 God literally says, I think it's Exodus 21-20 that if you beat a slave and they recover in a couple days, it's okay because they're your property. Like if I was the all-powerful creator of the universe, why would I choose to include that? Does the Bible endorse slavery? What about the seemingly evil things that God did in the Old Testament? And was Jesus even a real person? In today's video, I'm going to be interacting with some objections made by an ex-Christian made a video explaining why he no longer identifies as a Christian. As always, let's dive in. This may sound crazy, but honestly the biggest thing that made me change was reading the Bible and studying Christianity. Because in church, you're kind of taught the same type of things they pick into from certain areas of the Bible they want to focus on. And I think that can be okay, especially when it's focused on the love portions of the Bible and more like good things. But when you start actually diving into the Bible, reading it for what it is, looking at how it was created, the fact that Jesus' life wasn't even documented until 40 years after he left earth, a lot of things just don't really add up. I actually think this is a testimony to the benefit of going verse by verse in church instead of focusing on purely topical messages in order to get the word across. By going verse by verse, yes it takes longer, but it means that you can't avoid anything. The sad truth is is you won't see this in a lot of modern trendy churches because they're scared of certain passages of the Bible and they don't want to scare people away. When you go verse by verse, you were teaching people, you're teaching your congregation that you're not scared of anything, that nothing in the Bible you shouldn't be like, oh, we don't touch that stuff because we don't know how to answer that. No, there is an answer. There is a reason behind it. Okay, but in this next point, my boy is complaining that Jesus' life was documented 40 years after his ascension. He says, how can we believe that Jesus even existed or what he said was true because he was documented 40 years after his life? But hold up, that is still within the lifespan of eyewitness accounts. So it's not even like it's a generation ahead. It's still within that same generation. From purely historical perspective, 40 years is an extremely short amount of time. Now, I'm not exactly sure why he poses this accusation. Maybe he's trying to put into question the existence of Jesus because his life was documented 40 years after his life. But it's important to note that there are extra biblical impartial sources that confirm Jesus' life as well. We can look to the writings of Flavius Josephus, one of the most famous Jewish historians. He affirmed that, yes, Jesus did exist. He lived. He was a teacher and he was crucified. Now, get this, even notorious atheist biblical scholar Bart Ehrman affirms that, yeah, Jesus did exist and he tells all the atheists out there to stop denying it because it makes them look dumb. And then when you get into the verses that talk about slavery, God literally says, I think it's Exodus 21-20, that if you beat a slave and they recover in a couple of days, it's okay because they're your property. Like, if I was the all-powerful creator of the universe, why would I choose to include that in my religious text? And the text is supposed to show my character. Now, part of the reason I do these videos is because people that scroll on TikTok or Instagram are seeing this type of content and they're watching this stuff and they're looking at this verse and they're saying to themselves, oh man, I guess that's it. You know, God supports slavery and he wants people to be enslaved and he doesn't value human rights and all this kind of thing. And it's like, no bro, you're not getting the context of what the verses actually saying. So that's what I want to do. Whenever I get a verse like this, somebody poses a verse to me. I'm like, okay, let me just take a step back here and look at the context. Okay, a couple of things to keep in mind here. Now, I'm no expert at this, but when we're looking at slavery in the Bible, we shouldn't be thinking of maybe slavery that we're more familiar with happen in the United States or in Great Britain or across the world, really, in terms of this kind of undignified kidnapping and slave. And it's not about that. It's about this kind of idea of indentured servitude where somebody would be a destitute, they'd be in poverty, they would sign a contract voluntarily with somebody, somebody that was more wealthy, in order to do work for them for a given period of time and they would become their slave and they would become their master. Another thing to keep in mind, especially in the Old Testament, was God was putting regulations around this idea of slavery that doesn't mean that he gave it his full endorsement. He recognized the hardness of man's hearts and was trying to continue to conform them to his ways. Also, it's important to understand that in the Old Testament, kidnapping and rape were both punishable by death. So, we're continuing to see that this kind of slavery is very, very different from the slavery that we might be more familiar with. Okay, let's look at the verse that he's referring to. It's in Exodus 20 to 21. It says here, when a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged for the slave is his money. Now, if you're just reading this verse, you're glad that, okay, if the slave dies, then the master dies as well by the death penalty. Like, that's a good thing. But if the slave recovers, then the master just gets to go free. Like, this doesn't make any sense, but we need to look at the context. In a few verses down, it does address what happens in that scenario. If a slave does recovers, it says here, when a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female and destroys it, he shall let the slave go because of his eye. If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth. Okay, recap, if a slave master kills their slave, then they will incur the death penalty. They will be killed eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But if that slave recovers, what happens? Do they just kind of, oh, business as usual? No, we learn in this next verse that if they hurt their eye or damage their tooth or like the language that's used, if they abuse their slave in any way, that the slave has the right to walk free, to be released from the contract. Your punishment as a master for abusing your slave is that they are free, that they are no longer bound to your previous agreement. Now, to be frank with you, there was evil slavery that took place in that day. Of course, it's happened all throughout human history, but what God was regulating was a very different look at what slavery looked like. It was one where people would volunteer themselves because of their destitution or their poverty in order that they can be fed. Obviously, those weren't ideal scenarios, but even in that, we can see God's heart in wanting to provide dignity to the slave. But the thing is, God does some really terrible things in the Old Testament. I mean, wipes out entire civilizations. And even then, he floods the whole earth. We love to think about how, oh wow, look at the giraffes