I have enjoyed the study of paradoxes in the Bible for many years, and I have decided to share the many quotes and examples I have collected from many sources over the last few decades. This is far from the total I have collected, but these cover the subject well enough for anyone to understand. There is a wealth of insight and wisdom involved in this study, and my prayer is that the awareness of the importance of understanding paradox will benefit believers especially in dealing with the many differences that Christians have in their understanding of God's Word. Understanding the value of paradox can lead to peace rather than conflict with those who have a different perspective from us. I am convinced that a grasp of what I have shared here is one of the most important steps in Christian maturity.

1. THE BATTLE FOR BALACE: A STUDY OF PARADOX
By Glenn Pease
ITRODUCTIO
I have enjoyed the study of paradoxes in the Bible for many years, and I have
decided to share the many quotes and examples I have collected from many sources
over the last few decades. This is far from the total I have collected, but these cover
the subject well enough for anyone to understand. There is a wealth of insight and
wisdom involved in this study, and my prayer is that the awareness of the
importance of understanding paradox will benefit believers especially in dealing
with the many differences that Christians have in their understanding of God's
Word. Understanding the value of paradox can lead to peace rather than conflict
with those who have a different perspective from us. I am convinced that a grasp of
what I have shared here is one of the most important steps in Christian maturity.
THE REALITY OF PARADOX
The following is a collection of paradoxes, and quotes about it that make us realize
that we do not really grasp the fullness of any idea or truth until we see the whole of
it, which means seeing it from different perspectives. This calls for seeing the reality
of paradox in life and in the Bible. The first thing we need to understand is the
definition of what a paradox is. Here are some definitions, and some explanations.
1. Webster defines the word paradox: a statement that is seemingly contradictory
or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true: An argument that apparently
derives self contradictory conclusions by valid deduction from acceptable
premises.
2. The Oxford Dictionary defines a paradox as a seemingly absurd statement.
3. Britannica World Language Dictionary, “A statement, doctrine, or expression
seemingly absurd or contradictory to common notions or to what would naturally
be believed, but in fact really true.”
4. A paradox differs from a contradiction. In a contradiction, as
black is white,' the two elements in the statement are wholly
incompatible; i.e., the statement is untrue. In a paradox,
however, we have a seeming incompatibility between the two
elements of the statement, but in fact both are true; that is to
say, the statement is true. A classic example would be: 'God is
both transcendent and immanent.
5. The meaning in Greek is contrary to common opinion. It is using language in a
way that is a surprise, and goes against the grain of how we usually think. The
conflicting statements have a partial truth in each, and the challenge is to try and
see how both can be part of a greater whole. Paradox is usually dealing with some
transcendent truth which has many sides to it, and so it can be seen from many

2. perspectives such as Jesus being truly God and truly man.
6. When finite beings talk about the infinite it is necessary to do so in the broken
language of paradoxical statements. That is why there is a plurality of theologies,
for there are a variety of perspectives, and no one of them can contain the whole
truth. Paul says in I Cor. 13:12, For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to
face. ow I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully
understood. Paul says we can know, but we just cannot know all that is ultimate,
but be limited to part, but the part is all we really need.
Without paradox, the ultimate does not come to expression in finite language. The
failure to use paradoxical language, attempting to fit talk of the ultimate into the
catagories of ordinary logic and language, results in reducing the ultimate to the
penultimate, treating the transcendent as part of our ordinary world, that is,
making an idol of it.
7. Paradoxical words. Words can stand for contradictory ideas. For example: Fast
means both rapid motion and standing still. Cleave means split assunder, like wise
adhere or bind closely. Stain means both to color and to discolor. Over look means
to look over and also to fail to look over. Slow down means to slow up.
8. *W.B.J. Martin wrote, Beware of the terrible simplifiers, wrote the Swiss
historian Jacob Burkhardt, for it is they who do the most harm in the long run.
Life is not simple, and man is not simple, and, when we treat them as if they were,
we fail to deal adequately with them. The Bible is aware of this, and therefore it is
full of paradoxes. Paradox is not a logical absurdity, but a statement that strives to
do justice to the living fullness of experience. Some people strive, as they say, to put
everything into a nutshell, but the only thing that can be put into a nutshell is a
nut.
9. Perhaps the most fundamental meaning of paradox, at least the one most in
harmony with its etymology, is that it is an opinion, which is contrary to the
ordinary view. An opinion not generally received, as Hobbs defined it, and as
Shakespeare uses it in Hamlot. To this was added naturally the idea of absurdity, so
that you have included in the word paradox-novelty, strangeness, and, as a rule,
absurdity.
10. Paradox, then by etymology and usage, is what is contrary to current
opinion.......................Is there any sense in which Christianity is a paradox in this
respect, any sense in which it appears novel, strange, and absurd from the point of
view of ordinary experience? That it was so at one time is undoubted. Is it still so?
Obviously there is such a sense. When our Lord began His ministry of teaching and
healing, men were shaken out of the stupor of custom and said, What new
teaching, what new power is this? They said the same thing in Athens when Paul
spoke there-We would know of this new doctrine, and one of the characteristic
words of Christianity is ewness, Renewal.

