Bound Together Quiz – The Answers

Thanks for taking the “Bound Together Quiz.” Here are the answers. Feel free to graciously argue or comment.

I am tempted to re-write the whole book below. But I have kept my explanation somewhat brief. You may want to check out some of the links.

1. The decisions I make will affect many other people in my church, family and community.

•  True
•  False

We all know that the decisions we make will affect many other people. But do we act in light of that reality? Have you ever persuaded yourself that you can sin privately and that other people won’t suffer because of your decisions? We should all consider the Jewish parable:

Rabbi Simeon bar Yochai taught: There is a story about men who were sitting on a ship, one of them lifted up a borer and began boring a hole beneath his seat. His companions said to him: ‘What are you sitting and doing?’ He replied to them: ‘What concern is it of yours, I am drilling under my seat?’ They said to him: ‘But the water will come up and flood the ship for all of us.’Lev. R. 4.6

See also: Penn State Solidarity: A Double-Edged Sword

2. There is little we can say to help parents of rebellious children.

•  True
•  False

Take a moment and read some of the 287 responses I received to the post, “How Should Parents Unpack Forgiveness with Rebellious Adult Children.” As a pastor, I often see parents who are suffering because of the decisions their children are making. It is an incredible source of pain. But based on the truth of God’s Word, and the beauty of the Gospel, there is a great deal that can be said to parents of rebellious children. And God will use parents in ways that are beyond what we might imagine. In our local church, we have recently seen a woman turn her life around after decades of the worst kind of rebellion.

One of the groups I am praying that God will use Bound Together to encourage is parents of rebellious children. I have a chapter devoted to that subject.

3. When God commanded Israel to invade and destroy Jericho, he told Israel to:

•  Destroy the city except for ceremonially unclean beasts
•  Destroy the city and all that was in it
•  Destroy everyone except children under the age of accountability
•  Destroy the city and all that was in it except for Rahab and her family. This included killing all children other than those in Rahab’s family

This is a tough passage to accept. If you don’t find it difficult, I wonder if you have really thought about it. I consider this passage at length in Bound Together. I would also recommend Justin Taylor’s post, How Could God Command Genocide in the Old Testament, and Trevin Wax’s Personal Reflections on the Canaanite Conquest.

4. The best thing we can do with difficult Bible passages that are hard to accept, such as the desctruction of Jericho, is:

•  Understand that God was different in the Old Testament than in the New Testament
•  Ignore them knowing that we simply cannot understand them
•  Recognize that our discomfort with them may indicate a place where our culturally conditioned sensibilities are misleading
•  Other

Here is an excerpt from Bound Together in which I interact with a discussion that took place on Scot McKnight’s blog:

I recall once reading a question written by a young mother whose eleven year old daughter was very upset that all of Achan’s family was stoned when he sinned at Jericho:

. . . [Our family has] been reading through Joshua . . . Last week, when my eleven year old daughter read about Achan’s sin and his punishment in Chapter 7, she burst into tears. The thought of God killing Achan’s wife and children as a result of HIS sin did not sit well with her. We talked about God’s reasons for it, but they were insufficient for her. It didn’t seem fair, and I had to agree with her. She confessed that serving, believing in, following a God like that didn’t appeal to her. Our discussion and my husband and my answers didn’t seem to clarify or comfort her.

Honestly, we were both at a loss for a clear answer . . .

How do you respond to an eleven year old who doesn’t care about wrath, holiness, etc., and sees God as a big bully and unjust? I would really appreciate any responses and insight.

The last time I checked, there were 68 comments weighing in on how this mother should respond to her daughter. The options recommended included:

• Deny the authority of the Bible. Several comments suggested that the events didn’t really happen the way they are recorded in the Bible.

• Ignore the Old Testament and focus on the New Testament. One father commented, “I don’t tend to spend a great deal of time with my children on the Old Testament.”

For those who believe in the authority of Scripture and the ongoing importance of understanding both the Old and New Testament writings as the inspired Word of God, neither of these options is good. If we hold that the Bible is God’s Word then we believe that it has something to teach us, truth that we need to understand. The most self-defeating thing we can do is to deny the grace God has extended to us through his precious, authoritative Word.

