Ask Buck Previous Questions Answered
Question:
From Daniel 9 (where Daniel prays for the exiles), twice he prays that God would grant his prayer for God’s sake. I am not sure why he prays like that. Can you shed some light on this?
Answer:
In order to understand why Daniel made such unique requests of God, we need to look briefly at the entire prayer.
QUESTION:
Is Jesus the prophet that Moses is talking about in Deuteronomy 18:15?
Answer:
As with many prophecies, this one likely has a double fulfillment. The ultimate Prophet would be Jesus as Hebrews 1:1,2 teaches “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by His Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.”
QUESTION:
Did Christ have the ability to sin?
ANSWER:
The answer to this question has been hotly debated by great thinking theologians for hundreds of years without a consensus. The theological terminology used to make a distinction between whether he had the ability to sin or the inability to sin is peccable and impeccable. The doctrine of peccability states that Jesus did have the ability to sin even though He was able to resist and not sin. The doctrine of impeccability teaches that Jesus did not have the ability to sin.
QUESTION:
Will God’s anger be forever and who are the recipients of His anger?
ANSWER:
Most people do not like the idea of an angry God. We naturally tend to create our own god in our own image. Our idea of God is generally similar to a grandfather who allows his grandchildren to do whatever they want without ever suffering any consequences for their choices. But the most famous verse in the Bible John 3:16 and following verses clearly rejects that type of god.
QUESTION:
The 5th commandment is for us to honor our fathers and mothers. Suppose your father and mother are bad people who rob, kill, do drugs and criminal activity?
ANSWER:
: It is not by accident that this commandment is the first of six commandments that deal with our relationships with mankind. The first four deal with our relationship with God and the last six with people. But, the position of this commandment, number five, and the topic of it, authority, is the anchor of our society, and it is the foundation of establishing respect for all authority, even the authority and honor of our Heavenly Father. The commandment states, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12).
QUESTION:
How will we be able to enjoy heaven if we have loved ones who are in hell?
ANSWER:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passes away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away’” (Revelation 21:1-4).
QUESTION:
How can we expect non- Christians to agree with certain political ideas, like abortion?
ANSWER:
This is a great question and there are two options in answering it. However, before we look at the two-options let me be clear about one thing. All of God’s Word is important but we don’t have to agree on everything in order to be saved, to be made acceptable to God. Scripture teaches that Jesus is the only way to heaven (John 14:6) and if a person has that correct, then He is adopted into God’s family. But that does not mean that other things are unimportant and can be ignored.
QUESTION:
a) Is salvation contingent upon continued belief? b) Can one be deceived from right doctrines into false doctrines? c) Can one lose salvation if he does not remain steadfast until the end? (Matthew 24:11-13).
ANSWER:
Part a) Jesus in the parable of the sower gives us four types of soil which represents four types of believers (Luke 8: 5-8). Out of the four types of soil there was only one that was good soil and it took roots, while the others never got beyond a brief start and faded out.
Question:
In reading about the Cathars in the 12th century, what is dualism and what does the Bible teach about the concepts that they proclaimed?
ANSWER:
The Cathars were a Christian dualist or Gnostic movement in Southern Europe between the 12th and 14th centuries. The Cathars rejected the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and claimed that they were the only true Christians. They had their own bible, the Cathar Bible, which taught many strange things like reincarnation, that Jesus was did not physically existed. Instead, they believed that Jesus was an angel who took on human form as an illusion so that he could appear as a human being.
Question:
In the first few verses of John, it seems “the Word” may be talking about Jesus or is the author talking about the Holy Spirit?
Answer:
To the readers of John’s gospel, the meaning of his opening statement could hardly be missed, “In the beginning was the Word,” is essentially the same as how Moses opened the book of Genesis, “In the beginning, God created,” and the meaning of both was that “all things came into existence through Him.”
Question:
Does God love every human being?
Answer:
Yes and no. I’ll try to explain the “yes” first of all then the “no.” “You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say unto you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust”’ (Matthew 5: 43-45).
Question:
What does God’s Word teach about infant baptism versus adult believer’s baptism?
Answer:
The debate over infant verses adult baptism has gone on for centuries and I will not solve the issue in my brief answer. However, I can state that neither practice has explicit biblical support. Both sides use scriptural inferences. That is, neither side can point to a clearly stated verse which says adult believers only should be baptized, nor is there a verse which states infants of believers should always be baptized. Since neither side has explicit Bible passages to support their practice, both sides, however, do use strong implicit Bible passage to support their position. That is why there isn’t an easy solution.
QUESTIONS:
1) Do we need to soften the gospel by compromising it to make it more attractive? 2) Is everything in the Bible black or white? 3) When does life begin according to the Bible? 4) Could euthanasia ever be justified for economic reasons or any other reason?
ANSWERS:
QUESTION:
Hitler was raised as a Catholic by his mother…could he possibly have gone to heaven?
ANSWER:
God’s Word does not say anything about people going to heaven based on what denomination they belonged to or even in what great things they have done or not done. It seems that the real question is: “What does God require from all of us, even Hitler, to enter into His Heaven?”
Question:
Does God assign a guardian angel to each of us?
ANSWER:
The Scriptures nowhere state that an angel is assigned to an individual. Angels were sometimes sent to individuals but there is nothing said about a permanent assignment. The idea that each believer has an angel to guard them, and a demon to tempt them came into existence during the early extrabiblical writings and none of those writings made it into the books of the Bible.
QUESTION:
When is Jesus coming back? Very important to know.
