Ask a Pastor 2.0

As you may already know, we recently wrapped up a two-week series at The Market Church called "Ask a Pastor." For weeks prior to the series, we received dozens of questions of all kinds, and unfortunately, we just didn't have enough time to answer every question on a Sunday morning. Thus, 2.0 has been born. What I mean is, we'd like to continue the Ask a Pastor discussion here on the blog. 

Here are a few REALLY great questions that didn't make it into a Sunday morning message, but definitely deserve to be answered:

1. How do I hope for the future and not fear it when God doesn't promise ease/safety or even a good ending? Even Revelation is full of suffering for believers. How do I live and prepare for that along w/ those I love?

There are some valid concerns here. As a Christian,  you aren't promised or guaranteed a pain-free life. In fact, Jesus told his followers to expect hardship. There are places in the world today where Christians, in particular, are persecuted. Closer to home, loved ones have died too young. Family members have lost their jobs. It seems like you can find a negative news story more easily than a positive one. A lot seems wrong with the world.

Even though there isn't a guarantee that everything in life will be pain-free, the Bible tells us that God hasn't given us a Spirit of fear or timidity, but of power, love, and self discipline (1 Tim 1:7). Romans 12:12 says to rejoice in our confident hope. So you can see, God has made a way for us to be confident and hopeful even in difficult situations.

2. If God turned his back on Jesus when he was on the cross because he took on mankind's sin, why would he not do the same with me?

The simple answer is that God doesn't have to turn His back on you because Jesus has already paid the full price for our short-comings. It was a "once and for all time" type of thing He did for us (1 Peter 3:18). This is hard to accept because we often feel the need to pay for our own sins. Sometimes in those moments of failure, we feel distant from God. Let me assure you that this isn't God turning His back. Jesus actually describes Him as a Father who, when seeing us approaching from a distance, comes running joyfully to us. He's not thinking about your sin. He's thinking about how much He loves you.

3. Words are important, words have meaning. I want to trust that every word in the bible is intentional, but at the very least there are translation issues. Specifically, Matthew 12:1 in the King James Version says Jesus and his disciples ate corn. Corn didn't exist in that region at that time! The New International Version calls it grain, which makes more sense.

You nailed it on the head. Translation issues.

Though the King James Version is very popular, it was written in Old English and didn't have the same quality of sources used by more recent English translations. If you look at some of the translations which are more faithful to the original Greek, you'll find they use the English words "grain" or "grain fields" in Matthew 12 instead of "corn."

As a side note: A lot of the typical rhetoric against the integrity of the Bible is based on false assumptions or bad information. One argument I hear a lot is that the Bible is a translation upon translation; so the original meaning is lost. We can see, however, that post-King James Versions of the Bible such as the very literal NASV, or the more flowing NIV, use modern language and have better source material.


I genuinely hope this series has been engaging and challenging for you. Please feel free to leave a comment, or even ask another question. Let's continue the conversation!

- Pastor Adam