The Illogic of Ancestor Worship (Part 2 of 2)

Yesterday we discussed the first possible fate of the deceased in Hades. Today we continue with the other two possibilities. We have just as many puzzling questions.

2. Reincarnation (輪迴) ：
• If the salvation rites are successful in reincarnating the deceased, then there is no need for ancestor worship. In fact ancestor worship and reincarnation are contradictory. Think it through logically. If the ancestors reincarnated, regardless of whether they become man or animal, then they are no longer in Hades, but in the world of the living, with their new family, and means of livelihood. Would they still need our burning incense? Which one of you have ever received offerings – paper money, cars, mansions – burned by our previous life’s descendants?
• We use chicken and roast pork in ancestor worship. Aren’t these animals the reincarnation of others’ (perhaps even our own) ancestors? If we use other people’s ancestors to worship our ancestors, isn’t that barbaric?
• We don’t know what race of people or kind of animal our ancestors reincarnated into, yet we serve them Chinese food in our worship, would they like it? If they become Americans, do we have to worship with hamburgers? If they become Africans, do you know where to get African food? If they become animals because of bad karma, shouldn’t we worship them with animal feed instead?

3. Altar (神主牌) – Those who practice ancestor worship often view the ancestors as dwelling in the altar or shrine. This again is contradictory to reincarnation:
• If the ancestor reincarnated into another human being, then they would have become another person with a different name, and have changed into another family’s ancestor. How then can he still dwell in the altar?
• If you view altars simply as a reminder of your ancestors, then at least there is some basis for them. If however you treat them as the embodiment of your ancestors, who have already reincarnated to become others’ ancestor, then your ancestors are no longer dwelling in the altars. So what’s the point of worshipping altars?

All these questions use reductio ad absurdum to point out the irrationality of ancestor worship. Unfortunately many Chinese care only about tradition but not logic. Pray that God will open their eyes as you dialogue to share the gospel with them.

The Illogic of Ancestor Worship (Part 1 of 2)

To deal with the idolatry I would encounter in Taiwan short-term mission trips, I continued reading up on evangelizing Buddhists, in particular handling the issue of ancestor worship. I came across a Chinese article by a Taiwanese pastor, Rev. Wang Wucong (王武聰牧師) on Ancestor Worship (認祖歸宗)，which I thought to be excellent. Our fellow Chinese want to express their filial respect to ancestors, but are going about it the wrong way as they do not know the one true God. I therefore took the liberty of loosely translating Rev. Wang’s essay in the following post, which I hope will help Christian ABC’s (American-born Chinese) and CBC’s (Canadian-born Chinese) to dialogue with their parents regarding their ancestor worship tradition.

Chinese folk religion believes that life continues after death, and ancestor worship aims at meeting the needs of ancestors after they passed away. Therefore it behooves the offspring to find out where their predecessors are, to meet their needs accordingly. Generally, Taiwanese believe there are three possibilities after death:

1. Hades (陰間) – The dead wait in Hades for their family to conduct the “salvation” (超渡，作功德) rite (法事) during the funeral service, with Buddhist monks or Taoist priests saying prayers on their behalf to make up for their sins, so that they won’t end up in hell, or become hungry ghosts or animals in their reincarnation. The descendants have to provide for all the deceased’s needs, via burning paper money, clothes, houses, cars, even paper servants. This raises all kinds of interesting questions:

• If the deceased have to depend on their descendants to burn stuff to provide for them, they can’t even fend for themselves. How then can they bless and protect their descendants?
• If the deceased continue to need the descendants’ provisions through ancestor worship, doesn’t that mean that the salvation rites are ineffective and a complete waste of money and time?
• If, on the other hand, the salvation rites are successful and the deceased reincarnated into another human being, a demigod, or even into heaven, then whoever the Taoist medium brings up (招魂) must be a fraud, a demon impersonation.
• There are so many generations of predecessors in one’s genealogy. Usually a person worships his/her deceased parents and grand-parents only, those they know. What about the previous generations, who have no living descendant worshipping them? If all who received burning incense bless you and all those who didn’t (who are far more numerous) harass you, are you able to handle all the harassment?

Interesting questions indeed. We will continue tomorrow with Part 2.

Hasn’t the Bible been Changed and therefore Can’t be Trusted?

Q. How can you trust the Bible which had been written by so many people in different languages like Hebrew, Latin etc. and passed through so many generations? Surely it must have been changed, just as in a parlor game when a message is distorted when passed through many players from one to the next!

