Contradicting Quotations in the Bible

Commenting on an answer to a question on Quora:

Phantom Contradictions in the Bible

This was hard for my formerly fundamental KJV-Only Baptist self to admit. But as I read the gospels in harmony format, I have to concede that the gospel writers were more like NIV translators than like Berean Literal Bible translators.

Anybody who picks on the exact wording of quotes in the Bible is applying grammatical rules that do not seem to have existed anywhere when the Bible was written.

I have seen passages that disagree in inconsequential ways. For example, in parallel accounts, Matthew has Jesus saying “kingdom of heaven” whereas other gospel writers have Him saying “kingdom of God.”

(You may have to open the graphic in a separate window to make it large enough to read.)

Whether it is the kingdom of God’s heaven or the kingdom of heaven’s God makes no difference.

Other examples happen when one writer says Jesus spoke a sentence one way and another writer says says Jesus used the same phrases but in an opposite order.

However, the sense of the quotes are always the same. Reportedly, that was adequate by the standards of the day. Before the 1500s, quotes were merely indicated by multi-use marks in the margins; and I couldn’t find any reference to that practice before the third century. Quotation marks that set off direct quotes weren’t invented until the 1500’s. Clear rules for distinguishing between direct, word-for-word quotation and indirect, paraphrased quotation seem to have come even more recently.

And I have never seen a substantial contradiction.

People who see “contradictions” invariably have jumped to that conclusion. They want contradictions to exist. They are willing to ignore not only logical explanations, but also the logical rule that, if a discrepancy can be rationalized, then persisting in calling it a contradiction crosses into intellectual dishonesty.

Copyrights 2020 Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use, and please give credit where credit is due.

Kingdom of God Within? Luke 17:21

From answering a question on Quora:

What did Jesus mean when He said “the kingdom of God is within you”? Does the Kingdom of God only exist in our hearts and minds?

Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or, 'There it is!' For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst." (Luke 17:20-21, NASB; Feel free to read the whole chapter in a chapter of your choice.)

“Within you” loses a bit in the translation due to our changing language. In current English, a better preposition would be among. Let’s get a bit of context.

Over what is God the King? Although God does not assert His sovereignty yet, He is King over all. And here, all means all. There is no jurisdiction outside of His sovereignty. All realms are subject to Him, even if He does not micromanage His kingdom. So, whether we bow to Him as citizens of His kingdom, ignore Him, or rebel against Him, we are in His kingdom.

We might call God’s kingdom “the universe” when talking about the kingdom itself. When talking about it in its relationship to God, we can call it the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. Those two terms are used interchangeably in Matthew.

The preposition translated within can also mean inside, among, or in the midst of. Since Jesus was addressing unbelieving Pharisees, we can test the interpretation, within each of you now, by considering what Jesus said about non-believers.

For example, Jesus told some Jewish leaders that they were of their father, the devil (John 8:44). The Old Testament speaks of our hearts being, by default, lifeless, such that God needs to (figuratively) replace our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). And the New Testament epistles explicitly teach that the Spirit of God indwells believers (Romans 8) but not unbelievers (1 Corinthians 2:14); and some unbelievers are even controlled by demons.

So saying that the kingdom of God is already within everybody is not a possible interpretation. That leads us to test the other interpretation: The kingdom of God was among them and is among us.

The men questioning Jesus were looking for a political kingdom. Look at the preceding verse: 20 Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed 21 nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or, 'There it is…!' (Luke 17:20,21, NASB).

That does not mean that God will not one day assert His sovereignty in a military, civil, or political sense; it just means that we don’t have to wait. For the people who heard Jesus, it was present in a new way anticipated for centuries: The King of Kings had taken on a human body. God was giving face-to-face access to God to those who followed Him.

And an even more wonderful phase was to soon follow. Whereas the Holy Spirit of God had come upon a select few people to accomplish specific tasks such as governing or preaching verbal revelation, the Holy Spirit would permanently indwell, empower, preserve, reform, and intercede for all believers, joining believing Jews together with believers from among all races, cultures, and levels of society.

That is why both John the Baptist (Matthew 3:2) and Jesus (Matthew 4:17) preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near.”

The Jewish leaders of the day wanted a political kingdom that gave them power or an ecclesiastical kingdom that rewarded their self-righteousness. They failed to enter into participation in God’s kingdom.

Instead, God’s kingdom is among us, welcoming the entry of all who relinquish self-righteousness, cease attempting to escape accountability for offending God, and trust instead in God’s sacrifice as our substitute.

