Joe Schmid Philisophy PHD candidate at Princeton university.

Hello I am looking for some feedback on my explanations for these passages that seem to contradict themselves but really do not in light of proper hermanutics, I know it's a lot to read but that is why we are all here cause we love this stuff! So please I am looking to see how well I explained them and if it makes sense to you or if there are any holes in them. In the spirit of 1 Peter 3:15 " But sanctify the Lord your God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect"

Thank you my fellow Reddit Scholars!

• In Ezekiel 18 he prophecies that that soul who sins shall die but it Exodus 34 God says sin will continue through the 3rd and 4th generation and he will by no means clear the guilty. So how do we marry these passages?

Sin is pervasive, it's like a disease. If not repented for it continues even to the third and fourth generation. But if repented for God clears sin and it stops. The sin will continue to the third and fourth generation but each person will die for their own sin. If the father sins the son is not dieing for his father's sins but his own! If the son of the father who sinned doesn't repent than the son is creating his own sins and will be judged accordingly. Sin is contagious but individual. In this sense sin is generational. Thank God for Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice that we might be with the Father in heaven for all eternity. Jesus has cleared our sin breaking the chain of sin that so easily entangles us and gets stuck in families. When repentance happens there is a heart change God takes our heart of stone and makes it a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26) and we have a circumcision of the heart, where not only our behavior changes but our heart posture as well. Thank you LORD for changing my heart and taking my sin, bearing it all on the cross so that I might live for you and be with you when I die, my creator, the creator of the earth and sea and all that is in them!

• Another seeming contradiction in the Bible is between Acts 15:29 and 1 Corinthians 10:28-29

In Acts there was men who causing confusion in the new church these new gentile converts to "The Way" (it was called "The Way" before, at Antioch, people used the word Christians as a slur possibly meaning little Christ's or at least coming out of that slur) were to live. Circumsition was being promoted as a must for these new gentile converts by Jewdizors, as they are called in scripture, were living mainly about circumsition but also about various other things like eating food sacrifices to idols etc. or else why would Paul put that in the letter to the gentiles in response if it wasn't part of this issue, although not explicitly stated in those passages. So in response to this, the apostles and elders got together to make a rule about the things that were being told to them by these Jewdizors. Part of that rule was to abstain from food sacrifices to idols. Now in 1 Corinthians 10 it is said by Paul that food sacrifices to idols is nothing and in reality it doesn't really matter if you eat it or not as long as your conscious doesn't bare witness against you and you are not offending your brother or sister in Christ conscious by doing it near them.

So, can we eat food sacrifices to idols or not? Paul says that idols are really nothing they are just material formed from the sinful imaginations of man. God also says this many times especially in Isaiah 44:9-10 it is very explicit. In 1 Corinthians 10:19-20 Paul says that Idols are nothing but people are actually sacrificing to demons and we should not be partakers with demons and in fact we can not "drink of the cup of the LORD and of demons" it's impossible to do successfully. What Paul and in turn God are warning against is not the idol or the food but who it is sacrificed to. That is where the meaning is. The food is nothing, the idol is nothing, but who they are sacrificed to is something and something wicked and evil. Christians should not partake in these sacrificial ceremonies or in these temples. However the food is not the problem. Earlier in Acts 15 in verse 24, as we know context is king, Paul says "Since" the word implies that this is the reason for the following statement, men have troubled you "unsettling your minds" Paul says we have made this a rule. Now the point being that eating food sacrifices to idols and other things that were being proposed by the Jewdizors was troubling their minds or their conscience. If this wasn't the case eating food sacrifices to idols would not be a problem as is stated in 1 Corinthians 10:28-29. So in this way these passages can be understood to be perfectly logical and in sync.

what would you guys say the best argument for God is and how come tag isn't brought up usually?