A. This is another one of those misconceptions spread by folks who have not looked at the facts. It is a common belief held by Muslims and Mormons, who claim that their Quran and Book of Mormon are more reliable and authoritative than the Bible. Nothing is further from the truth, so let’s take this accusation head on.

First, the Bible was written by many people under the inspiration of God; they did not compose what they wrote on their own. God superintended the writing so that what was written in the original manuscripts was inerrant and infallible. Second, the Bible was written in only 3 languages: the OT in Hebrew, with a few passages in Aramaic (Gen 31:47; Ezra 4:8-6:18, 7:12-26; Jer 10:11; Dan 2:4-7:28), and the NT in Greek. Latin and all the other languages are translations which come later; they were not the original languages. The translations are not inspired, only the originals were.

Third, it is true that the original autographs no longer exist, and the Bible had been copied by hand for many generations, but that does not mean it had been changed and we no longer know what the originals were. This is because of the extreme care taken during the copying process to ensure the accuracy. After the Exile scribes assumed the role of copyists, preserving and teaching God’s written word. These scribes were meticulous when it comes to quality assurance (QA). For example, each copy had to be written in a certain number of columns of 30 letters width, with a certain number of lines to each column. When a copyist finished a copy, another proof-reader with a fresh pair of eyes checked the copy against the original. If even one mistake was found, the copy was destroyed and cannot be used as a master for further copies.

The Masoretes, who worked from AD 500-950 and gave us the Masoretic text from which our OT was translated, devised a numerical control. They counted the number of verses, words, and even letters in each book. They counted the middle word of each book, and the middle letter. They kept all kinds of statistics, and if the stats of the copy do not match those of the master, the copy was discarded. These tests ensured that they catch as many errors as possible. But to err is human, just how well do these safeguards worked?

The methods were very effective in preserving the accuracy of the text. One dramatic demonstration came with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) in the caves at Qumran in 1946-56. Before the DSS, the oldest copy of the Hebrew OT we have was the Masoretic Allepo Codex dated AD 935. The DSS consists of 972 texts and thousands of fragments. Of the texts that have been identified, 40% are from the Hebrew Bible. Of particular interest is a complete scroll of the book of Isaiah, dating to about 125 B.C. When our Masoretic text which dates over 1,000 years later (25 generations, at 40 years per generation) was compared to this DSS scroll, it proved to be word for word identical in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling, none of them altering any meanings, and no doctrines were affected. So the charge that the Bible had been changed had no foundation whatsoever.

One last point about the variations. Some might argue that with all the variations, we don’t really know what the originals said. That’s simply not true, because of the contribution of textual criticism (TC) or lower criticism. Notwithstanding the strict QA, scribes do make occasional mistakes when copying by hand. We have many copies dating from various time periods, but not the original, showing small differences among themselves. How do we get back to the original as closely as possible?

Some believe that if there are many copies with the same text and few copies showing something different, then the minority must be wrong as it’s unlikely that the majority would all make the same mistake. That’s the reasoning behind the Majority Text method. However, that’s not the only consideration, as the copies are not all the same “age”. What if some manuscripts are much older than others, and therefore have passed through fewer generations of copying, likely with fewer errors? Textual critics painstakingly sort through all the variant readings in the many manuscripts, using rules and reasons in the text box as their criteria, to eliminate copying errors. The result is the reconstruction of a critical text that approximates the original text as closely as possible.

What’s my point? Skeptics make all kinds of allegations without proof, but the fact remains that the Bible had gone under close scrutiny for two millennium and has stood the test of time. It is reliable and trustworthy. Billions over the course of history had staked their eternal destiny on the Bible, so can you. Don’t close your mind. Examine the Bible for yourself, and put your trust in the God who loves you enough to die for you.

Speaking the Truth in Love

Q. A brother told his men’s group that his wife bossed him around, treating him like a child. Some members sympathized with him saying that they had noticed it too. Unfortunately that brother told his wife what the group members said, and she told them to mind their own business and don’t butt into her family’s affairs. We spoke the truth in love but were told off. How are we supposed to put the New Commandment to love one another into practice?

A. Taking everything at face value, I see several problems based on your brief description – the bossy wife, the foolish husband, and the church’s failure to follow biblical procedures. The husband is not acting as the head of the family as he should, and the dominant wife does not respect him as she should.

The men’s group did what they should in bearing each other’s burdens, and spoke truthfully to their neighbor:
• Gal 6:2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
• Eph 4:15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
• Eph 4:25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.

