Last week, I notified you about our upcoming plans for the podcast. Thanks to everyone who subscribed in iTunes, the podcast hit #1 in Canada and #13 in the USA.

These rankings are unbelievable to me as I’m essentially a nobody. Unlike the others who have podcasts in the top 20, I’m not a mega church pastor, and I don’t have a television program. (And I have no plans for either.)

The interest in the podcast is simply a testament to the hunger that exists for Christ-centered messages with depth and a good dose of humor sprinkled in.

Now on to something related to the podcast.

At the encouragement of two of my friends, I’m toying with the idea of starting an Internet Radio Show.

If we end up launching it, the show will include interviews with interesting guests and lots of shtick. 

If you want a snapshot of “shtick,” listen to this 3-minute episode on the podcast and you’ll get the idea.

My 25,000 give-away is another example.

Now . . . if I end up deciding to take the plunge and do the show (I’m undecided right now), it’s been agreed upon that I have a guest host. Just one (count them – 1) guest host for each show. The same person, not several people rotating.

Those producing the show want my co-host to be a fellow Christian author who is fairly well known. And that he or she would have a sense of humor and be able to connect with the main audience of the show (and this blog) – Millennials (20s and 30s).

Note: the podcast would not be about “church.” It would be similar to this blog in that it would discuss a wide range of topics – theological, biblical, popular culture, etc.

So . . . imagine that the show is going to become a reality.

Who do you want my co-host to be? 

Remember: One person. A fellow author (female or male), fairly well known in the Christian world, sense of humor, and connects well with Millennials. If someone has selected the person you wanted to pick, just repeat their selection.

Thanks!

See also the Top 50 Most Popular Blog Posts

Over the last three weeks, two interesting things have happened that provoked this post:

1) A new author asked me to address the issue of disagreements, especially with regard to those who write books and blogs and those who read them.

2) I had a phone conversation with a well-known webmaster who read a negative review of one of my books. Before the conversation, the webmaster was almost certain that we bitterly disagreed about many things. After we talked, however, he realized that we didn’t disagree about anything we discussed. He also realized that the review had grossly misrepresented my book.

If you have ever had someone disagree with something you’ve said or written . . . or you’ve disagreed with what someone has ever said or written, then this post is for you.

Three things by way of introduction. When people disagree with you . . .

1. Some will be charitable in their disagreement.
2. Others will be defamatory.
3. Sometimes many of the people who think they disagree with you really don’t.

To be sure, there are genuine disagreements. And we should welcome them. It’s one way to fine-tune our thinking. None of us can claim immaculate perception.

But in all the years that I’ve been writing books, blogging, and speaking, I’ve discovered that after having a respectful conversation with a reasonable person, we often learn that there is no substantive disagreement. In my experience at least, this happens approximately 75% of the time.

That said, here are 4 reasons why a person may think they disagree with you when they really don’t. Note that I’m using the word “author” here to refer to the human source of any piece of writing or speech.

1) The author wasn’t clear in making her or his point, so his or her points were misunderstood. When it comes to articulating our thoughts, we all have room for improvement. For myself, I’m constantly honing my writing, restating things, rewording sentences, reworking the material to be as clear as possible. Yet I am never satisfied. Winston Churchill perfectly describes my experience when he said,

Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.

Sometimes, our words lend themselves to misunderstanding. In such cases, there is no substantive disagreement, just a misunderstanding.

Take Away: Ask the author for clarification if you think you may be misunderstanding him or her.

2) The author’s statements have been taken out of context and misrepresented, then spread. This happens more than you know. My friends Christian Smith, N.T. Wright, and Leonard Sweet have had to deal with it in spades.

The little red book that I wrote with George Barna is reported to be “the most reviewed book by those who’ve never read it.” The misrepresentations surrounding that book are so outlandish (yet well written) that they make Mr. Spock seem real. This provoked us to create a special Q & A page for readers where we respond to objections and critiques. Potential readers can clearly see what we say in the book and what we don’t say.

Unfortunately, some people will intentionally misrepresent another person’s words. One sure sign of this is when a person criticizes a work, but they won’t post a clickable link [hyperlink] to the source they are criticizing. This is done so that those reading the critique can’t easily check to see if the critique is accurate or not. (This is especially true for online blogs, audios, and articles.)

Take Away: If someone critiques a piece of writing or talk, be sure to read or listen to the source of the critique yourself. This way you will know if the critique is accurate or not. Never believe a negative critique without first reading the source. Even if there are direct quotations in the critique. Quotations are like sound bytes that can be easily taken out of context. People do this when misrepresenting the Bible all the time.

3) The author’s statements are filtered through the reader’s experience. Sometimes people read their own experiences and assumptions into what they read and hear. The net effect is that the meaning the author intended is changed. Take the word “prophetic,” for instance. Some people understand that word to mean God has directly given an individual His words directly. Others understand it to mean a challenging word in the style of the Old Testament prophets. Others view it as a word that reveals Jesus Christ. Others understand it to be a word that predicts the future. See what I mean? Words like “organic,” “missional,” and “church” are routinely used to mean very different things by different people.

Take Away: Find out what an author means by a certain word before drawing a conclusion.

