Some Scriptural Conflicts are Resolved within the Narrative Stories of Faith 1

In my opinion, many of the scriptural debates and conflicts we still have with us today in biblical interpretation…are adjudicated and resolved by God within the events, details, and storylines of the biblical narrative stories of faith.

This provides us with a somewhat new and innovative methodology for biblical interpretation…which I do not think has been fully utilized in the recent past…at least on the big issues that divide Christians.

This then also identifies one motivation for why spiritual opposition in high places (Eph. 6:12) has been so vehemently attacking the credibility of these biblical narrative stories of faith for hundreds of years.

Take for example, the New Testament issue between predestined election versus free-will choice…related to the all-important question of the timing in our lives of our eternal security of salvation…vitally important as a practical matter in our Christian discipleship.

Isaiah 46:9-10 tells us that God lives in a timeless environment.  The apostle Peter tells us that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8).

The biblical narrative stories of faith could not consistently and universally have all of its faith characters…all reach positive final outcomes in their individual life-scripts…having “happy” endings…unless the God who wrote their life-scripts and orchestrated their adventures of faith… knew in advance through divine foresight that they would eventually succeed and not fail.

Because there is not the slightest hint of trial-and-error, make-it-up-as-we-go, evolutionary progression in any of the biblical narrative stories of faith…being in essence fully developed life-scripts that are functionally perfect and complete…right out of the box…no instructions and no tools required…then the only two explanations for this scriptural phenomenon is that either these stories are entirely human fiction…with manufactured positive endings…or that the composer is God…inhabiting a timeless existence…having divine foresight…wherein He can compose life-scripts where He knows ahead-of-time the ends from the beginnings (Rev. 13:8; Isa. 45:21, 46:9-10, 48:3; Mt. 24:2).

The biblical narrative stories of faith do not have ten different Abrahams…all vying to become the top-most “father of faith” through a survival of the fittest, trial-and-error competition to determine the winner…so this explanation is ruled-out.

The same can be said for all of the other positive characters of faith in the Bible.

None of the biblical people of faith appear to have Plan B and Plan C back-up candidates in waiting…in case people like Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, or David completely fail in their callings.

One commonsense argument for the timeless foresight of the God of the Bible…is that the timeline schedule for the appearances and mission-plans for each task in the Old and New Testaments…has milestone calendar dates that must stay on-schedule…thus eliminating any trial-and-error suspense regarding the eventual success of the people of faith in their specific callings.

If multiple substitute people were needed to fill-in when the primary main characters failed in their missions…through trial-and-error that added time to the timeline…this might conceivably push the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ ahead in time to the 4^th, 6^th, or even 10^th-century A.D., at a time beyond which Roman crucifixion was no longer in use…and thus ruining the prophetic details of Psalm 22.

Therefore, one compelling argument for the divine origin of the biblical narrative stories of faith…and for resolving some seemingly conflicting scriptural interpretations…is that God has this incredible capacity of divine timeless foresight.

God created Abraham…composed his journey of faith life-script…and knew ahead of time that the one-and-only, singular person Abraham would go all the way to the finish-line…mistakes and shortcomings accounted for…to achieve final overcoming victory in a unique life-plan God invented for Abraham and for the benefit of us…that took the measure of his soul and produced a personal relationship with God along the way.

Yet all the time throughout his journey of faith…Abraham has complete free-will choice.  Abraham is not a machine.  He is not a pre-programmed robot.

To be able to experience love…to be loved by God and to return this love toward God…within the context of events and circumstances within his very complex journey of faith life-script…Abraham must exercise his free-will choice to follow God’s plan to the exclusion of his own plans.

This is one brief example of the mystery of how God blends and adjudicates the seeming disparate conflict between His divinely timeless foresight…and our free-will…through the storylines of the biblical narrative stories of faith.

Author: Barton Jahn

I worked in building construction as a field superintendent and project manager. I have four books published by McGraw-Hill on housing construction (1995-98) under Bart Jahn, and have eight Christian books self-published through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). I have a bachelor of science degree in construction management from California State University Long Beach. I grew up in Southern California, was an avid surfer, and am fortunate enough to have always lived within one mile of the ocean. I discovered writing at the age of 30, and it is now one of my favorite activities. I am currently working on more books on building construction. View all posts by Barton Jahn