ANSWER:
In Revelation 22:20, the Lord Jesus simply states, “Surely I am coming soon.” From our limited perspective, it is difficult to grasp Jesus’ “I am coming soon” statement, because it has been 2,000 years since Jesus made that declaration. To us, we tend to think of “soon” in terms of something happening immediately, in the near future, but to Jesus the concept of soon could refer to next week, next year, the next decade, the next century or even the next millennium or even longer.
QUESTION:
Are the fallen angels the gods of today? If so, does this shed light on humankind always worshipping in all cultures? Do they have power?
ANSWER:
The answer to this question is one that all believers need to know. C S Lewis in his famous Screwtape Letters stated, “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall into about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves (the devils) are equally pleased by both errors.”
QUESTION:
What is your biblical understanding of Psalm 82? What does it mean that there are other gods that are being judged by YHWH?
ANSWER:
It appears that God is conducting a heavenly council similar to the one in which God and Satan struck up a conversation about the faithfulness of Job and God gives Satan permission to test Job. However, this short Psalm creates a few difficulties that are not easily answered. The biggest problem is the fact that “gods” are mentioned in verse 1 and 6. Every Hebrew word that we translate “god” (lower case) or “God” (upper case) means something.
QUESTION:
How can I know that I have forgiven someone who has hurt of offended me?
ANSWER:
If we know that God’s Word teaches us to forgive others who have offended us and to do it, if necessary, over and over and over again and to relinquish our natural desire to get revenge against the offender and that forgiveness is a choice that we make rather than a feeling that we follow, then how can we know when we have been successful in completing the process?
Question:
In my pastor’s sermon yesterday on 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 he suggested that Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” may have been poor eyesight, I have never heard that, what are your thoughts on it?
Answer:
Scripture does not tell us what the “thorn” was but throughout church history hundreds of commentators have speculated on what it could have been, but no agreement has been reached.
Question:
I’m reaching out to you to share your insight on Luke 16:1-15, the Parable of the Shrewd Manager. It sure does seem like “bad behavior” is being encouraged in these verses. It seems like shrewdness is being encouraged, yet verses 10-15 get back to being trustworthy and not loving money. I do get it that we can’t serve two masters, but where is scripture defining a line between good and bad behavior?
Answer:
It does seem confusing on the surface about what Jesus is advocating, but since we know that He isn’t teaching anything contrary to His nature, like cheating, lying and dishonest behavior, we can eliminate that possibility and look deeper. His audience is His disciples with some Pharisee’s listening in as indicated in verse 14. In most of Jesus’ parables, He is the main character but not so with this one. The steward in this parable is wicked, so Jesus certainly is not exhorting us to emulate his behavior. Therefore, there must be larger principle that He is proclaiming.
QUESTION:
Why has there always been such hatred of the Jews?
ANSWER:
This is a question that every believer in Jesus Christ should ask himself/herself. There are volumes written on this subject and I cannot give a complete answer in a one-page reply, but I’ll touch on a few reasons why fallen and sinful people are guilty of antisemitism, hatred of the Jews.
QUESTION:
So the question is raised: What is the unpardonable sin that Jesus speaks of in Matthew 12 and can a Christian commit it?
ANSWER:
(1) What the unpardonable sin is not: a) it is not murder (cf. Moses, David, Paul); b) it is not adultery (cf. David and Ps. 32:1-2a); c) it is not suicide (no other supportive Scripture).
(2) Context is decisive. The statement is made in the midst of Jesus' earthly life/ministry. The Pharisees had not merely been rejecting Jesus' work. They had been attributing to Satan the work of the Holy Spirit. They did so, not out of ignorance, but out of a conscious disputing of the indisputable.
QUESTION:
When someone dies do they have the opportunity to receive and recognize Christ as their Savior at that moment even after they have died?
ANSWER:
The idea of a second chance to believe in Jesus after we die is appealing and we sometimes wish it were so, but the Bible is very clear that death is the end of all of our chances to ever believe in Jesus. The writer of Hebrews, inspired by the Holy Spirit stated, “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). As long as a person is alive, he or she may have many chances to place their trust in Jesus, but when a person dies, there are no more chances.
QUESTION:
What are your thoughts on Hebrews 13:17? I believe we should honor and pray for our pastors and leaders. But not worship them. Am I off base?
ANSWER:
Hebrews 13:17 states, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. ‘Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.’”
QUESTION:
In Philippians Paul tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. That almost sounds that we have something to do with our salvation. But he also says, of course, that we have been saved by grace through faith and not by works so that no one can boast. Is there some type of contradiction here?
ANSWER:
In dealing with God’s Word, there are three very important I’s: Inspired, Inerrant and Infallible. The Bible is inspired, God is its ultimate author (2 Timothy 3:16). The Bible is inerrant. That means that God used human authors to write exactly what He wanted them to write without error. However, He did not dictate word for word to them but He used them with their personalities, writing styles, and their life experiences to express His message as He wanted it. The Bible is infallible. His Word is incapable of error because He is perfect and His Word must be perfect and it will accomplish exactly what God wants it to accomplish (Isaiah 55:11).
QUESTION:
I know the Bible teaches that I am supposed to forgive a person that hurts or offends me. How do I forgive? What does that entail? What does that look like?
ANSWER:
Forgiveness is at the very heart of the gospel. Jesus died on the cross so our sins could be forgiven. One of the phrases in the Lord’s prayer deals directly with us being forgiven for our sins and forgiving others who have sinned against us. “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). Out of all the phrases in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus selects this one to elaborate on further at the end of the prayer.