4) The author’s statements are misunderstood due to a differing spiritual conversational style. In Revise Us Again, I introduce readers to the three main spiritual conversational styles. Try talking spirituality or theology with another Christian who uses a different spiritual conversational style than you? The result: popcorn. People think they disagree when they really don’t. Your discussion was shanghaied by a differing conversation style.

Take Away: Recognize that your disagreement may be rooted in a differing conversational style.

A Word to Readers

If you read a critique that disturbs or concerns you, always, always, always go directly to the source. Read the original work yourself. Or ask the author directly what she or he believes.

A Word to Writers

If you are a writer who is turning the sod on some issues, you and your work will be misrepresented at some point.

How you react, however, reveals volumes about your spiritual stature.

I’ve watched too many authors and bloggers return fire on those who attack them or misrepresent their work. And sometimes it gets ugly. This is the way of the flesh and shows nothing of the cross of Jesus Christ.

Trust the Lord with it. In most cases, those who are discerning will go to bat for you and defend your work. You don’t have to defend yourself. Let God do the defending.

Taking the high road, the road of our Lord Jesus, often means remaining silent when under attack.

To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly (1 Peter 2:21-23).

In addition, as a writer, you should make yourself accessible to your readers. Even if it’s through a personal assistant.

Inaccessibility is the outstanding trait of the celebrity. Try writing to Kim Kardashian or Justin Beiber and getting a response. The same holds true for some Christian authors today. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (to quote Seinfeld) . . . if being a celebrity is the way you want to roll.

But in my judgment, you should be accessible to answer questions about your work from people who are open minded, think the best of you, and genuinely want to understand what you’re saying. (Trolls are the exception, of course.) Not just for their sake, but also for your own.

Share a story of when someone thought they disagreed with you when in reality they didn’t.

I’ve been following the Lord for a little over 30 years now. And as I’ve watched the passing parade, some of the most zealous, devout, committed Christians that I knew in their 20s and 30s are now atheists in their 40s.

They filed Chapter 7 on their Christian life.

Each of them shared one of three things in common:

1. They chose to become offended by God when He didn’t meet their expectations.
2. They chose to become bitter at others when they didn’t meet their expectations.
3. They made provision for their flesh and crossed an invisible line in which they were completely overtaken by it.

Holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith (1 Timothy 1:19).

Likewise, some of the people who claimed to be utterly dedicated to the vision of God’s central mission later abandoned it for an easier, less costly, more popular and convenient life.

They filed Chapter 11 on their spiritual progress.

The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful (Matthew 13:22).

Point: There are no guarantees when it comes to our walk with the Lord. What God knows mortals do not.

The truth is, all of us are hanging by grace. Every day.

“The one who endures until the end will be delivered,” Jesus said.

John wrote, “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us” (1 John 2:19).

The entire culture is pressing on us to take our eye off the ball. To divert our attention from Jesus to the flesh, the world, and the enticements of the enemy. Egypt, Babylon, and Sodom cry out to us every day from every quarter.

Consequently, we all need encouragement to go on with the Lord . . . to keep Christ before our eyes. This is one of the key reasons why I blog and podcast.

Teetering on the edge of spiritual bankruptcy is no fun, but it’s a red flag to motivate you to seek spiritual encouragement. And to receive it.

If you’re down, you can bet that some Christian you know is up. And when they’re down, you can return the favor.

The antidote to spiritual bankruptcy?

See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first (Hebrews 3:12-14).

According to the writer of Hebrews, the antidote to an unbelieving hard heart, the deceitfulness of sin, and turning away from the living God is mutual encouragement.

Not mutual tear-down, mutual bickering, mutual hair-splitting, mutual condemning, mutual finger-pointing or mutual in-fighting.

But mutual encouragement.

But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you don’t consume one another (Galatians 5:13).

There once were two cats of Kilkenny

Each thought there was one cat too many

So they fought and they fit

And they scratched and they bit

‘Til excepting their nails

And the tips of their tails

Instead of two cats there weren’t any.

Acknowledging to yourself and to someone else that you’re stuck in your walk is the first step to getting unstuck. And finding people and communities where mutual encouragement is the norm (opposed to tear-down and in-fighting) is the best way to protect your spirit.

Spiritual bankruptcy can be avoided.

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24).

The early Christians wrote songs to express their spiritual experience and revelation of Jesus Christ. Some of the earliest Christian songs appear in the New Testament. Two of the most powerful are found in Colossians 1 and Philippians 2.

In addition, a strong part of our Christian heritage is the practice of writing new lyrics to well-known tunes. This practice goes back to at least the Reformers. But I suspect it precedes that.

Some of our most beloved hymns were written to existing tunes that were known and sung by the general culture.

On February 4, 2012, I delivered a message to a Christian community entitled Living in the Divine Parenthesis. The night before I brought that message, I wrote a song as a companion to the talk.

The song was written to the tune of Wavin’ Flag by K’naan — a specific version of it performed by the Young Artists for Haiti. That version of Wavin’ Flag is amazing; the Young Artists’ voices are outstanding; the cause (the need in Haiti) critically important.