3. 11. An antinomy or paradox, says an old logic text book, Is a pair of
contradictory propositions, each of them susceptible separately of the highest proof
which the nature of the subject matter admits, but which are incapable of
conciliation to our present capacity of reason. Be it so. Here is a paradox solved-
God's holiness and righteousness vindicated, and the sinner who deserved
condemnation justified, and the meeting place where this divine reconciliation takes
place is in the Son of God who died for us and for God. That is what Bengel means
by this phrase, Here is contained the supreme evangelical paradox. It passes
understanding and thereby pacifies it. It does not pulverize reason, it purifies it. It
transcends our reason, but it saves our souls, and is the most luminous fact in the
universe. So then the supreme evangelical paradox means the crowning marvel of
God's redeeming love for sinners.
HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF PARADOXES:
A paradox seems like a contradiction because it is saying two things which seem
opposite but they can both be true, and this is not a contradiction, for many opposite
things can be true of the same thing.
Can a river be both narrow and wide?
Can you get ice from heat? That is how refrigeration works. Heat causes a chemical
reaction that makes it cold.
Can the worst evil in history be the best thing that ever happened? The cross.
Can light be both a particle and a wave? Scientists do not like it, but it is both.
The closer we are to God the greater is our awareness of the distance between us.
It can be cold and hot at the same time. People with fever can have chills.
The more you add the less you have. A whole note is just an O, but when you add a
stem it is cut to a half note and add a colored circle and it is a quarter note and then
add a flag and another you get a 16th note. The least you have the greater the sound
and the more you have noted the less the sound.
Heat can melt wax but harden clay.
Color is what a thing is not. A red object absorbs all light but red. It throws those
rays off and back to our eyes, and so it is every color but red, but we call it red
because that is what we see.
God told Gideon to power up by scaling down his men. Less can be more.
We live by killing. Death is essential for life. Life consumes other life in order to
continue.
John Oxenham wrote,
Death preys on Life,
And Life on
Death doth live.
For without death
o creature that draws breath
Could live.
Strange paradox and thought provocative,
That Life must live by death--

4. That without death
Life cannot live--
That Christ Himself,
The Lord of Life,
His life did give
That we might live.
Can being robbed be a blessing? It was for a wealthy man in Sicily. Thieves broke
into his villa and were able to break open a wall safe and take 320,000 dollars. The
police caught them and recovered the money. The owner did not know the money
was there, for it was his fathers home and that safe had not been opened for 20
years since his father died. He thanked the thieves for discovering this treasure for
him.
Can doing the right, wise, and best things not lead to success? Mary was married to
a male chauvinist. They both worked full time, but he never did anything when he
got home, and she had to do all the housework. It was a woman’s work he declared.
But one day she came home and the house was all cleaned, the clothes were washed,
and the kids bathed. She was astounded, and asked Charley what had happened. It
turns out he read a magazine article that said working women are more inclined to
be romantic is they are not so tired from doing all the housework after a full day on
the job. The next day she could not wait to tell the women at the office what had
happened. She told them all her husband had done, and they asked, but what
happened after? Mary said, “It didn’t work out. Charley was too tired.”
knowledge actually increases ignorance. You can be growing in knowledge and
ignorance at the same time. I recently learned their is a health problem called
Fybromyalgia. ow I know something I did not know before, but I looked it up on
the internet and found a vast amount of information I did not have time to read, and
so now I am aware of how ignorant I am of this which I have come to have
knowledge of. My ignorance multiplied greatly with this new knowledge.
Paradox of the cross in that Jesus was both victim and victor. There was defeat at
the hands of men and yet delight at victory over sin. He was the prisoner of men but
the passover for all men. His death revealed the depth of mans sin and also the
heighth of God's Saviourship. It was the ultimate place of the meeting of good and
evil. It was the worst and the best event of history.
Parents once had to spend hours shaking and slapping their little girl. It was not
abuse, for she had swallowed ten sleeping pills and the doctor said they had to keep
her awake to save her life. It was loving cruelty.
The key value of understanding paradoxes is that it means that because something is
true does not mean that its opposite cannot be true. Opposite things can both be
true, and because Christians do not grasp this they get into all kinds of battles over
theology where each takes part of God’s Word and tells the others because what
they say is based on the Word of God they must be opposed to God for believing

