What are the things you least want to read but most need to hear?
Questions have poured in from around the globe for this week’s #LentChallenge reading. Download a free guide here.
People are wondering:
Who is the son of man? What’s with all the demons?
Each week during the #LentChallenge, we’re collecting YOUR questions to send to our oh-so-brilliant New Testament scholar and professor, Dr. Craig Blomberg.
Soak up his wisdom and insight today.
(Stumped by a passage or verse as you’re reading? Leave your question for Dr. Blomberg as a comment to this blog post).
Jesus silences the demons he is casting out because they knew him. Why? What is the purpose of this? (Mark 1:25, 34)
Knowing a person, and especially their name, was a key to gaining spiritual mastery over them. The demons are not just showing their supernatural knowledge; they are trying to gain mastery over Jesus and ward him off. But they are unsuccessful and Jesus shows he has the spiritual power by exorcising them instead.
What’s the difference between the Son of Man and the Son of God?
The Son of Man was a name in the Old Testament that first of all referred to a person’s humanity, but could be used to contrast the difference between them and God. God frequently addresses Ezekiel as “son of man” in ways that make it clear it means “mere mortal.” But Daniel 7:13 describes one like a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven and being ushered into the very presence of the Ancient of Days, a title for God, and being given eternal dominion over the kingdoms of the earth. This human is also an exalted, supernatural, Messianic figure.
Jesus’ use of Son of Man, at least most of the time and perhaps all of the time draws on this background. Son of God in Old Testament and intertestamental Judaism could mean a follower of God, an exalted human being, an angel or the Messiah. In the first-century Greco-Roman world it was often used for humans who were believed to have been deified upon their deaths. We need to recognize a range of usages in the New Testament, therefore. When the Roman centurion used it of Jesus after he died, he may have thought of him like a noble philosopher or deceased emperor, now turned into a god.
When Jesus uses it, especially in John’s Gospel, of the uniquely intimate relationship he has with his heavenly Father, it reflects his divinity even while incarnate as a human being.
Matthew 12:43-45 is extra confusing. Can you help shed some light on this passage? What is with the seven impure spirits?
Ancient Jewish believe often associated demons with large bodies of water. The high seas were, after all, far more terrifying in those days without the kinds of seagoing vessels we have today. The Greek in this passage literally refers to the exorcised demon as passing through waterless places. Because he doesn’t find any, he doesn’t get the rest he seeks. Because the man has not replaced the evil spirit with anything good, he is ripe for being re-possessed and wind up worse off than he was before.
Seven is always the number of completion for Jews, so this is complete horror, complete re-possession by the demonic. The point, though, is actually quite simple. It’s not enough to remove the bad from one’s life without replacing it with something good.
It’s not enough to kick Satan out without replacing him with Jesus.
In Matthew 13:50, Jesus uses the imagery of “gnashing of teeth”? This sounds terrible. What is it? And how do I avoid it?
You avoid it by not going to hell! “Weeping and gnashing of teeth” appears several times in Scripture as one of the many metaphorical ways of depicting the eternal horror of being separated from God and all things good. And the way to avoid going to hell is to trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior and persevere in discipleship and following him throughout your entire life.
Want to learn more? Pick up a copy of Craig Blomberg‘s brand new book, Can We Still Believe the Bible? An Evangelical Engagement with Contemporary Questions.
Want to learn more? Pick up a copy of Dr . Craig L. Blomberg (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is distinguished professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary, where he has taught for more than twenty-five years. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including A Handbook of New Testament Exegesis, Jesus and the Gospels, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, Preaching the Parables, Making Sense of the New Testament, and commentaries on Matthew, 1 Corinthians, and James.
Challenges to the reliability of Scripture are perennial and have frequently been addressed. However, some of these challenges are noticeably more common today, and the topic is currently of particular interest among evangelicals. In this book, biblical scholar Craig Blomberg offers answers to questions like:
Aren’t the Copies of the Bible Hopelessly Corrupt?
Can We Trust Any of Our Translations of the Bible?
Don’t All the Miracles Make the Bible Mythical?
What verse has you stumped?
Have you ran into a passage that’s tricky to interpret? What’s a question about the Bible, theology, or Christianity that has been lingering in your head? Leave your questions as comments below.
