Is God Male?

Biblegems #134

Question: Is God male, female, both or neither?

When the Bible speaks of God in a descriptive way it is either His nature or His attributes that are in view. Descriptions of His nature tell us what kind of being God is, like saying your pet is a dog or a cat. Descriptions of God’s attributes tell us how God behaves, like describing someone as a hard-working dad or a self-sacrificing mom.

There are several times in the Bible where God is portrayed as possessing both masculine and feminine attributes. For instance, God’s feminine attributes can be seen in Isaiah’s prophecy:

Is. 66:12-13 For this is what the LORD says: “I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream; you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees. As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.

Even Jesus, who almost always refers to God in masculine terms, also likens God to a mother hen:

Matt. 23:37  “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

On the other hand, Jesus—and Scripture in general—typically attribute masculine qualities to God. In the Gospel of Mark Jesus calls God “abba” (Aramaic for “daddy”):

Mark 14:36 “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

And as the underlined pronouns below demonstrate, God is referred to as “he” in the book of Deuteronomy, which is typical of the Bible as a whole:

Dt. 32:10  In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye…

These masculine and feminine traits only reveal by analogy how God relates to us. They say nothing about what kind of being He is in His nature. The reason for this is that God as a being is neither male nor female. He has no gender. God is Spirit. As Jesus says:

John 4:24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.

Unlike biological creatures who cannot be in two places at once, God as Spirit is everywhere all the time: 

Ps. 139:7-10 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

Most of the time God is spoken of in masculine terms throughout Scripture. And when He took on human flesh and lived among us for a while, God chose to come into the human race as a male—Jesus Christ the Son of God.

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Will The Twelve Disciples Please Stand Up?

Biblegems #133

Question: Why are there differences in the NT lists of the twelve disciples, and can they be reconciled??

Matt. 10:2-4 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Jesus’ twelve disciples are listed four times: (Matt 10:2-4; Luke 6:14-16; Acts 1:13).   When  those lists are compared side-by-side there are two “differences” that become immediately apparent. First, there is the order in which the names are arranged, and second is the seeming confusion of a few names: Thaddeus, James and Simon.

It is significant that Peter is always mentioned first in the order of names found in each list. Not only so, but Matthew begins his list saying. “first, Simon… .” While that could simply mean ‘first on the list,’ it more likely points to Peter’s recognized leadership within the group. A good example of this natural leadership is found in Matthew 16:13-20, where Peter is singled out by Jesus for having recognized and publicly declared Jesus as the promised Messiah.

Related to this is the curious fact that when each list is divided into three groups of four names, the same three disciples are always listed at the head of each group. This likely indicates that Jesus intentionally organized the twelve into three smaller groups, with Peter, Philip and James the son of Alphaeus as group leaders.

It is also interesting as kind of a side note that the names at the top of each of the four lists are always the two sets of brothers, and the last name on all of the lists is always Judas Iscariot, Jesus’ betrayer.

Finally, the confusion of some names between the four lists is simply a matter of different designations given to the same person. Simon, for example, is called Simon the Canaanite in the two of the Gospels (Matt. 10:4; Mk. 3:18), but is elsewhere referred to as Simon the Zealot (Lk. 6:15; Acts 1:13). In fact, to clear up this confusion for English readers, the NIV calls Simon “the Zealot” in Matthew and Mark, rather than literally translating “Simon the Canaanite” from the Greek. Zealot refers to Simon’s political attachment to a revolutionary group intent on overthrowing Roman rule, whereas “Canaanite” refers to his family tree.

Likewise, Thaddeus is the same person as Judas, the son of James in Luke 6:16 and Acts 1:13. Using different names helped to distinguish one person from another, especially when so many people shared a common name such as Judas, of whom there were two in this small group of twelve. In the same way, James the son of Alphaeus was differentiated from James the son of Zebedee.

So all four accounts of the disciples are in perfect agreement and actually highlight how important it was for Matthew, Mark and Luke to convey the names of the twelve accurately—to avoid confusion!