5. something different. In reality both are right and even though seeming to contradict
each other, they are just what God revealed as the full truth of the matter. The
sovereignty of God or the free will of man is one of the greatest debates in history,
and it is folly to choose one over the other, for both are so clearly biblical that it can
only be missed by the blind.
Paradoxes produce strange ways of thinking. For example I am sure I can persuade
you to rather have a watch that is never the right time over one that is right some of
the time. The one that is right some of the time is a broken watch that is right twice
a day or 730 times a year. The one never right is one set 5 minutes fast. It is never
right but of far more value than the one that is right some of the time.
The best known grave of any soldier in America is the tomb of the unknown soldier.
He is unknown but his tomb is the best known.
Bad news is good news, because it is the unusual. If the normal became the news
that would be bad for it would mean that it was no longer normal but unusual, and
so as long as the news is mainly bad we know that good stuff is still more common
and the norm.
In math you have the paradox of subtraction by addition. The more you add
numbers after a decimal point the lower the number gets. It becomes less and less as
you add more and more.
There are statements that if they are true they are false. All rules have exceptions. If
this is true it supports that their are rules with no exceptions, for if all have
exceptions then that includes this one, and that would mean there are rules with no
exceptions. It is a paradox, but a reality that a true statement can prove itself false
too.
HERE ARE SOME PARADOXES I THE BIBLE
1. To conquer we must surrender-I Cor. 15:57.
2. To live we must die-John 12:23.
3. To save our life we must lose it-Matt. 10:39,Matt. 16:25.mk.8:35,lk17:33,jon
12:25
4. To reign we must serve-Luke 12:42-44.
5. To be wise we must become fools-I Cor. 3:18.
6. To be exalted we must become humble-Matt. 18:4.
7. To be first we must be last-Mark 9:35.
8. To be strong we must become weak-II Cor. 12:9-10.
8b. IICor. 6:9-10 says dying yet we live, sorrowful yet rejoicing, poor yet making
many rich, and having nothing yet possessing everything. in 12:11 Paul is superior
yet nothing.

6. 9. To get we must give-Prov. 11:24.
10. Rev. 1:8 says God is the alpha and omega. God's nature is paradoxal for in Him
the end can be the beginning and so paradox is inherant in all reality.
11. In the last days will come those forbidding to marry, yet, also in the last days
they shall marry and be given in marriage. Opposite things can be true at the same
time, and so no statement can be taken as a universal discription of all that is.
12. Psa. 5:5 says God hates the wicked, yet He loves them also for He sent His Son
to die for them.
13. Prov. 18:13 makes it clear that you can be right and still be wrong. If you
decide a matter without hearing the other side you may decide right, but it is still
wrong to do so without hearing the other side.
14. IICor. 5:21 The sinless one made the worst sinner ever for he bore all sin.He the
sinless one died on a tree, While we the sinners walk away free.
Can Jesus be both God and man? This is the essence of the Christian faith. The
conflicting statements have a partial truth in each, and the challenge is to try and
see how both can be part of a greater whole. Paradox is usually dealing with some
transcendent truth which has many sides to it, and so it can be seen from many
perspectives such as Jesus being truly God and truly man.
Spurgeon, ..the Christian life is a series of paradoxes, and for my own part I doubt
an experience unless there is something paradoxical about it.
Can two things happening at the same time be experienced at two different times?
Yes, for when lightning flashes the thunder happens at the same time, but because
light travels faster than sound we see the lightning before we hear the thunder
which comes along behind. They start at the same time but do not get to us at the
same time. So we have two different experiences of the one event. Many things
happen when we accept Jesus as Savior, but we do not experience them all at once.
We have to grow in knowledge and come to understand all that Jesus did for us on
the cross.
J. Wallace Hamilton wrote,Truth is so mighty that it has to come in pairs,...or the
world inself is held in balance by the pull and tension of opposites-negative and
positive, high and low, light and dark, east and west, cold and hot, pro and con. The
truth is not in some middle of the road between then but in some higher insight that
transends both.
Lynn Anderson, Are you ready to peek over into mystery? The Bible will not clear
up every doubt. In fact, sometimes Scripture seems, at least at first glance, to
generate new doubts. The Bible embraces paradoxes.
For example, the Proverbs say, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly.” Then
the next verse instructs, “Answer a fool according to his folly.” (Proverbs 26:4-5)
Make up your mind, Solomon! Paul charged, “Carry one another’s burdens,” then