Click here to listen to the tune. As you listen, read the lyrics I wrote below. The recording is an excerpt, but enough to teach you the tune.

I’d love for a group of Christians who know how to sing well to learn the new song and record it. You’ve got the tune and the lyrics. Now you just need to put some good voices in a room together, a little time, a digital recorder, and some grace.

If any of you out there end up doing that, please send me the recording. It would make my day. No . . . it would make my month!

Title: “He Has Anointed Us” (Luke 4:18-21) – Sung to the tune of Wavin’ Flag.

Based on the message Living in the Divine Parenthesis.

[All]

We are His body
Serving His lost world
They will see Jesus
He has anointed us

[A Brother Sings]

He is alive

World is revived

Lord over all

God’s future now

[A Sister Sings]

He is our home

We’ll make Him known

[A Brother Sings]

We’re on His throne

Glory is shown

[A Sister Sings]

Out of the darkness

Free from the carnage

Bearing the good news of Jes-u-s

[A Brother Sings]

Sin on the streets

Lost broken dreams

He is their Hope

True Prince of Peace

[All]

So we’re reaching out

[A Brother Sings]

Giving His love

[All]

And we’re pressing on

[A Brother Sings]

Because we are free

[A Sister Sings]

We will not wait

For some future day

It’s too far away

So right now we say

[All - Chorus]

We are His body
Serving His lost world
They will see Jesus
He has anointed us

For He’s the true King

For He’s the true King

For He’s the true King

Woh oh oh

[A Sister Sings]

Jesus has risen

A new creation

[A Brother Sings]

Spirit is in us

We are forgiven

[A Sister Sings]

We boldly say

Love is the way

[A Brother Sings]

Christ is the answer

That’s what we say

[A Sister Sings]

But we’re not just dreamers

Nor clever schemers

[A Brother Sings]

His hand has reached us

Mended our weakness

[A Sister Sings]

He lives within

Doing His will

Jubilee now

Showing us how

[All]

So we’re reaching out

[A Brother Sings]

Giving His love

[All]

And we’re pressing on

[A Brother Sings]

Because we are free

[A Sister Sings]

We will not wait

For some future day

It’s too far away

So right now we say

[All - Chorus]

We are His body
Serving His lost world
They will see Jesus
He has anointed us

For He’s the true King

For He’s the true King

For He’s the true King

Woh oh oh

[All - Chorus]

We are His body
Serving His lost world
They will see Jesus
He has anointed us

True Lord of the world

True Lord of the world

True Lord of the world

Woh oh oh

Read the post and be sure to scroll down to see rankings. Thanks to all of you who have subscribed.

Many of you who are long-time subscribers of this blog are also subscribed to my podcast.

Those of you who are new probably aren’t aware of it.

Plans are being laid for new episodes just around the corner.

Among them are the messages that I delivered at the 2009 Zoe Conference in Nashville, TN; never before-released messages I delivered on Colossians and Ephesians; new radio-broadcast interviews; new first chapters of upcoming books; and several “surprise” episodes that will be peppered liberally with humorous shtick.

You’ll want to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any new episodes. By subscribing, you’ll also receive the 53 episodes that have already been published. This includes past conferences messages, interviews, first chapters, and humorous sketches.

We plan to start posting new episodes in June. But we want to give you a heads-up now so you can subscribe early by the time the new episodes are published.

By the way, the name of the podcast is “Christ is ALL.” The title comes from Colossians 3:11. As I’ve outlined in Rethinking the Gospel, Jesus of Nazareth is Lord over all things, not just our private individual (spiritual) lives.

And as Len Sweet and I fleshed out in our book, Jesus Manifesto, Christ is the embodiment of all spiritual things. He is the incarnation of all spiritual virtues, gifts, ministries, and truths. They’re all enfleshed in Him.

Because the conference messages contained on the podcast have the sharp edge of Christ’s supremacy, all-sufficiency, and all-inclusiveness, we named it after Colossians 3:11.

The podcast is on iTunes. Just click the iTunes link below and when you get to the page, click the blue “View in iTunes” button on the top left. You’ll be taken directly to the podcast in iTunes where you can subscribe.

Update: I just learned that the podcast ranked #1 on iTunes in “Christian Podcasts” in Canada and #13 in the USA. Unbelieveable! Thanks to all of you who are subscribing.

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Yesterday, I posted Part I of my interview with David Lamb on his excellent book, God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist?

Today, we resume with Part II. Be sure to read my closing word at the end of this post.

Frank: Some have suggested that the city of Jericho was already destroyed before the Hebrew people finally settled in Canaan. This is reportedly evidenced by several independent methods of dating the final destruction layers of Jericho.

If true, this is an argument against an accurate historical portrayal in Joshua. The idea being that the Israelites idealized their early historical conquests after the fact. According to Kenneth A. Kitchen’s book, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, by the time of the Exodus, the walls of Jericho would have been little more than the backs of houses that ringed the small settlement. Allegedly, Jericho was largely abandoned at the supposed time of the exodus. What is your response to this?