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An Apostle—To Be, Or Not To Be?

Biblegems #132

Question: According the book of Acts, one of the qualifications for being an apostle was being with Jesus throughout His ministry. How, then, does Paul qualify to be an apostle?

Acts 1:21-22 says,

Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.

Following Judas’ suicide, the remaining eleven apostles saw the need to fill Judas’ “position of leadership” (v. 20). It was scripturally necessary for the core group’s number to be restored to twelve men who were trusted witnesses of Jesus' ministry from the time of His baptism to His ascension. With the addition of Matthias, this was accomplished, fulfilling God’s plan for the early church and also for the perfect completion of His church in the New Jerusalem:

         Rev. 21:14 The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

However, the term “apostle” is used 83 times in Scripture and beyond the Gospels and Acts often applies to others besides Jesus’ core group of twelve. It was a common word in the Greek-speaking world that meant “a person sent by another; a messenger; envoy.”[i] That’s why Paul could use the term of himself 18 times in the New Testament. In fact, in Hebrews 3:1 even Jesus is called “the apostle and high priest whom we confess,” meaning He was sent by God, commissioned with a task, which He then passed on to others:

         John 20:21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”        

Paul was extremely conscious of the fact that he was not counted among the original twelve:

         1Cor. 15:9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

He was often misunderstood and his apostleship held suspect:

         1Cor. 9:2 Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

But Paul also knew that his calling as an apostle came as a direct calling from God through Jesus Christ (2Cor. 1:1; Gal. 1:1; Rom. 11:13; etc.), and that his calling was validated by the fact that he had seen Jesus personally (1Cor. 9:1) and that his ministry was accompanied by “the things that mark an apostle—signs, wonders and miracles” (2Cor. 12:12).

Acts 1:22 does not give qualifications for being an apostle in general but for replacing Judas as one of the foundational twelve apostles. Unlike the twelve, Paul was called specifically to be an apostle to the Gentiles (Rom. 11:13). He was “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope” (1Tim. 1:1).

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[i] Easton Bible Dictionary, in loc.

Jesus, The Word

Biblegems #131

Question: Why is Jesus called “the Word” in John 1:1?

John’s Gospel was written with the non-Christian in mind. Listen to his own words:

         John 20:30-31  Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John knew that most of his readers would be non-Jews—gentile citizens—of the Roman Empire. They would be heavily influenced by the popular philosophies of the day. One such prominent philosophy centered around a belief in “the Logos”—a Greek term meaning “the Word.” According to this philosophy, the Word was the spiritual being responsible for creating lesser deities, one of whom brought the material universe into existence. These lesser deities were considered to be something like life sparks emanating from the Logos.

In this worldview the material world is considered evil, unspiritual. The perfect Logos could not be in any way directly linked to the creation of the material universe. And the goal of humanity is to eventually connect spiritually to the Logos by denying the material things of this world, allowing our internal “spark” to ascend and become united with the spiritual energy emanating from the Logos.

Somehow, John needed to create a communication bridge for sharing the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. So he took the name of this deity, the Word, and redefined it in biblical terms. He explained in Genesis-like language that the Logos—the Word—was, and is, actually God. That much the Roman world could grasp well enough. But then John took one huge step forward:

         John 1:3-4  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

John used the term “him” three times in describing the Word. For these gentiles to see the Word as directly creating the material world was a real stretch. But John caught their attention with that and pressed the Truth even further by claiming that our spiritual "light" also comes directly from the Word, and the Word was and is personal, not just a spiritual energy.

Led by the Spirit, John then took the final, unimaginable leap (from their worldview), and revealed this startling Truth about the real nature of the Word:

         John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John set the stage for all Christian witnesses to follow, right up to our own time: Take the ideas of the world and the deities of other religions and redefine them, empty them of what is false, and reveal Jesus Christ to be what the apostle Paul would later demonstrate to the Athenians was the name of their “Unknown God” (Acts 17:23). This is what it takes to “go into all the world and make disciples!”

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