7. added three verses later, “Each one should carry his own load.” (Gal. 6:2, 5) Which is
right, apostle? Scripture says that Christians are “set... free” and should not be
“burdened again by a yoke of slavery,” yet at the same time we are to be “slaves to
righteousness.” (Galatians 5:1; Romans 6:15-22)
And these are only some of the little paradoxes. There are larger ones as well —
predestination and free will, or works and grace, or judgment and mercy, just to
hint at a few. Possibly you know how to explain these. But, if you read long enough,
you will confront biblical paradoxes that confound the wisdom of the ages. Heaven
offers some of her best truth suspended between such paradoxes.
Leonard Griffith wrote, “Paul considered the Cross with its unique combination of
opposites, its amazing interchange of qualities, as the supreme paradox of history.
It was the way to heaven by the way of hell. He writes again, For here is the
paradox of the Cross-that out of destruction should come healing; that these two
things, diametrically opposite, should be part of the same reality. This remarkable
insight fairly obsessed the Apostle Paul. Again and again he comes back to it in his
letters. To Paul, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was the paradox par excellence, the
greatest turning of the table, the vastest confounding of human expectation of all
times.
The plain fact is that God has chosen to reveal Himself in Divinely authorized and
instituted paradox. Therefore, true Christian theology approaches God’s revelation
with a humble mind, bent on receiving God’s truth in the very paradox in which
God couches it, and determined not to mess with God’s revelation by attempting to
eliminate the paradox through the juggling acts of human reason and logic. True
Christian theology receives what God has given, and delivers it to the faithful. True
Christian theology is what Dr. Luther calls it: the theology of the cross, in clear
distinction and opposition to any other approach to God’s Word, which Luther calls
the theology of glory. God’s Word is rightly divided, understood, and delivered to
you, if and only if it embraces and proclaims the paradox which is the theology of
the cross.” author unknown
What we have in the Bible is the battle for balance. Any truth has the danger of
becoming a falsehood if it is taken to an extreme with no balance of another aspect
of the truth to keep it valid and whole. If you take any truth and push it to its logical
conclusion you have a grave error. All truth needs to have a balance or it becomes
perverted and ends up to be a lie. Some examples are-
1. The husband is the head of the wife. Some take this as absolute and become
tyrants who have to make all the decisions, and nobody can have an opinion or
perspective that disagrees with them. This extreme totally ignores the context in
which Paul wrote it, for in Eph. 5:21 just before he say the husband is the head and
the wife is to submit to him, he says, “Submit to one another out of reverence for
Christ.” Wise are the couple that recognize that each must submit to the other in

8. those areas where they are most gifted. The Bible gives us examples of women who
lead men and do everything men can do, and often even better, not to contradict the
principle of the headship of men, but to keep in balance so that it does not become a
stupid error that hurts the body and the society.
2. When salvation is stressed to be by faith alone it can and does lead to people
having a misconception that says I can accept Jesus as my Savior and then do as I
please, for there is nothing I can do to be saved. I can live as I want and sin as I
want, for He died for all my sin, and so being saved puts no obligation on me
whatever. This is a perversion of the Gospel. James makes it clear that a faith like
that is dead faith and will not save anyone. Faith without works is dead.
3. Jesus was the greatest paradox of all history. An unknown writer gives us this:
The entire life of the God-Man was a series of paradoxes.
He made all the laws of nature but became subject to those laws.
He who cannot be tempted became subject to temptation.
He who is the bread of life became hungry.
He who is the water of life became thirsty.
He, the Spirit of Liberty, became a slave to the limitations of flesh even to the point
of death. o life ever lived has been so paradoxical.
1. He never enjoyed a Christmas but had He not lived there never would have been
a Christmas to enjoy.
2. He never wrote a book but more books have been written about Him than any
other who has ever lived.
3. He never wrote a song or painted a picture but more songs and art portray His
life than any other who has ever lived. Frederick Knowles said, O Christ of
contrasts; infinite paradox, yet life's explainer.
The point is the whole story of His life is a mysterious combination of the human
and the divine. When you mix these two ingredients the result is inevitable-paradox.
THE PARADOXES OF THEOLOGY
God never changes and yet is ever changing in relation to man. He became a man in
Christ and never was that before. He chose Israel and became the God of Israel
which He never was before.
H.H. Rowley in The Biblical Doctrine of Election wrote, Yet truth is more often to
be expressed in paradox than in any simple proposition, and in the tension between
two apparently incompatible principles there is a greater degree of truth than in
either alone.
*Lao-tse said, True words always seem paradoxical, but no other form of teaching
can take its place. Also, The truest sayings are paradoxical.

9. *George Buttrich in God Pain and Evil writes, Wise men accept the fact of
paradox. Heresies arise because some men, cherishing the neatness of their minds
more than the mystery of life, choose one term of the paradox against the other, only
to find that no man can split a paradox.
*There is a sense in which even the lost can be saved. They can be spared from a
particular judgment of God. If ten had been found in Sodem the city could have
been
spared, but the people would not be saved even though they were saved.
*We are most truly free when we are slaves of Christ in bondage to His will.
* Calvin repeats the Augustinian paradox that God loved us and hated us at the
same time. Side by side in the plenitude of the divine being there co-exists both
wrath and compassion, impulses to punish and desire to pardon.
Augustine in his confessions near the beginning writes, Who art thou, then, my
God? ...Most merciful, yet most just, most hidden, yet most present,
....unchanceable , yet changing all; never knew, never old....ever working, ever at
rest, still gathering, yet lacking nothing, ...seeking, yet having all things. Thou
receivest again what thou findest, yet didst never lose, never in need, yet rejoicing in
gain. Thou payest debts, owing nothing, remittest debts, losing nothing.
Be not afraid of these paradoxes. Without them, in their dual-sidedness, we are
like a man attempting to walk on one leg when God has given him two. Much of our
controversial theology goes on one leg, or on one leg and a stump. But Scripture
truth keeps to both legs, and it goes marching on, in spite of those who tell us that
two legs are paradoxical and that it would be more logical if we had only one.
* Paul M. Van Buren in The Burden Of Freedom writes, God exercises his
freedom in freely choosing, freely electing a people, whom--and here is the
paradox--he is thereby bound, committed. By his first and essencial executive act,
God acts freely in such a way as to qualify, to give away, his freedom. Just as Israel
is no more free to be other than God's people, so God is no longer free to be other
than Israel's God. That point is etched so deeply into the Scriptures and the writings
of the apostles that everything else that is said about God there is said in the light of
this one theme. Thus God is the God of freedom that spends itself, a freedom that
enters into bondage. It is the freedom of the Lord to become the servant, irrevocably
and without reserve.
Luke 5:26 is the only case of the word paradoxos which is translated strange or
remarkable. What the people saw in Jesus healing the paralytic was a wonder and a
paradox for he was doing what only God could do. How can a man be God, but that
is what the Bible teaches, that the Word, who was God, became flesh and took on