David Lamb: I am not an archeologist, but I know there is sufficient ambiguity in the archeological world to warrant differing conclusions about the data. It is impossible for the preconceptions of an archeologist to not somehow shape their conclusions. People that believe the conquest accounts were not historical will find plenty of evidence to support that idea. Likewise, people who believe that cities like Jericho were destroyed will dispute these findings based on other evidence. 

For Jericho, we shouldn’t envision enormous castle-esque walls like the type John Cleese taunted King Arthur’s knights from the top of with his “silly French accent” in Monty Python’s The Holy Grail. Similarly, the walls probably weren’t as high as the ones that the French peas stand on top of in Veggie Tales’ Josh and the Big Wall!  

Were the accounts of the destruction of Jericho shaped by the worldview of the authors of Joshua? Certainly. But I also believe they were divinely inspired authors who recorded faithful narratives of what took place. I would also defer to the views of people like Kenneth Kitchen who have studied the issue of the conquest more than me.

Frank: The Old Testament is full of laws about cleanliness. Certain foods are unclean. A woman who is menstruating is unclean. Touching a dead body makes a person unclean. How can someone make sense of this except to think that a human being wrote these laws? How can they reflect God’s nature?

David Lamb: While many of these rules don’t make sense to us today, we need to remember that the laws of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) were given to Israel while they were wandering nomads in the wilderness. These laws were their constitution and their basis for their society not just spiritually, but also economically, politically, socially and even hygienically.

Their laws needed to address some of what the FDA or the USDA does for us now, provide guidance about what is safe to eat and about how to maintain physical health. God cares about our health and our welfare, and while we may not fully understand all of the apparently obscure regulations of the Pentateuch, the primary reason for them is clear, as God repeatedly tells his people, “Be holy, for I am holy” (e.g., Lev. 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:26).

Over a thousand years later, in a very different context, holiness looked different, as Jesus declared all foods clean and challenged his followers to focus at what comes out of their hearts and to welcome foreigners into the community of faith (Mark 7:18-23; Acts 10:13-16).

Frank: In Exodus 32, God gets angry with Israel because they made and worshipped a golden calf. The Lord responds by telling Moses He wants to consume the whole nation and make a new nation through Moses. Moses intercedes for the people, and the Lord changes His mind.

But God does command the sons of Levi to kill “every man his brother, every man his friend, and every man his neighbor” (presumably those who worshipped the golden calf). Okay, so we see God burning with anger, desiring to wipe out the whole nation and start over again with Moses, then changing His mind, then asking one tribe to kill some of their own brethren. How does all of this fit with the sovereign, loving, benevolent God that Christians believe in and proclaim? 

David Lamb: The story of the golden calf is troubling on a variety of levels. But once again, we need to read and understand this story in context. Israel has just been dramatically delivered by YHWH from hundreds of years of Egyptian oppression. Pharaoh changed his mind and decided to wipe them out as they were trapped at the Red Sea, so YHWH delivered them again in perhaps the most spectacular display of his power in the OT—by parting the sea.

Then on Mount Sinai, YHWH gave them his covenant, which among other things included clear proscriptions against idolatry at the very beginning of the Ten Commandments (no other gods, no idols, no worshipping other gods). As an entire nation they agree to the covenant, “All the words that YHWH has spoken we will do” (Exo. 24:3). Their commitment is like that of marriage. YHWH will be their God and they will be his people.

Shortly after this, Moses is delayed a few days from coming down from the mountain, so what do they do? They worship a golden calf, thus breaking the covenant they just made. YHWH is the perfect spouse (flowers, chocolates, deliverances), but they commit adultery on the honeymoon. YHWH’s anger is totally justified. God had made it clear that the punishment for breaking the covenant would be death (Exo. 20:5; 21:12, 15, 16; 23:12, 24, 33). They all deserve to die.

The most shocking thing about this story is that any of them live. YHWH told Moses he was going to met out the appropriate judgment by wiping out his people and start over with Moses. But Moses amazingly convinces YHWH to change his mind (read more about this in GBB chapter 7). The Levite slaughter is troubling, but we shouldn’t forget that the 3000 killed were a small fraction of the nation, and it sent a clear signal to the people that idolatry wouldn’t be tolerated. Unfortunately, Israel never really learned that lesson.

Frank: Devil’s Advocate Questions Over. You can breathe easy now. What has the reaction been to the book thus far? And what would you like it to be?

David Lamb: Some Old Testament scholars think the book is superficial. I agree. It’s supposed to be, at least from the perspective of an OT scholar. Some people want me to go into more depth on each of the seven subjects I address about God (anger, sexism, racism, violence, legalism, rigidity, distance).

Entire books could be written on each of those subjects, but that’s not the book I wanted to write. I wanted to write a 200 page book that addressed seven major problems people have with the God they encounter on the pages of the Old Testament. This book isn’t primarily targeting people like me, OT scholars, but everyone else, people like George, Jon and Sandra.

I recently received an email from George, a 70 year-old gentleman, who received a free copy because he’s a board member of my seminary. He writes, “Quite frankly, the title scared me off. I didn’t need to read that and I put it aside. I recently decided to delve into it. Once I started, I couldn’t put it down. You hit on many of the more difficult passages and you nailed them.”

