Friday, August 22, 2014

With due respect: God cannot defeat chariots of iron!

The logo of the atheistic site, Iron Chariots
One of the attributes of God is His omnipotence. However in Judges 1:19 (KJV), this is revealed,

And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.

This verse seems to cast doubt on the power of God. Even the atheistic website, Iron Chariots adopt this Bible verse as their logo.

Objection!
As usual, even a cursory examination would reveal that the conclusions drawn for this verse (that God was unable to defeat iron chariots or that the Bible writers were making excuses for their lack of success) are shaky at best.

Pronoun
If you look closely, "he" refers to Judah and not God. When the reader is in doubt, he/she is more than welcome to look between translations. Often (but not always), God is referred as "He" and not "he".

Guaranteed success?
Some people may point out Judah should have been victorious since God was "with him". However, nowhere in the Bible says that when God is with us, we will be always successful. Let's look at Genesis 39:20-21:

Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.
But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden.

Granted, Joseph had been shown favour, but he was still in prison.

Conclusion 
Although it is easy to nitpick on Bible verses, we must take things in context.

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