10. human nature. He was a paradox in his being and what he did was paradoxical. It
was inconsistant with reality that a man should be God, or that God would
condescend to be a man. History is filled with the efforts of men to choose one or the
other and not accept the paradox that he was both.
Over all God's ways there is a covering. His very revelation is veiled in the clouds.
The Word that professes to show God to us clothes him in the limitations of finite
human nature, and we gain the most contradictory impressions of his attributes.
God is infinite and eternal, and yet our human passions and ignorance are ascribed
to him. God says in Scripture, Fury is not in me (Isa. 27:4) and I am not angry,
you provoke yourselves unto anger (Jer. 7:19), yet God also pours out fierce wrath
upon the earth. God is presented as one who doth not repent (1 Sam. 15:29), and
he does repent. God gives to each person according to their own works, and yet God
visits the sins of the previous generation upon its children (cf. Exod. 20:5 and Deut.
24:16).
Much is explained by paradox, for there is so much theological controversy where
both sides have Bible verses to back them up, and both are valid statements of the
Bible. They are contradictions, or are they paradoxes where each can be true even if
they are opposites. Can it be possible that Calvinism and Arminism can both be
correct? How is that possible? By understanding paradox. If God can be a loving
Father and also a righteous Judge, and that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands
of God, and yet we are to come to Him as Abba Father, or daddy, why cannot it be
true that we are secure in Jesus and yet at the same time at risk of being judged
severely. Paul was told to give the sinner over to the devil, and yet he was eventually
saved. Is there some sense in which a person can be both saved and lost at the same
time as he was. Is it possible that one can be always saved and yet at some time be
lost?
Bill Gordon, Atheism is rationally ridiculous. The most anyone can claim about
the non-existence of God is agnosticism - to say you don't know. But
as soon as one takes the atheist's viewpoint, he/she opens him/herself
and his/her philosophical system to a dilemma. o finite being can say
there is no God, for outside the limits of his knowledge God may
exist. To be an atheist one must claim to know everything. Of course
this is one of the attributes that only God processes. Therefore, the
only way one can prove God doesn't exist is to be God which is
rationally ridiculous.
F W Boreham, the famous Australian preacher and author of over 30 books has this
message called, The Other Side of the Hill (London: Charles H Kelly, 1917), 39-47. I
want to quote a large portion of it, for it represents the bottom line as to the value of
paradoc in theology. He wrote, Who can read the fiery theological controversies of
days gone by without wishing that each of the angry disputants had been able to
peep over the brow of the ridge? Think of the language with which Luther and