George’s apprehension about the title isn’t unusual (“God doesn’t behave badly!”). When people ask me about the title, I tell them, the full title is a question (“Is the God of the Old Testament…?”). Then I remind them that even Jesus on the cross asked a tough question about God’s troubling behavior: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  If it’s OK for Jesus to ask tough questions of God, then it should be OK for us.

This is an email from Jon (who I think is probably a few years younger than George): “I just finished your book “God Behaving Badly”. I am not yet a Christian, but have been on a decade and a half progression from being in Dawkins/Hitchens mode to being presently a deist who is friendly and curious about the faith. I’ve even recently started attending a church and (gasp!) reading the Bible. A big obstacle (that I knew was coming) was the subject of your book. Thank you for helping me a better understanding of Yahweh. You’ve provided me with another nugget to chew on.”

Here’s an email from Sandra: “Your book is healing to say the least and you are so smart to write in the friendly manner which disarms the reader’s apprehensions and makes the “medicine” of God’s word much more palatable. You have blessed one of His servants.”

Emails like these are gold.

Frank: Have you considered having your publicist send Bill Maher a copy? I (for one) would love to see you debate him.

David Lamb: So, you’re a sadistic and would like to see me get my butt kicked on TV?

Frank: Perhaps. But I was actually looking for someone to give Maher an atomic knee drop and I thought you’d be a good candidate. (Oh, for you literalists out there in Webland, Lamb and I are speaking metaphorically.)

David Lamb: Seriously, I’d love to discuss God’s troubling behavior with Bill Maher. Maher is controversial, as is Dawkins, which makes them popular. But it would be awesome to talk to him. Maher makes great points about the hypocrisy of religion, sometimes sounding a bit like Jesus.

This is my first popular book, so I’m still a bit new to the whole publicity thing, but I’ve done about 20 radio interviews, mainly with Christian stations. I’ve really enjoyed the interviews and they’ve gone well. I’d be happy to do more.

I’ve sent a copy of my book to the local NPR affiliate (WHYY) and the hosts of programs produced here in Philadelphia, Fresh Air and Radio Times, but received no response. Another friend contacted someone they know at All Things Considered, but again we’ve gotten no bites.

Frank: Like many atheists and agnostics, Maher has embraced the narrow-minded belief that empiricism is the only way to truth and he evangelizes it. He’s trapped in modernistic thinking and captive to the extreme arrogance that goes with it. He sounds more like Robert Ingersoll (he actually copies him) than Jesus. Though he’s more arrogant — Ingersoll was an agnostic not an atheist. But the logic used contra the Bible is identical.

I’d like to see you debate an atheist or agnostic in a public forum, TV or Radio preferably. Your publicist is the key to putting that together.

Would you like to add anything else about the book that readers should know?

David Lamb: Here are a few hopes I have for people who read the book. Many Christians feel guilty for not reading their Bibles and it doesn’t help that when they finally get around to doing it, they encounter a God they don’t understand and who seems to be in many respects “unlikeable.”  I would hope that after people read this book they would have an increased passion, love and enthusiasm for Scripture.

Not only that, but I would also hope that this book would give Christians the information and knowledge to intelligently discuss the biblical portrayals of God with their skeptic friends and neighbors. As skeptics and seekers read the book, my goal for them would be that some of their obstacles to faith would be diminished or removed.

However, my deepest hope is that readers of God Behaving Badly will desire to draw closer to God since they have a better understanding of his behavior, and they realize that he is not harsh, unfair and cruel, but loving, gracious and generous.

Order God Behaving Badly in Paperback

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Closing Word

For more from David Lamb, check out his blog.

Also, last year I interviewed Paul Copan on his book Is God a Moral Monster? I asked him some of the same questions that I asked Lamb. Copan’s book is more academic and scholarly. And it covers more subjects. Lamb’s book is more popular and accessible, but he covers ground that Copan doesn’t treat. Both books are superb on the subject and make great companion volumes.

Like their predecessors, the “New Athiests” have had a field day with the Old Testament, using it to malign God and cast aspersions on His goodness.

This isn’t terribly hard to do. Just open up Exodus, Numbers, or Deuteronomy and start reading them with a modern-Western-rational mindset.

Enter David Lamb’s compelling book, God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist?

Lamb is an Old Testament scholar. And his God Behaving Badly is a fog-clearing piece of work that does a beautiful job defending the God of Creation by shedding light on the perplexities that are generated when modern (and postmodern) minds try to make sense of the Old Testament. 

God Behaving Badly is written at a popular level, and it’s extremely accessible. Lamb also throws in some comic relief to mix it up. But the wisdom he employs throughout the book is both subtle and helpful.

This is part 1 of a 2-part interview I did with Lamb. Note that I purposely asked him the tough questions that plagued me as a young believer . . . the questions that atheists, agnostics, and Deists love to gleefully throw in the face of Christians. Check out his answers and get the book. 

Frank: What motivated you to write this book?

