says, “I’ve learned the secret of abounding, but I’ve also learned the secret of being grateful and overwhelmed with joy when I’m in want and I have nothing and I’m suffering, I’m going hungry, I’m in rags, all of that kind of thing, I’ve learned also to safely and carefully and joyfully navigate that.” And then he adds, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” In other words, I can live with much and I can live with nothing and be thankful to the Lord. That’s the context. So that context doesn’t tell me that I can do-

Andrew Marcus:

That three point shot.

Dr. John Neufeld:

One shot. I know.

Andrew Marcus:

But Steph Curry’s shot is unbelievable.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Well, I understand that.

Andrew Marcus:

People will think that it’s because of his laces.

Dr. John Neufeld:

No doubt. Yeah, no doubt. But I guess what I’m trying to say is that we shouldn’t think to ourselves, “I’m starting a new business venture or I got my eye on that young gal and I’m sure hoping she’s going to say yes when I propose, but I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” So I mean those kinds of texts get used out of context, and we don’t learn them within the context of which they’re actually written because application of a text, Andrew, as you know, application should find its way out of reading the text within its context, and then carefully making application to our own lives. So I should be saying rather, “If everybody turns against me or of all business deals I’ve ever made all fall apart, or if I reach the point of ruin in my life, I can walk through that, joyful, victorious because I can do all things,” then we’re using it correctly.

Andrew Marcus:

So good and so important to remember the historical and cultural context. Why is that so important?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah, I think we need to say that whenever we read a Bible text, we use the regular rules of grammar to actually understand the text. So what we start with is the actual words before us, the phrases as well, and understand how a phrase works and know a little bit about grammar. I mean, there is a difference between let’s say a future tense to the present tense. There’s a difference between a command and simply a statement of fact. As an example, I had a couple of Jehovah’s witnesses that came to my door. They’ve stopped coming, but some of these got mislaid, and they came to my door and they said, I told them I was a Christian and they said, “Oh, well,” they said, “are you going door to door?” And I said, “No, I never go door to door because people hate you when you go to their door. So I don’t go.”

So they said, “Well, did you know that the Bible tells you that you’ve got to go door to door?” And I said, “I didn’t know that.” And I said, “I’m so happy that you’ve come here then to set me straight, so please show me.” And so they showed me that. They said, “Look, in Acts chapter four, the apostles went from house to house.” And I know the context of that. They went from house to house to the people within their church, and I know that, but I wasn’t going to argue that. I simply said to them, “Well, as a matter of fact, the Bible also tells us that the apostles went to Derbe, Lystra and Iconium. Have you guys gone there?”

They said, “Well, I don’t understand.” I said, “Well, if the Bible commands us,” you see, this is the point I’m trying to make. If the Bible gives us a command, then we are required to keep that command. If the Bible makes a statement of fact, we don’t say to ourselves, “Well, because that happened here, therefore we have to duplicate that.” I mean, especially in the Book of Acts, I mean, what Luke is giving us is a historical detailed account of how the church actually began to grow. Of course, there are points of application that we need to make, but we don’t take simply a statement of fact and make it into a command.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. John Neufeld:

That’s just one example.

Andrew Marcus:

And I can see why you’re blacklisted and they don’t come to your door anymore. This guy knows what he’s talking about, we’ve got to stop going. That’s amazing.

Dr. John Neufeld:

But they gave me so much joy.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, it’s amazing. Okay, so you did mention the idea of praying to the Holy Spirit to interpret passages. Talk to us about the role of prayer and spiritual discernment when grappling with texts.

Dr. John Neufeld:

This is very important. What is the role of the Holy Spirit even when we are dealing with Bible study? Because clearly, when we read the text itself, so Paul in 1 Corinthians says that the spirit gives us an insight into the text, and we’ve always said that there is something called illumination. So let me talk about that just briefly.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, please.