11. Calvin assailed each other! Think even of the correspondence of Wesley and
Toplady. Wesley, the greatest evangelical force that England has ever known, wrote
of the author of `Rock of Ages,' `Mr. Augustus Toplady I know well; but I do not
fight with chimney-sweeps. He is too dirty a writer for me to meddle with; I should
only foul my fingers.' Toplady was quite capable of repaying the founder of
Methodism in his own coin. Wesley, he declared, was a hatcher of blasphemies; his
forehead was impervious to a blush; he had perpetrated upon the public a known, a
wilful, and a palpable lie! But it is too bad of me to drag these amenities of
eighteenth-century controversy from the dust that has so long covered them. Let me
bury them again at once; and let us remember Wesley only as the greatest spiritual
force in the making of modern England, and let us remember Toplady only as the
author of our favourite hymn.
For, after all, what do these angry sentences prove? They only prove that, for a little
season, neither Wesley nor Toplady were able to see what was on the other side of
the hill. I never read a newspaper controversy, or listen to a heated debate, without
feeling that. It is so obvious that each of the disputants is standing on his own side of
the hill, shouting at his opponent over the ridge that separates them.
`The bush consists principally of wattle!' cries A., looking around him at the
swaying tassels of gold.
`I tell you that the bush consists principally of gum!' replies B., as he hears the
flapping of the great strips of bark on every side.
'It is wattle!' cries A.
`It is gum!' cries B.
`You're distorting the facts!' shrieks A.
`You are telling lies!' returns B. And so the quarrel goes on; both A. and B. getting
hotter and angrier as it proceeds. But anybody who stands on the ridge, looking
down into both valleys, can see that both are right. On A.'s side the soil and the
general conditions favour the growth of the wattle, and the wattle undoubtedly
predominates. Just over the hill, the eucalyptus is in its element, and, as a
consequence, the blue-gum reigns without a rival there. If only A. and B. could each
have taken a peep over the hilltop! If only Calvin could have seen things as they
presented themselves to the eye of Luther; and if only Luther could have looked at
the universe from Calvin's standpoint! If only Wesley could have taken Toplady by
the arm, and they could have walked together—first to the one side of the hill and
then to the other! If only all our controversialists could be convinced of the very
obvious truth that a peak is the meeting-place of two separate valleys! But alas, alas;
it is very difficult. So many people seem to suppose that a hilltop crowns one valley
and one valley only. So few are willing to see what grows on the other side of the hill.
And yet, for the matter of that, every man knows what is on the other side of the
hill. Immensity is on the other side of the hill. Infinity is on the other side of the hill.
From my doorstep to the hilltop is a matter of a mile or two at the most; but who
can measure in miles the land that lies on the other side of the hill? Between me and
the hills lie a cluster of farms; but all the continents and oceans lie over the ranges—
on the other side of the hill. Therein lies the consecration and the glory of the
Church.

12. On a pinnacle in South America, at the very summit of a lofty range of mountains,
an immense statue of Jesus was recently placed. There is a deeper significance in the
incident than the sculptors themselves saw. For Christ is always on the hilltops
pointing His Church to the immensities beyond. The Church has always inclined
towards parochialism; she has contented herself with those few miles that lie
between herself and the distant foothills. But the Master has stood ever on the sunlit
summit pointing to the infinities beyond. It is the story of Kipling's `Explorer':
There's no sense in going further—it’s the edge of cultivation!
So they said, and I believed it—broke my land and sowed my
crop—
Built my barns and strung my fences on the little border station,
Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and
stop.
Till a voice, as bad as conscience, rang interminable changes,
On one everlasting whisper, day and night repeated—so:
'Something hidden! Go and find it! Go and look behind the
ranges!
Something lost behind the ranges! Lost, and waiting for
You—GO!'
'Go,' said the Master. `Go ye into all the world.' In that tremendous 'Go,' the
Church has caught a glimpse of the other side of the hill, and has herself been saved
from narrowness by the discovery.
Yes, immensity and infinity are on the other side of the hill. Immensity and
Infinity—and Eternity. That is why the pilgrims of the ages have been struggling
with bleeding feet up those precipitous slopes. They hoped that, from the summit,
they might catch one satisfying glimpse of the Beyond. Sages and savages alike have
gazed with awe at the hilltops, wondering what lay on the other side. o tribe or
people has ever been discovered but in some tent or wigwam or kraal there dwelt
some priest or fakir or medicine-man who guessed and muttered of the things on the
other side of the hill. Oh, the witchery and the mystery of the other side of the hill!
Oh, the lure and the fascination of the other side of the hill! There is, I say, a deeper
significance in that South American statue than its constructors imagined. For Jesus
stands on the hilltop. He sees what is on our side of the hill, and He sees what is on
the other. And, since He knows, I need no fakir, no guesser, no medicine-man. He
has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And there He stands!
And so long as He commands that eminence, there is no terror for me on either side
of the hill.
Random thoughts on paradox.
Man reaches a plateau and thinks all is known or about to be known. Then he