David Lamb: I was on a date with my wife Shannon recently and we ended up chatting with my server. He says to me, “So what do you do?”  I reply, “I teach the Bible, mainly the Old Testament.”  My response prompted him to ask, “The Old Testament—isn’t that where God is always getting angry, smiting people and destroying cities all the time?”  I tell him, “Well, not exactly, but I get that question a lot because the God of the Old Testament has a bad reputation.”

I wrote God Behaving Badly for this server, and for anyone who wonders about God’s behavior in the OT (which is pretty much everyone). One of the biggest obstacles to moving atheists, agnostics and skeptics toward God is the problematic passages of the Old Testament. I talk to people about the problem of God of the Old Testament all the time: my cardiologist, my postman, my son’s soccer coach, my Sunday school class and literally hundreds of college students. I wrote the book for them.

The atheist Richard Dawkins, in his best-selling book The God Delusion, declares “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction…a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”  While I don’t agree with Dawkins, I must acknowledge the guy is provocative, and he sells books (he never replied to my email). I wrote the book for Dawkins and his followers.

Despite the problematic divine portrayals we sometimes find there, study of the Old Testament will yield rich fruit–a profound encounter with YHWH (God’s name in the OT). I hope and pray that readers of the book will fall more deeply in love with the God of both testaments.

Frank:  With my next set of questions, I’m going to play Robert Ingersoll/Bill Maher/Richard Dawkins-esque “devil’s advocate.” So here goes (deep breath). 

Consider the following passage in the Law of Moses:

If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity (Deuteronomy 25:11-12) 

Doesn’t this make clear that the Old Testament was written by a man? Come on now. How is this consistent with a good, loving, reasonable God? If God wrote this, I wouldn’t want anything to do with a God like that. What say you? 

From your perspective, what did God have in His mind when He authored this Law? And how does it reflect His nature?

David Lamb: A common feature of many action and comedy films today involves a guy getting kicked in the balls. (My family just saw Johnny English Reborn (2011)—not surprisingly, kicks to the crotch were a reoccurring theme.)  Standards of sportsmanship in fighting weren’t always like this. Fighting and boxing have traditionally had rules to be followed to ensure fair play—“no blows below the belt.”

Seizing the private parts of your opponent was never allowed by the Marquess of Queensberry Rules of boxing, particularly if it involved the wife of your opponent. I assume we are in agreement that this type of behavior shouldn’t be encouraged. Deuteronomy 25 is attempting an early version of the Marquess of Queensberry Rules.

The problem is the draconian nature of the punishment. The punishment (hand amputation) doesn’t seem to fit the crime. I agree in principle, but we need to think about the ancient context. Typically the principal of escalation carried the day. A gives B a minor injury. B retaliates inflicting A with a major injury. A then kills B. Escalation. This is why wars start.

Even though it seems draconian, into the world of escalation the biblical principal of lex talionis, an eye for an eye is actually progressive (see GBB pages 105-106 or Christianity Today’s excerpt, “An eye for an eye, a wedgie for a wedgie” . It is just, clear, and stops escalation.

Ah, but here’s the rub. An eye for an eye doesn’t really work here. (I assume I don’t need to fully explain why.)  The context of Deuteronomy 25 doesn’t make it clear what damage was done to the man’s privates, but it’s not hard to imagine that it would have been permanent. Given their male-dominated context and the principal of escalation it is reasonable to assume that a woman who does this type of thing would typically have been killed.

This law would therefore save her life. She would be punished, but she’d survive. Does it make sense to us today? No. Was it appropriate back then? Yes, definitely. But into the very different world of Jesus’ day, he overturns the law of an eye for an eye with turning the other cheek (Matt. 5:38-48; see also CT excerpt).

Frank: A similar question. Deuteronomy 23:1 says, “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord.” Whhhhaaaa? What’s the point of this? How does this reflect God’s nature?

David Lamb: On first glance, this command doesn’t seem to make any sense. We can’t be certain what was involved, but in his commentary on Deuteronomy, OT scholar Gordon McConville observes that these men would have been ritually mutilated in the context of the worship of other gods. McConville’s theory makes a lot of sense. The law isn’t designed to alienate people who would have already been outcasts because of an innocent injury, but to restrict people who were serious idolaters from entering the sacred space associated with YHWH.

Frank: Exodus 4:24-25 says,

“Now it came about at the lodging place on the way that the LORD met him and sought to put him to death. Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and threw it at Moses’ feet, and she said, “You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me.”

Now what’s this about God seeking to kill Moses because he wasn’t circumcised? Come on now. Can you help us all make sense of this? Seems pretty savage. And why was circumcision chosen to be the sign of the Covenant? It pains most men to even think about it.

David Lamb: I won’t ask about your preoccupation with phallic matters, but Freud would.

Frank: Who’s Freud?

David Lamb: To think about circumcision we need to go back to Genesis, when God established the covenant with Abraham (Gen. 17). God gave Abraham three images from nature to remind him that he would be the father of a great nation. His descendents would be as numerous as the dust of the earth (Gen. 13:16), the stars of the sky (Gen. 15:5) and the sand of the sea (Gen. 22:17).

But before Abraham had a son through Sarah (Ishmael’s mother was Hagar: Gen. 16), YHWH upped the ante for the patriarch by telling him to be circumcised. For a ninety-nine year-old guy who still desperately wanted to father a child to have penis surgery might not seem like a great idea. But he did it. That’s serious faith.