Let me give you a different alternative. Rather than being driven away from God by our discomfort with something we encounter in life and his Word, we should run to him. God is not only just; he is also loving, merciful, and gracious. We need not fear those portions of his Word that seem difficult to understand.

5. When Scripture says as a part of the 10 Commandments (Exodus 20:5b), “I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,” it means that some children are doomed to repeat the sins of their parents.

•  True
•  False

Hank Williams Junior thought we was doomed to repeat the sins of his father. At least that was is explanation in his song Family Tradition. Exiled Israel during the time of Ezekiel also thought they could blame there mistakes on their fathers (Ezekiel 18:2). But Ezekiel 18 emphatically balances the reality of biblical solidarity with individual responsibility. John Murray‘s quote is worth considering:

There is also the institution of the individual, and to discount our individuality is to desecrate our responsible relations to God and to men. The principle of solidarity can be exaggerated; it can become an obsession and lead to fatalistic abuse (cf. Ezekiel 18:2).  All such exaggeration is evil. 

Because of Christ, it is absolutely not the case that we are doomed to repeat our parents sins. I cover this point extensively in Bound Together. But anyone who does not think that we are bound to previous generations, and that we can overcome the sins of our fathers on our own, is naive and he or she may be doomed to repeat the sins.

6. What happened because King David sinfully took a census of his troops?

•  70 people starved during three years of famine
•  David was pursued by his foes for three months and 7,000 Israelite soldiers died
•  A pestilence killed 70,000 Israelite men
•  Goliath’s brothers avenged him by striking down Absalom near Jacob’s well

The account of David’s census can be read in 2 Samuel 24:1-25. This is another “difficult passage” that shows that one person can represent many others. David’s sinful actions caused the deaths of thousands of others. See my answer to the Jericho question above regarding why we should “lean into” such passages.

7. The doctrine of original sin teaches that:

•  Adam and Eve were mythic figures whose struggle pictures humanity’s ongoing struggle
•  It was Eve’s fault
•  Adam’s guilt was imputed to all his descendants and all Adam’s descendants inherited a corrupt nature
•  The original sin was committed when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden.

The Westminster Standards summarize:

By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion, with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.

They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed; and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions. This corruption of nature, during this life, does remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.

See Tim Challies’ What’s Dead Looks Dead

8. The doctrine of original sin is:

•  A technical doctrine which is academic and has little to do with real life
•  A foundational aspect of a Christian worldview without which it is impossible to interpret life
•  In contradiction with the Modern Era in which humanity has steadily improved morally
•  An optional doctrine for Christians

See Trevin Wax’s post, Why Should I believe in the doctrine of Original Sin?

9 Adam is to the doctrine of original sin as Christ is to the doctrine of:

•  Justification
•  Sanctification
•  Union with Christ
•  The doctrine of salvation

See Justin Taylor’s very helpful summary: Union with Christ: A Crash Course.

10. What image does Scripture NOT use to illustrate how Christians are united to Christ?

•  Bricks in a building
•  The marriage relationship
•  Relationships within the Godhead
•  Adoption
•  The physical body: Christians are united to Christ as limbs to the head
•  All of these images are used to help Christians understand union with Christ

As above, see Justin Taylor’s very helpful summary: Union with Christ: A Crash Course.

11. Which passage best summarizes the truth that while we were bound together with Adam in original sin we can be saved in Christ?

•  Hebrews 2:11-18
•  1 Peter 3:1-6
•  Romans 5:12-21
•  Ezekiel 18

See my answer to the final question.

12. The concept of corporate solidarity (the idea that one can represent many) should be seen as good news, not bad

•  True
•  False

Romans 5:12-21 and the blessed news that corporate solidarity is good news, not bad, is the heart of Bound Together. The logic is straight-forward:

• One represents many.
• The ultimate negative example is the doctrine of original sin: Adam represented all his descendents.
• The ultimate positive example is the doctrine of union with Christ. Christ represents His. (Romans 5:18-19).
• The glorious news of the gospel is that salvation in Christ is greater than sin in Adam.

For more, see John Piper’s important sermon The Fatal Disobedience of Adam and the Triumphant Obedience of Christ (as well as his other sermons on Romans 5:12-21) and Individualism is Fundamentally Misleading.

*********

Up to another quiz? The Forgiveness Quiz is still available online!