13. starts to climb again by discovery, and he is thrust into paradox, for the new
discovery is in conflict with what he thought was finally known. Paradox is
perpetual. The simple gets complex so that man just can't get the last word on
anything, and also God's Word and His works will not submit to man's systems and
stay simple and fully understood. There are always new levels of revelation. And so
the great paradox is that the known is always yet unknown.
All who refuse to have any mystery escape paradox at the expense of the whole
truth. Christianity is old for it was born in the cradle of Judaism, but it is a new
covenant with the Gentiles, and so it is both old and new. Israel is both the chosen
and the rejected. There is the impotence of omnipotence for God cannot lie. It is
possible for white to be black, for in some states there are those who are white who
have a high enough fraction of black blood so they are considered black in that
state. The woman at the well experienced sarendipidy salvation for she found her
Savior who she was not seeking.
ow before we who deal with theology say anything about the cocksureness of
science or of psychology narrowly viewed, let us see to it that we ourselves, as
theologians, do not fall into the same condemnation. We also have been guilty of the
sin of cocksureness......We have mapped out God in His decrees and purposes with
the meticulous accuracy of cartographers of the Eternal. We have forgotten the
Mosaic caveat, The secret things belong to the Lord our God, and the revealed
things to us and to our children, that we may do them.
Luther’s conviction was that paradox was essential for faith to be exalted as the
basis for all we believe and trust. He wrote, Faith has to do with things not seen
(Heb. 11:1). Hence in order that there may be room for faith, it is necessary that
everything which is believed should be hidden. It cannot, however be more deeply
hidden that under an object, perception, or experience which is contrary to it. Thus
when God makes alive he does it by killing, when he justifies he does it by making
men guilty, when he exalts to heaven he does it by bringing down to hell.... thus God
hides his eternal goodness and mercy under eternal wrath, his righteousness under
iniquity.
o man is more unhappy than the one who is never in adversity; the
greatest affliction of life is never to be afflicted.
SOME PARADOXES OF SCIECE
*M. Scott Peck in his book The Road Less Traveled writes, The other development
that is asisting us to escape from scientific tunnel vision is the relatively recent
discovery by science of the reality of paradox. A hundred years ago paradox meant
error to the scientific mind. But exploring such phemomena as the nature of light,
electomagnetism, quantam mechanics and relativity theory, physical science has
matured over the past century to the point where it is increasingly recognized that

14. at a certain level reality is paradoxical.
*Light can be both a wave and a particle.
Salt for example is a wonder. It is composed of two poisonous substances: sodium
and chlorine, either of which if taken individually could kill you. Yet when these
two substances are combined they produce a substance called salt that is
necessaryfor life.
Water is another wonder. It's chemical formula is H2O. That means two parts of
hydrogen for each part oxygen. Oxygen is an oxidizer while hydrogen so readily
burns that it can be explosive. Yet when hydrogen and oxygen are united into water
you can use it to put out fires!
The paradox of solids. Common sense tells you that the table is solid, but science
tells us it is really more space than anything. Eddington the great scientist said there
are really 2 tables and both are correct from the point of view they are seen. Two
different perspectives can be valid of the same thing.one of us can see from every
perspective and so we need to be open to truth from a different perspective than our
own.
James R. Davis, I once had a camper trailer with a refrigerator that ran on a gas
flame. To me this always seemed to be a great paradox. When it was heated up it got
cold. The flame actually heated a solution in the tubes running through the
refrigerator. The heat caused a chemical reaction that rendered the solution cold
enough to freeze water. To me nothing seems more contradictory or paradoxical
than getting ice from fire. Yet, nothing is more paradoxical than life. Love and hate
are paradoxes yet they can dwell in the same heart. It has been said that there is
only a fine line that separates love and hate in each heart. o matter who I am there
is only a very thin line between who I am and what I could be. Life is full of
paradoxes and nothing deals with the paradoxes of life better than the Bible.
Actually salvation is the greatest paradox of all. It is the tension that the paradox of
grace creates that keeps us alert and alive as Christians. God takes the most evil act
of humanity, the crucifixion of God, and presents that evil act as the means of
humanities salvation. In that evil act of humanity the Holy God of heaven laid upon
his Son the iniquities of us all. What a paradox?
PARADOXES OF LIFE
Dr John R. Claypool in a sermon said he was fascinated by the way Gordon Cosby
of the Church of the Savior in Washington handled the task of telling children
about the journey of life. Cosby said, life gets better and better as it goes along:
that is, it is better to be an infant than a fetus, better to be a child than an infant,

15. better to be an adolescent than a child, better to be an adult than an adolescent. At
the same time, the bible says that life gets harder and harder as it goes along: that is,
it is harder to be an infant than a fetus, harder to be a child than an infant, harder
to be an adolescent than a child, harder to be an adult than an adolescent. Dr
Claypool responds, I find this to be a profound insight, not just into the successive
stages of our existence, but into all things. anytime there is a movement from less to
more,both of these words apply: that is, the new condition is better, because more
possibilities are now available and the horizons infinitely wider. At the same time,
the new condition is harder, for an increased number of options always brings with
it complexities and the need to develop some mechanism of decision-making that can
process factors that did not need to be reckoned with before.
*A London paper published an article titled The Importance of Doing Things
Badly. The writer was opposing the proverb which says, What is worth doing is
worth doing well. The point of the author is that things like tennis and golf and
other sports are worth doing, but rarely worth doing well. To do them well takes
more time than a man ought to spend getting that good. There are many things that
are enjoyable and we should do them even though we do them badly, and not devote
a major portion of life trying to do them well. So it is true there are some things
worth doing badly.
Dr. Robert Schuller lists example of negative emotions that are positive.
Sweet sorrow-when saying farewell.
Happy sadness- when recalling bygone days.
Healing grief- when weeping at a funeral.
Righteous anger- when facing injustice.
Constructive fear- when quitting smoking or other bad habits
Corrective guilt- when needing to get back on track.
egative emotions can be constructive.
*The sun without which we cannot see must not be looked at.
*When you have a fight with your conscience and get licked, you win.
Can cruelty ever be kind? Boreham give an example. He tells of how ansen and
Johansen were polar explorers and the time came when they were forced to shoot
their dogs. either had the heart to shoot their own dog and so each walked out into
the ice and snow with the dog of their companion and shot the other'e dog. It was a
kind thing to do and helped each have to do a terrible thing and not feel as bad.
It is hard to imagine being grateful to someone for shooting your dog, but life is full
of paradoxes.
We are all opposites within ourselves, for as Dr. Carl G. Jung said, Everyman has within him
something of the criminal, the genius, and the saint. We are not just saints or sinners, but both.