Dr. John Neufeld:

What the Holy Spirit actually does is He teaches us to love what the text teaches. See, without the Holy Spirit, if I were to read that Christ’s death on the cross is the only way by which I can be saved and made right with God, what that is, it’s a savage assault on my ego. Are you saying to me that there’s nothing I can do to actually earn my own salvation? I would reject that utterly because my old nature, which is self-focused, wants to twist any Bible text to make it acceptable to me. So what the Holy Spirit does is He changes our heart so that we find delight in what we read rather than revulsion. So I think there’s two ways in which the unregenerate person deals with the text. One, the unregenerate person can say, “I understand it fully,” which you can do. And see, many of us have the wrong idea that the Bible is so mysterious that if a non-Christian reads it, they could never understand what it says.

My first encounter with that was way back when I was young and going off to secular university and finding a prof who taught near Eastern studies, and I still remember the accuracy at which he handled the text while he rejected it utterly. So that’s the first reaction, we reject it utterly. The second reaction is the pharisaic reaction that takes, let’s say, the law which the Pharisees delighted in, and they twisted the purpose of the law to make it sound like they were the heroes in the text rather than condemned by the law. So we twist the scripture to suit our own desire to aggrandize ourselves. So that’s what we do. And when we do that, I mean it’s always the impulse then to twist everything. And what the Holy Spirit does is He gives us a change of heart so that we would delight in what the grammar of the text actually teaches. I think that’s the role of the spirit.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s so good. That’s so good. For you personally, when you’re going through passages of scripture and maybe you’re struggling to understand a certain thing, what tools or resources do you use personally to help you when you’re studying texts?

Dr. John Neufeld:

At the end of the day, let me say this, just read your Bible. And I would say this, read it through, and I would often say this, make sure that you read it through in chronological order. You can get a lot of good Bible reading plans to take you through the Bible every year and every year as you go through it, if you go through chronologically, you get to see where a piece of literature fits in the overall story of the Bible. And after having read it through over and over and over again, it feels like a well-worn path. And I think that’s what it is when you just year after year, decade after decade, begin a pattern of reading through scripture. After a while, it’s fascinating how the roadway of the entire story becomes a familiar roadway. And so before you do anything else, just a commitment to actually reading and understanding whatever you’re reading then, how it fits into the overall narrative of the whole Bible, this becomes invaluable. And I can’t think that there’s one thing that we can talk about that’s more valuable than what I’ve just said.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, praise God. Absolutely. I agree. This is a big question, and I wonder because sometimes people make big deals out of certain scriptures that they don’t need to. How do you differentiate between essential doctrines and the secondary theological matters when addressing the troublesome passages that are hard to interpret?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah, I like to say, and it takes some experience to finally get to this, but I like to say that you can look at all of the teachings of scripture or the doctrines that we hold in the faith, and recognize how many different denominations there are and we hold different things, but I like to say that it’s good to think about all of the teachings and the truths of the Bible and think about it holding in three different hands. I know we only have two, so that doesn’t work well. But think about one, is we hold some things with an open hand, and that is not to say that disagreement about these things are not important. It’s only to say that if you disagree on this issue, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that you are my brother or my sister in Christ. So for instance, I hear a lot of people saying, when it comes to end times, “I’m not a pre-millennialist, I’m not an all-millennialist, I’m a pan-millennialist.”

Have you all heard that? Whenever someone says that to me, I always say, in a loving way, “Wiener,” because you are basically not paying attention and asking yourselves, “Where should I be ending up?” You’re not doing the kind of in-depth study that you should be doing. And so I am unashamedly a pre-millennialist. I have very many strong all-millennial friends. We sometimes have a vigorous debate, and when we’re done, we never ever doubt. Let me give you another example of that. This might be a little more controversial, baptism. I fully hold believers baptism upon confession of faith. I have many, because I was a council member of the Gospel Coalition for many years, and there were many Presbyterians there, wonderful, godly, Bible-believing, salvation-preaching individuals who held to infant baptism. I remember once we had a debate between two of the brothers and one of the Baptist brothers started by saying to the Presbyterian brother, “Every time you baptize a baby, you’re sinning. Are you ever going to stop?”