Interestingly, Isaac was born about a year later. It’s hard to say how long Abraham’s circumcision recovery lasted, but it’s not unreasonable to assume that Abraham and Sarah’s first post-circumcision sexual encounter culminated in the conception of Isaac. Whoa! Abraham was reminded of God’s promise whenever he looked to the sky, to the sea, to the ground, and every time he looked down his trousers to relieve himself. We all need reminders of God’s promises. Abraham had one every time he used the urinal.

The covenant of circumcision was a big deal for Abraham, and YHWH wanted Moses to take it seriously, which he hadn’t been doing previously. It was meant to a reminder of God’s covenant and his promise to his people for all future generations.

Frank: There are a number of instances in the Old Testament where God commands Israel to slay other nations, not sparing the women, children, or livestock. Is this not a heinous, horrific thing to command, let alone carry out? And doesn’t it contradict the teachings of Jesus regarding loving your enemy, forgiveness, etc. Here’s are two examples:

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. (1 Samuel 15:1-3) 

However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 20:16-18) 

What say you about these texts?

David Lamb: These passages are the most troubling texts in all of Scripture. When people ask me, “Why did God command the slaughter of the Canaanites and the Amalekites?” my response is, “That’s a great question, one I struggle with daily.”  It’s difficult to give a short answer to such a problematic question, but I give a longer response on the topic of the Canaanite slaughter in an article I wrote for Relevant Magazine,  pages 108-111).

Here are a couple things to say briefly. First, feeling sorry for the Amalekites and Canaanites isn’t like feeling sorry for European Jews in WWII, it’s like feeling sorry for the Nazi’s. They were evil nations that attacked other nations and were involved in heinous crimes. God was punishing them for wicked behavior.

Second, the Amalekites and the Canaanites had been doing evil things for literally hundreds of years but God had given them a long time to repent (see Gen. 15:16). God was slow to anger in his punishment. Third, God showed mercy to all the Canaanites who showed mercy and hospitality to Israel: Rahab and her family (Josh. 6:22-25), the Gibeonites (Josh. 9), a man from Bethel (Judg. 1:24-25) and the Kenites (1 Sam. 15:6).

In the midst of my struggle to understand these texts, it gives me hope to remember the mercy shown to a Canaanite woman more than 1,000 years before God’s ultimate act of love—sending Rahab’s descendent, Jesus, to the cross for the sins of the world.

Click here to read Part II

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Let me begin this post with an FYI. This past weekend, we compiled my top 50 most read posts and put them on one page. You can find the link to the page on the menu at the very top. It’s titled “Popular.” Or just click the top 50 posts.

Tomorrow, I’ll be posting a special interview I conducted with a fellow author on his fascinating new book. So stay tuned for that.

Now on to today’s subject.

Last week I offered a balancing caution to the almost deafening emphasis today on building a platform. If you have a unique message to share with the world, platform is essential. And I’ve spoken on it before myself, especially with respect to authors.

But while building a platform is important for anyone armed with a message, we must also be aware of the dark side of social media and the temptation to obsess over statistics.

While I’m writing these words, I just learned that this blog hit #2 on the Christian Topsites list. But the truth is, that and $1.50 will buy me a Sunday paper. If it gets the attention of advertisers, then maybe it’s worth a little more. Even so, it’s nice to know that the both of you still care about this blog.

That said, bloggers often ask me for advice on the craft. To answer their common questions, I’ve written a meaty post called Advice for Bloggers which outlines 25 practical tips for bloggers – new and experienced.

As a supplement to that post, here are 8 reasons why I don’t read certain blogs. This post could have also been titled “8 Reasons Why We Don’t Read Your Blog” since I speak for countless others. There are other reasons why I won’t read your blog, of course. I don’t read blogs I’ve never heard about nor blogs that are dedicated to subjects in which I’m not interested. The same is true for everyone else.

But these 8 reasons have to do with things that you can correct . . . if you want to. So if you’re a blogger, you may want to consider these points.

We don’t read your blog because . . .

1. The design is horrible, and it’s a distraction from what you write. Sometimes a blog design is so bad that it’s difficult to read the text.

Solution: Buy and install the Standard Theme and your problem will be solved. Not to mention that you will be giving your traffic a nice boost. In addition, you can use WordPress plug-ins. I blogged for 3 years without this theme, and now I can’t imagine blogging without it.

2. Your posts are filled with misspelled words and grammatical errors. Typos are inevitable. I have a Ph.D in Typo. I’m incapable of seeing my own and rely on you all to let me know when you spot one. But posts that are full of misspelled words and grammos are a big distraction. And (right or wrong) they give the impression that what you say isn’t reliable.

Solution: Find someone who knows grammar to proof read all of your posts before you publish them.

3. Your blog has nothing unique or interesting to say. Time is precious for all of us, so readers must be choosey. Many of us will only read things that we find fresh, challenging, encouraging, or insightful.

Solution: Rethink the purpose of your blog. Find new material.