However, the husband is unwise in that he did not keep confidential what was shared in confidence, which caused the rift between his wife and his group members. But there are systemic problems besides what’s obvious. Gal 6:1 is followed by Gal 6:2, which states:
• Gal 6:1 Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.

When brothers and sisters saw the wife bullying her husband, those who live by the Spirit i.e. those who are spiritual, should restore the wife gently. Could it be that there are few who live by the Spirit willing to approach the wife? This is a common problem in many churches, in which leaders are unwilling to confront abusive behavior on the part of some members, thus condoning them by their silence.

Another problem is the failure to follow the Lord’s instructions in Matthew 18 in dealing with sin in the church.
• Mt 18:15-17 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

Gal 6:1 is actually Paul’s application of the Lord’s instructions in Mt 18:15. Before and especially after the wife told off the men’s group members, someone spiritual should have gone and pointed out her fault, just between the two of them. This way the wife could explain her side of the story and correct misunderstanding, if any. There would be no gossip as you are dealing with the parties directly, not indirectly behind their back. The wife could repent and save “face” without having things brought open under public scrutiny. But it seems, all too often in churches, there is no one available as most people want to be “nice”.

Even after initially fumbling, the mature friends can still pick up the ball where they dropped it and follow Mt 18, but they need to be backed up by spiritual elders. If the brother or sister who sins refuses to listen, the process escalates from just the two, to having one or two witnesses, to the church, either represented by the elders, or the congregation depending on the severity of the problem. In this case no moral failure is involved and can be dealt with more privately.

Unfortunately discipline is largely lost in church practice nowadays, with the emphasis on personal rights and the erosion of the leaders’ authority. Sadly many problems are caused by the Christians’ misconduct and fueled by mishandling by leaders, but I still believe when we follow God’s instructions He will take care of the consequences.

Whole Burnt Offering

Q. What is the purpose of the burnt offering?

A. Let me quote from Smith’s Bible Dictionary:
• [The burnt offering is] the offering which was wholly consumed by fire on the altar, and the whole of which, except the refuse ashes “ascended” in the smoke to God. The meaning of the whole burnt offering was that which is the original idea of all sacrifice, the offering by the sacrificer of himself, soul and body, to God — the submission of his will to the will of the Lord.

The burnt offering is a voluntary offering for two purposes. The first is to propitiate for sin in general,:
• Lev 1:4 You are to lay your hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on your behalf to make atonement for you.
This is in contrast to the sin offering (Lev 4:1-5:13; 6:24-30) and the guilt offering (Lev 5:14-6:7; 7:1-7), both of which are compulsory, to atone for sins committed unknowingly. However, the former applies where no restitution was possible, while the latter applies where restitution was possible.

The second purpose is to signify complete dedication and consecration to God. The offering could be:
1. from the herd (cattle, Lev 1:3),
2. from the flock (sheep or goat, Lev 1:10), or
3. of birds (dove or pigeon, Lev 1:14), depending on the wealth of the person offering the sacrifice.
For (1) and (2), it must be a male without blemish. While part of every offering was burnt, this one was wholly burnt, except the skin:
• Lev 1:9 You are to wash the internal organs and the legs with water, and the priest is to burn all of it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.
• Lev 7:8 The priest who offers a burnt offering for anyone may keep its hide for himself.

They signify the complete dedication of the offerer to God, referred to in:
• Rom 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

Hope this helps.

Guy Friend Boyfriend?

Q. Can a girl and a guy be just friends, without being boyfriend-girlfriend?

A. Hollywood would probably say no, some would say it’s difficult, but I think it’s possible. The Apostle Paul advised his protégé Timothy how he should relate to different groups of people in church. Although it was addressed to Timothy as the pastor of his congregation, the principles apply to other relationships:

• 1 Tim 5:1-2 Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.

In other words, treat older men and women as parents, and younger men and women as brothers and sisters, with absolute purity. In your case, if you treat your guy friend as your sibling, there would not be a romantic relationship. You can share common experiences, ideas and secrets, which friends do, without getting involved as boyfriend-girlfriend. I would suggest going out in groups, and avoid situations as if you were dating. Don’t give him wrong ideas and others the wrong impression that you are a couple. Keep the relationship platonic and enjoy each other’s sharing. Hope that helps.

Did God Create Sin?