And that was the beginning, that was the opening thing, but it was done with a reason. And the reason behind it was this, so that we would understand that there’s a difference between that which is central to our faith and those things about which Christians have disagreed on over the years, and we are going to still do that, but we will not doubt the basic, the central issue of the faith. So that, I would say, are the things that we hold with an open hand. Then there are other things that we hold with, I would say a guarded hand, like this. We guard it carefully so that if you disagree on this issue, and I’ll give an example in just a bit, but if you disagree on this issue, I see that with alarm and I believe that there’s a trajectory that you’re taking that if you follow this to its natural conclusion, it could lead you to abandon your faith. So I’m concerned, but even so, I do not doubt your faith. What would be an example of that?

Well, I would say one example is the example of biblical inerrancy. See, I think that we should hold the idea that every word of scripture is true and that we are to say that there are no contradictions in the Bible and that we can hold the entirety. I know that we’re talking about manuscripts and I recognize that the original manuscript is not something that we possess. So normally when we talk inerrancy, we say, “Inerrancy in the original manuscripts,” and I know we don’t have them, but we have enough manuscripts to give us a very good idea of what the originals look like. And so what we have in our hands actually can be trusted. It’s trustworthy. So we want to say that inerrancy means that I hold to the authority of the whole. And if I find a portion that I find difficult with, I still will bow my knee and submit to this, scripture is truth, all of it.

Now, there are all sorts of believers that do not hold that. They would hold what I call limited errancy. So they would say, “There are errors in the scripture,” and I graduated from a seminary like this, “There are errors in the scripture and those errors deal with numbers and they deal with historical details and all supports of what they say, insignificant issues, that don’t affect the central message.” Now, here’s my response to that. I know that there are people that hold that view who are believers, but I do know it takes very little to follow that trajectory doubt until you begin to doubt central issues. So this is an example of some doctrines that we hold with a guarded hand. There are others that we hold with a closed fist that is, you don’t hold to this, I do not see you as my brother or sister in Christ. That is, I will pray for you, I’ll share the gospel with you. I do not hold you as a believer.

What would be an example? I would say that if you’re not a Trinitarian, you’re not a believer. I would say that if you don’t hold to the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ, if you do not believe that Christ suffered on the cross and paid the penalty for your sins. If that’s not your view of the cross, and there are many that don’t hold that, my response is, we can have a dialogue and it will be an Aaronic dialogue, but we’ll not hold that dialogue by saying, “We both understand that we’re in the faith.” We do not.

Andrew Marcus:

Right. I would’ve thought that the inerrancy of Scripture would’ve been more of a closed fist.

Dr. John Neufeld:

I understand that, and I put that because I know it’s a-

Andrew Marcus:

It’s a tough one.

Dr. John Neufeld:

It is a tough one. And I have sat under profs in my life who when they spoke of the doctrine of salvation, and my example would be, he’s already in glory, Paul Jewett, who was one of the best-known systematic prophets in his day, and I sat under him when he did a section on the doctrine of salvation, I would leave his classroom sometimes with tears at the depth of the doctrine, and yet the same man would stand before the class and say, “On this issue here,” and he would mean, for instance, Paul’s view of the relationship between men and women, he would just simply say, “The apostle is in error.” And it would slide out of his mouth. And so I’ve known people that do that. I think Paul Jewett is in glory. I mean, I’m not his judge, but I do think he is. And having said that, however, what he taught left an opening which some of his students follow to their own ruin.

Andrew Marcus:

Well, I’d love to go through some specific passages with you.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yep. Let’s do it.

Andrew Marcus:

And then maybe we can watch you unpack and give us the context and share how do we wrestle with some of these troubling passages.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Knowing that I would be called, so it may be that that phone call was not completely on the up and up.

Andrew Marcus:

You knew I was going to call you? He has caller ID. So when he sees us, sometimes he screens our call, I know he does. I’m just kidding. So I won’t go through the whole, it’s Numbers chapter five, verse 11 to 31, and it’s the story of the test of adultery. Now, I’m not going to go through the whole reading because it’s long, but maybe if you’re familiar with it, you can just give us a little summary of that. Because I know some pro-choicers argue that, is this God performing an abortion?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Okay, so if you don’t know the text, let’s get the text.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, let’s get the text because I heard a couple.