4. You never promote, feature, or lift others up. The blog serves you all the time.

Solution: Do some interviews with people who are doing something interesting and edifying. Review a few books, audios, albums, songs, etc. that you want to promote. Consider having some people guest post.

5. Your posts are way too long most of the time. Once in awhile a long post is fine. But writing a mini-novel constantly on a blog is way over the top.

Solution: Shoot for less than 1,000 words for most of your posts and don’t exceed 3,500 in the longer ones.

6. You misrepresent other people and their writings. In this way, your blog does a disservice to the body of Christ and grieves the Lord Himself.

Solution: This is a heart problem. Oftentimes envy is the root of it. Get before the Lord and have Him search your heart to the point of repentance in this area. Treat others the way you want to be treated (Matthew 7:12). Never misrepresent another human being, especially another child of God.

7. You don’t moderate your comments and allow readers to slander and gossip about others. The sins of slander and gossip are alive and well even among those who name the Name. To allow your blog to be a platform for these sins is to participate in them yourself.

Solution: Moderate your comments and never approve something that personally attacks another individual. To put it another way, never approve a comment that you wouldn’t want approved if it was about you or your family members. Remember the words of your Lord and “do unto others.”

8. You are negative and most of your posts tear down. You rarely build up. You rarely magnify the Lord and bring Him into view.

Solution: Learn what it means to build up and give Christ. Even when you write a post that challenges or questions the status quo, be sure to build up and offer positive solutions.

The above list is meant to sharpen and improve. So if any of it applies to your blog, consider it as constructive criticism to help you do better. I’m still in school myself, learning ever day. For a companion to this post, see the 5 Mistakes I’ve Made in Writing.

In 2009, the Present Testimony Ministry website was renovated and unveiled. The address of the site — PTMIN.org.

Last week, however, we put the puppy to sleep. That being translated means: we took the website down.

PTMIN.org automatically redirects to this blog now.

Why?

1. It became too difficult to manage two large websites – this blog and the PTM web page.
2. Daily traffic was being split between the two sites.
3. My blog is more important than the website due to the fresh content that is regularly posted here. So we prefer that new people visit the blog rather than the website.

As far as I can see (right now at least), there is no fall-out from making this move.

All the resources that were available on PTMIN.org have been moved to the blog and updated.

Here are some of the most viewed pages that have moved. You may want to bookmark them:

The Mediography (scores of free downloads)

The Podcast (over 50 free audios with more to come)

The Contact Page (how to contact me)

The Speaking Invitation Page (for conference hosts and pastors wanting me to speak)

The Events Notification (for those wishing to be notified about events near you)

The Quarterly Newsletter Update (for those wishing to receive my quarterly update)

My Library (all my books discounted and bundled into a package)

My Books in All Formats

The 100 Best Christian Books

The Best Christian Books on Kindle

The 100 Best Academic Christian Books and Commentaries

My Books in Different Translations

My Books for Those Living in (or From) Europe

For those of you who are new to the blog, check out the About page which outlines the mission of this blog as well as the Rules for Commenting.

That’s it.

I hope these resources bless you and deepen your relationship with the Lord.

If you have a blog or website, we would appreciate a link to http://frankviola.org

Thanks so much!

The following article comes from the book Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It applies to any church, community, or relationship. It is one of the most profound and helpful things that Bonhoeffer ever wrote.

–

Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.

By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of emotions but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both.

A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse.

Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.

God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly.

He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.

Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients. We thank God for what He has done for us. We thank God for giving us brethren who live by His call, by His forgiveness, and His promise.

We do not complain of what God does not give us; we rather thank God for what He does give us daily. And is not what has been given us enough: brothers, who will go on living with us through sin and need under the blessing of His grace? Is the divine gift of Christian fellowship anything less than this, any day, even the most difficult and distressing day?

Even when sin and misunderstanding burden the communal life, is not the sinning brother still a brother, with whom I, too, stand under the Word of Christ? Will not his sin be a constant occasion for me to give thanks that both of us may live in the forgiving love of God in Jesus Christ?

Thus the very hour of disillusionment with my brother becomes incomparably salutary (=favorable), because it so thoroughly teaches me that neither of us can live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and Deed which really binds us together—the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. When the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian fellowship.

In the Christian community thankfulness is just what it is anywhere else in the Christian life. Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for the daily gifts.

We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good. Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious.

We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things? If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even when there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our  fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ . . .

When a person becomes alienated from a Christian community in which he has been placed and begins to raise complaints about it, he had better examine himself first to see whether the trouble is not due to his wish dream that should be shattered by God; and if this be the case, let him thank God for leading him in to this predicament. But if not, let him nevertheless guard against ever becoming an accuser of the congregation before God.

Let him rather accuse himself for his unbelief. Let him pray to God for an understanding of his own failure and his particular sin, and pray that he may not wrong his brethren. Let him, in the consciousness of his own guilt, make intercession for his brethren. Let him do what he is committed to do, and thank God.

Christian community is like the Christian’s sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature.

The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more surely and steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases. Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our fellowship is in Jesus Christ alone, the more serenely shall we think of our fellowship and pray and hope for it.

Click here to see my review of Life Together and how to order it.