Kingdom of God versus Kingdom of Heaven

From a question on Quora:

Is Matthew 4:17 occurring soon with the Kingdom of Heaven coming on the horizon?

No. The kingdom of heaven is not on the horizon. The kingdom of heaven, as referenced in Matthew 4:17, is here and has been here all along.

Christians rightly look for the return of Jesus Christ and the assertion of God’s rule on Earth, but that is not what Jesus meant by "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." We could read all the references to the phrase kingdom of heaven, but we can find a strong clue in Luke 17:20-21. (Before you read it, you need to know that kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are synonyms. More about that, below.)

Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst” (Luke 17:20–21, NASB).

The word translated midst is Greek entos, which means within, among, or in their midst. The statement describes a fact that was already present as Jesus spoke, not somewhere off in a future age. This is consistent with what Jesus said in Matthew 11:11–12:

“Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force” (NASB).

Jesus spoke of the kingdom of heaven as existing even before His sacrifice and resurrection. (So if somebody knocks on your door preaching a future kingdom, know that they have been severely misled by a heretical organization. Don’t argue with them because they won’t listen. Just know that biblical Christians don’t preach a kingdom; they preach a living King, Jesus Christ.)

The kingdom that Jesus preached was not God’s political rule or Judgment Day. It was a time of a new type of relationship in the spiritual dimension of God’s kingdom.

I appreciate the question because I learned from looking up the answer. I thought kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God existed at two different times. However, as you can see in the table, they are synonymous. Matthew tends to use one and the other gospel writers use the other. You can see a further discussion of this on the Got Questions website.

(You may need to open the figure in a new window. You can look up the individual verses and read them in their contexts in a couple dozen translations and in the original Greek using Biblehub.com. I use the New American Standard version because it has a reputation as the best word-for-word translation.)

Did you notice Matthew 19:23–24? Jesus used the two terms interchangeably in the same conversation.

The phrase, kingdom of heaven/God, has two meanings. The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof. Although God does not visibly assert His sovereignty, all of time, space, heaven and Earth is His kingdom.

And yet, there is a metaphorical sense in which we fail to enter into that kingdom. We are not born into it; blame Adam for that. The Fall made us foreigners, stripping Adam’s descendants of their citizenship and placing them, metaphorically, outside the kingdom.

We enter into the kingdom by repenting from sin, false religion, and self righteousness, and consenting to the gift of everlasting life from the great Giver of gifts. With that gift, we receive citizenship in the kingdom of heaven. This is what Jesus referred to in Matthew 4:17: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

One could divide the history of the kingdom of God into periods and milestone events. The first period lasted from creation to Adam and Eve’s fall from grace. Whether you take Genesis as literal or metaphorical does not matter. Man was created in innocence and introduced decay to all creation and estrangement from God with the first sin.

Before Jesus, the Old Testament sacrifices were inadequate to pay for human sin (Hebrews 10:4, 11), so the relationship between God and any person was tentative. Believers were called servants and friends of God. The Holy Spirit would anoint and be with believers, but that could be lost (for example, 1 Samuel 16:14 and Judges 16:20).

Since Jesus’s perfect, complete sacrifice, believers have had a permanent relationship with God (2 Corinthians 1:22, Ephesians 1:13, Ephesians 4:30). They have been called children of God, and even little siblings of Jesus himself. In this sense, the kingdom of heaven/God is here, available to all who will enter and become sons and citizens. As Romans 14:17 says, the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

The next period of the kingdom of heaven will begin with the return of Jesus Christ. God does not completely assert or micromanage His rule over Earth today. When Jesus returns, He will establish His kingdom in every area of life.

The final period will follow Judgment Day. Whereas heaven and Earth are like separate universes today, God will transform and merge them into a single plane of existence.

We will all enter the final period of the kingdom of heaven — some to be judged, and some to rule with God the Son. Which role God will place us in depends on whether we obtain our citizenship in this age. To those who have not entered, the kingdom of heaven is near, yet they remain outside. It behooves us, therefore, to be certain that the gospel we follow is biblical and to make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10).

For further reading:

• What is the kingdom of God? — God Questions article
• Kingdom of Heaven — Bible Dictionary
• From that time Jesus began to preach and say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." — Commentaries
• The Kingdom of God Cometh not with Observation. (Luke, xvii. , 20. ) — Why the adverb means among or midst rather than within — Augustus Neander

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Feel free to use this for non-remunerated purposes, but please give credit where credit is due.