Dr. John Neufeld:

The text is, so if a man’s wife goes astray and breaks faith with him, or if a man is suspicious that his wife has broken faith with him, he brings her to the temple and then they take and they have some sweepings of barley from the floor of the tabernacle, and they mix it with water. And then the priest says to her, “If you have truly…” So she’s saying, “I haven’t committed adultery,” and he says, “Yes, she has.” And so he says, “Drink this. And if it causes your belly to swell, well, there we’ll know that you’ve committed adultery, but if it doesn’t, clearly you haven’t.” It’s one of those texts in the Bible we say, “My goodness, what in the world is going on here?” But you say that some people use that for an abortion, which is weird because I don’t think drinking barley water will give you an abortion, but I stand corrected if there’s a medical doctor in the room that actually believes that. No doubt that doctor is also one of the flat earthers, but nonetheless.

Andrew Marcus:

Okay, whoa, whoa, settle down. We have people watching in parts of the country.

Dr. John Neufeld:

So what are we actually reading here? And see what we’re reading here is if you look at the ancient world around Israel… So by the way, we know this from witch trials, especially from the Middle Ages. So you take a woman who is suspected of being a witch, and then you would tie weights to her and you would throw her over the boat in the middle of the lake. And if she drowns, praise God, she’s not a witch, she just drowned like anybody else, but if she floats, she’s a witch, so let’s burn her.

Andrew Marcus:

Oh my goodness.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Some of us, yeah, that actually… Notice how different this is. And by the way, some of the nations around Israel practice this. There is nothing that’s going to happen to the woman when she drinks this water that’s got some barley in it. Nothing’s going to happen. However, because it’s done with such a solemn intonation, the idea is that if she’s afraid and says, “Maybe the Lord will actually curse me at this point in time,” it brings about a confession or repentance. I think that’s what’s happening here. And so the idea that it would have something to do with abortion is really a…

Andrew Marcus:

That’s when people take, they’ll pick and choose and create and interpret their own way.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yep. True enough.

Andrew Marcus:

And so that’s the danger. It gets so off so quickly. Exodus 4:24-26, where the Lord comes to kill Moses after commissioning him to go and save his people, maybe walk through, even give us a little bit of the story. Exodus 4:24-26.

Dr. John Neufeld:

So yes, verse 24, at the lodging place on the way, the Lord met him and sought to put Moses to death. Then Zipporah, his wife, takes a flint knife and she circumcises the two boys right there, which that was a shocking experience for those boys, I’m sure.

Andrew Marcus:

It was probably not a good time. I’m guessing it wasn’t a good time.

Dr. John Neufeld:

No. Yeah. And so at any rate, there’s that. And so Moses is allowed to live. So the explanation behind that text I think is quite simple. Moses is going back to Israel who has a law of God, and that is that all the male children are to be circumcised and that the circumcision of the male children is a mark on their sexual organ that their offspring belong to the Lord. It’s a very significant thing. Moses, while he has been in Midian, has had two boys and has not insisted on their circumcision so that they, the two boys, would also demonstrate they belong to the same covenant of God. So then the deliverer is going back and he himself is disobedient to the covenant and God meets him on the way and says, “This will not stand.” And Zipporah recognizes it. It’s funny. She knew it. She’s the daughter of a Midianite priest. She recognized it immediately and she does what Moses should have done in the first place. So it’s God rebuking His servant and saying, “The only people I will get to serve me are individuals who are obedient to the covenant.” Now there’s a wonderful point of application.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow. Dr. John, thank you so much for being with us today.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah, thank you.

Andrew Marcus:

You can see him or hear him on radio and online, Back to the Bible, fantastic Bible teacher. And for those who are watching on YouTube or listening on AudioWorld, thank you for tuning in to this week’s episode and for all those in the room, thank you for being here today. This is so fun. Amazing, amazing. I just want to remind you, those online, those in the room, if you can like, subscribe, hit the notification, do all those things, that really helps. But God bless you guys, have a great day. And those watching, have a great week. God bless. Hey, thanks so much for joining us today. For more great content, check out TH THE INDOUBT SHOW on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you stream your podcasts. We hope you enjoyed it today. Feel free to check out indoubt.ca, we have some great resources available to you. Have an awesome day.

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