Q. Since God created everything, did God create sin?

A. God did create everything, but God did not create sin, because sin is not a “thing”. The Bible defines sin as “lawlessness” (1 Jn 3:4). 1 Jn 5:17 states, ” All wrongdoing is sin”. In other words, sin is defined in negative terms. In Greek the noun “sin” means missing the mark, that which is done wrong, an offence, a violation of the divine law in thought or in act. Sin is therefore not a positive “entity”, but a negation of that which is righteous, a mistake.

Let me give you an illustration. Gen 1:2 says, “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep“. Before creation, there was emptiness and darkness. Emptiness is not a thing, it is the absence of things. Darkness is not a thing; it is the absence of light. You cannot measure darkness by itself. Instead, you measure light, which God created on the first day. Similarly, sin is not a thing; it is the denial of righteousness, which took placed when man disobeyed God.

On the other hand, God is always positive, He is:
• Truthful (Jn 3:33), and therefore impossible for God to lie (Heb 6:18);
• Faithful (1 Co 1:9, 10:13; 2 Co 1:18);
• Just (2 Thes 1:6);
• Light (1 Jn 1:5, without darkness);
• Love (1 Jn 4:8, 16).
Since God is all positive, the diametrical opposite of all that is negative, it is impossible for God to create sin, for He cannot disown Himself (2 Tim 2:13) i.e. deny His own nature.

When God created the heavens and the earth, everything was good (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25) or very good (Gen 1:31). There was no sin. Sin did not come into the picture until Adam and Eve disobeyed God (Gen 3:6-7). The Apostle stated in Rom 5:12, “… sin entered the world through one man” i.e. Adam. God did not create sin, the devil and Adam did.

Is Church Fund-Raising Ok?

Q. My church has a lot of fund-raising activities around Christmas, setting up tables to sell crafts, food etc. for various mission and charitable organizations. Somehow it reminds me of Jesus cleansing the temple. What’s your opinion?

A. The Gospels recorded Jesus cleansing the temple twice, one at the beginning and the other at the end of His public ministry:

• Jn 2:14-16 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”
• Mk 11:15-17 On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” (See also Mt 21:12-13; Lk 19:45-36)

Although the text did not use the word “angry” or its synonyms, it is clear from His actions that those were was His feeling. Yet I think your church’s activities are acceptable within limits, for two reasons:

1. The motives are different. The merchants selling sacrificial animals at inflated prices and the money changers charging high handling fees were gouging the buyers for their own profit. The motivation is greed. Your church members were raising funds for missions and charities, not for themselves. The motive is to help others in need. So there is a huge difference.
2. The frequency and duration are different. The merchants were in the temple courts all the time. It was truly like a market. Your brothers and sisters did fund-raising only around Christmas. They were not conducting business throughout the year.

The caveat is that such activities should not give non-believers a wrong impression that Christians are just like them in not distinguishing between the sacred and the secular. Accordingly the church should clearly explain the purpose of such fund-raising, and limit their scope to acceptable organizations and duration to certain times of the year. Hope this helps.

Apparent Bible Contradiction? Mysterious Jesus?

Q. In the raising of Jairus daughter, Mt 9 said she had died, but Mk 5 and Lk 8 said she was only dying. So which is it? Did the Bible contradict itself? Also Jesus ordered Jairus not to tell anyone. Is it because He wanted to keep a low profile, or because He knew they wouldn’t know how to respond?

A. No, the Bible did not contradict itself. First, let’s look at the context. All 3 Synoptic Gospels record “Jesus Raises a Dead Girl and Heals a Sick Woman” as two intertwined stories, but note their lengths. Using the NIV, we have:

• Matthew – Dead girl: 6 verses; sick woman: 3 verses;
• Mark – Girl 13 verses; woman 11 verses;
• Luke – Girl 11 verses; woman 6 verses.

Clearly, Matthew condensed the incidents in an abbreviated form, while Mark and Luke recorded them with fuller details. Next, note that both Mark and Luke recorded two visits to Jesus:

• The first by Jairus himself when his daughter was dying (Mk 5:22-23; Lk 8:41-42);
• The second by someone from Jairus house saying that his daughter was dead (Mk 5:35; Lk 8:49).

It can be concluded that when Jairus first went to Jesus, his daughter was about to die. However, with the delay because of the sick woman incident, Jairus’ daughter died while waiting for Jesus to come. Matthew’s abridged account conflated the two visits into one, with the synagogue leader saying, “My daughter has just died” (Mt 9:18). The essence remained the same, but the abridged version did not go into the details.