going on to Noah's Ark. What we don't think about is the millions of people that were drowning just for existing. And people were like, oh, well, that's not God. That was Old Testament God. We have the New Covenant. But God is the same yesterday, today and forever. That's in the Bible. And just for a God that says he's not an author of confusion, he's got to be the most confusing character in history. And the bio has to be one of the most confusing books of literature I've ever seen. There is a lot to unpack here. First, one of his objections is that God did evil things in the Old Testament by wiping out civilizations, by raining down fire on certain nations, by flooding the world and killing all of those people with the exception of Noah and his family. Now, many people have posed the accusation before of saying that God is not just, that God is not good because he did these things. But the question that we need to be asking ourselves is, who defines what is just? If we're making these moral accusations against God, what foundation are we standing on? Without appealing to God's objective moral law, we're left on sinking sand. In a world without God, we are merely matter and motion, chemical reactions in body bags. There is no ought, there is no right or wrong. We have no right to dignity, we have no intrinsic worth. In that world, wrong is just an opinion. But the truth is there is a God and he has laid out his objective moral standard. He is the judge, we're not. Take the flood, for instance. Yes, it was gruesome and maybe it was even a perplexing response to what we would consider to be not that big of a deal. But then we look at what was going on there. The world was consumed with violence. It wasn't like everyone was just yippy, skippy and all of a sudden God decided to rain down on them literally and wipe out all those people. No, it was consumed with violence and evil. We need to be asking the question, what do we ultimately deserve? Because we can fight on behalf of these people that were killed by God in the Old Testament and say, that was unjust, that was wrong of God to do that. But we need to look back at ourselves and say, what do I deserve because of my sin? And the truth is that the wages of sin is death. And God would have been within his rights to make this a pattern of his judgment to wipe out the world every once in a while because of the wickedness that we've been consumed with. But he made a covenant with Noah saying that he'll never flood the world again in judgment. Yeah, he did enact his justice in other ways by commanding the Israelites to wipe out certain nations that were committing grave atrocities. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. Now I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I understand God's ways perfectly or his justice fully, but it's not God's job to justify his actions to me. Whenever I hear people accuse God of being unjust or condemn him for his works in the Old Testament, I just remember this verse. Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it completely. Now what interests me is apparently self-proclaimed Christians in his life have said that there is a difference between the God of the New Testament and the God of the Old Testament. But this young man, kudos to him, actually decided to look in the Bible and see what it says about it. God is the same yesterday, today and forever good on him for picking this up because this is true. He's not just a big meanie in the Old Testament and a big squishball hippie in the New Testament. Just think of Matthew 10 where Jesus says, Do not think that I've come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword for I have come to set man against his father and daughter against her mother and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law and a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Jesus also said, Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. Doesn't sound like all ponies and rainbows to me, but then you look in the Old Testament how gracious God was in providing to Abraham a ram so he wouldn't have to sacrifice Isaac. Or think of in Acts when Ananias and Sapphira promised to give what they got from selling their land to the church, but then they held some back what happened when they lied and didn't follow through with what they had promised. God killed them to hold the idea that the Old Testament God is a big meaning and the New Testament God is a squishy hippie is to not actually have read the Bible and I'm sorry and that's what it comes down to sometimes. People pick and choose verses because they think it amplifies their point or their perspective of God or what they already believe to be true about God and they don't want to dig into the nitty gritty of what it actually says to get a full scope of what God has been doing throughout the Old Testament and into the New Testament. Now maybe for you watching this video you're still questioning God's justice, but the question you really should be asking is why is God so gracious to me? You're living, you're breathing, you have the opportunity to sit down and watch a YouTube video. Do you think you deserve that? No, no, we were all in that same space even as Christians when we had yet to know Christ we are in this place where God's wrath was building towards us and yet God was patient with us. You need to know there will be a time where God's patience will run out. I want you to take a good hard look in the mirror and see who you truly are. I had to do this as a young teen when I thought I was a great person. I thought I was you know really good and that I was earning God's favor and that I was a good person and I was doing everything right. But ultimately what I encountered was God's law and I encountered the truth of what it says in James that if we keep the whole law and yet stumble at one point we're guilty of all of it. But what I came to realize too is that I hadn't just stumbled in one point. I had stumbled in so many points and because of my sin if God is truly good and he is truly just he can't let a criminal go and the punishment for that is separation from God in eternity and hell. But God in his love sent Jesus fully God and fully man to live the sinless life that I couldn't live and to die on the cross the death I deserve to die for my sins against God. He died but then he rose again on the third day defeating sin and death and what we are called to do is just as Jesus proclaimed it repent for the kingdom of God is at hand and put our faith in him to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and we will be saved. I don't want you to get lost about accusations about particular parts of the Bible. Yes it's important to have questions but today God is presenting himself to you so clearly so simply for you to understand for you to receive it just like a child to put down your pride to put down your doubts and believe in him. Hey guys thanks for watching this video as always if you enjoyed it give it a like down below and subscribe because I'm putting out new videos like this all the time. A huge thank you to everyone on Patreon that supports what I do. This is my full-time gig now so your guys support on Patreon is a huge blessing. Thank you so much and I'll see you next time. God bless.