With respect to Jesus’ orders not to tell anyone (Mk 5:43; Lk 8:56), it is not because of His wanting to keep a low profile, or His concern that they wouldn’t know how to respond. Actually, He knew they would respond in the wrong way, and disrupt prematurely His plans to save the world. During Jesus’ times, the Jews were under Roman conquest, and were expecting the coming of Messiah to overthrow the Romans and deliver the nation. In fact, even after Jesus’ death and resurrection His disciples still carried this thinking:
• Acts 1:6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

During His earthly ministry, Jesus had to avoid such focus on the earthly and the miraculous. For example, after the feeding of the 5,000:
• Jn 6:15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

Men focus on getting publicity, but Jesus always focused on doing the Father’s will, at His timing e.g.
• Jn 7:8 You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come.”

Jesus kept a low profile when His time had not yet come. However, when the time is ripe, He publicly presented Himself as King in His triumphal entry into Jerusalem:
• Lk 19:40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

Hope we can follow His example to follow the Father’s will in every little detail.

The Bible can’t be Trusted because it Censored Many Gospels?

Q. Don’t you know that the New Testament is heavily censored? The Emperor Constantine banned many other gospels from the New Testament to protect his position!

A. Every now and then I hear some skeptics spreading the myth that the Bible can’t be trusted because the Church Fathers censored books that opposed their views. Or some sensation seeking journalists would write, typically before Christmas or Easter to boost circulation of their magazine, of the “real” Jesus or alternative Christianity, different from the Jesus of the Bible. These are generally based on some so-called “lost books of the Bible”, notably the Gnostic Gospels, such as the Gospel of Thomas or Gospel of Judas. And the public would often buy their story, without digging into the facts of the case.

Nothing can be further from the truth. There are no lost books of the Bible. The Bible is the word of God, and God both inspired and superintended the compilation of books that collectively formed the Bible. If God cannot even ensure that His words are accurately recorded and collected to communicate His message to men, what kind of god would He be? Skeptics might argue that’s only because you believe the Bible to be God’s word. Since they don’t accept that, their argument is still valid. Granted, so let’s concede for a moment to consider the supposedly “lost” books.

First of all, these Gnostic Gospels were never “lost”, they were known to the Church Fathers who rejected them because they were forgeries. Before I address the reasons for their exclusion, let me first deal with who has the authority to accept or reject which books form the canon of the Bible. Let me frame the question this way – Do the Church Fathers, who were the leaders of the early Church, have the right to say “This is what we believe in”, or do unbelievers two thousand years later have the right to say “This is what they believed in”? The answer is obvious. Every institution or organization has the right to decide what they believe or reject, not outsiders. This is expressed in their statement of faith, mission, values, constitution, bylaws etc. Yet by some twisted logic so-called skeptical “scholars” claimed they know better, and even accused the Church Fathers of a conspiracy to suppress the “truth”!

Now, what were the criteria the early Church used to decide on the NT canon, and why were the Gnostic Gospels rejected? Let’s start by correcting some misconceptions. The NT Can was not decided at the Council of Nicaea convened by Constantine in AD 325. That council dealt with another issue – the deity of Christ – and rejected the Arian heresy claiming Christ was only a man, producing the Nicene Creed as a result. The councils, consisting of Christian bishops or pastors of all churches at that time, that endorsed the 27 books of the NT as we have them today, were those at Laodicea in AD 363, Hippo in AD 393, and Carthage in AD 397.

The generally accepted dates of several Gnostic Gospels are:
• Gospel of Thomas AD 90-180
• Gospel of Mary Magdalene AD 120-180
• Gospel of Peter AD 150
• Gospel of Judas Second century
All of them were around when the Councils confirmed the 27 books of the NT. Why weren’t they included? Because they failed all tests of canonicity:

1. Apostolicity: written by an apostle or someone close to an apostle and acted as his penman. The Gnostic Gospels were written by late authors who used the names of the apostles.
2. Catholicity or universality: generally acknowledged and recognized by all the churches. The Gnostic Gospels were embraced by only fringe groups.
3. Consistency: are the contents consistent with the obviously authentic books and orthodox doctrines. The Gnostic Gospels contained unbiblical teachings.

Some of the rejected books contained historical inaccuracies, or inferior spiritual and moral values which do not reflect the work of the Holy Spirit. They were rejected because they were frauds, not because the Councils colluded as alleged by the skeptics. People can make all kinds of false claims and accusations, but examine the facts before you decide who to listen to, as your eternal destiny depends on it.