16. Can being robbed be a blessing? It was for a wealthy man in Sicily. Thieves broke into his villa and
were able to break open a wall safe and take 320,000 dollars. The police caught them and recovered
the money. The owner did not know the money was there, for it was his fathers home and that safe
had not been opened for 20 years since his father died. He thanked the thieves for discovering this
treasure for him.
It is possible to be frugal and prodigal at the same time because life if not on a single track. We have
a variety of perspectives at the same time. Harry Houdini, for example, would protest at the slight
cost of having his pants pressed while at the same time giving away thousands to help poor children.
He was stingy at one point and very generous at another and this paradox is common in all lives. o
one adjutive sums up anyones life.
There is something you can never bring back and yet it can never be taken away-it
is the past. It can never return but can never depart.
* Luther's paradox that he stressed is this: First, A Christian man is the most free
lord of all, and subject to none. Second, A Christian man is the most dutiful
servant of all, and subject to every one.
*A W Tozer in his book That Incredible Christian writes of the paradoxes of the
Christian life. He says he is dead and yet more alive than ever. He walks this earth
but his home is in heaven. He must lose his life to find it. He is strong when weak
and rich when poor. He writes, The paradoxical character of the Christian is
revealed constantly. For instance, he bellieves that he is saved now, nevertheless he
expects to be saved later and looks forward joyfully to future salvation. He fears
God but is not afraid of Him. In God's presence he feels overwhelmed and undone,
yet there is nowhere he would rather be than in that presence. He knows that he has
been cleansed from his sin, yet he is painfully conscious that in his flesh dwells no
good thing. He goes on to say he is both a pessimist and an optimist depending
whether he is looking at man or God.
Paradox of time. Is it 1,2,3 or 4 pm? It is all of them somewhere and so there are
facts and truths that are relative to the perspective. You can talk to someone in
Friday when it is still Thursday to you.
* A person can be narrow minded and broad minded at the same time. They can be
narrow in their religous convictions and yet broad in their political convictions.
Spurgeon, ..the Christian life is a series of paradoxes, and for my own part I doubt
an experience unless there is something paradoxical about it.
J. Fulton Sheen said, “ There is good temptation too. We are tempted to help a poor
family, or to give up drinking and bad temper, or to read the Bible more and be kinder to

17. our wife and to be more involved in community affairs. We can be tempted to do good as
well as evil. We need to see the subconscious not just as a garbage pail but as a dinner
pail.” He writes again, The time has come when psychiatrists must see the subconscious
not just as a mud hole where pigs love to wallow but also a runway where planes take off
for a flight into the sky. The subconscious may be a basement, but it is one not only where
we throw out refuse, but also keep our groceries, our hobbies and our playroom and our
wine.
*The paradox of good in evil itself. Why would God permit evil? It is for one reason
because the state of perfection cannot be appreciated fully unless seen in contrast to
imperfection. The best is when you know when you have perfection and God would
not settle for less than the best and so evil was a necessity to that end. If God would
have kept man in a perfect state with no possibility of evil, man could never have
appreciated the bliss and beauty of it. But now that we have seen the awfulness of
evil and what it robs us of, we will enjoy God's heaven forever and never have any
interest in sin again. The proof of this is that Satan was perfect and had heaven and
God and all any creature could ever hope for, but he was not content, for he had not
known evil. The paradox is that he fell because he did not know evil. He had never
been lifted from a fallen state of misery and had no understanding of his perfection
and he rebelled. It was so with Adam and Eve as well. Only those who know the
folly of evil can appreciate the glory of its absence, which we will do in heaven
because of the evil of time. Evil is, therefore, the means to a great good.
Your strength is your weakness. Satan will tempt you where you are strong for that
is your weakness. If you are a charmer, he will tempt you to use your charm to
deceive and do what is not right. If you are good with words he will tempt you to use
words to get your way even when you are not right. Whatever your strong points, he
can tempt you to use them in ways that are not ethical or moral.
Gerald Kennedy, “It has always been a problem for Christianity to insist, on the one
hand, that we shall be like children and, on the other hand, that we shall show the
marks of maturity.”
C. S. Lewis, “Strictly speaking there are such things as good or bad impulses.
Think once again of a piano. It hasn’t got two kinds of notes on it, the right notes
and the wrong ones. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another.”
When the king of Siam wanted to ruin a man he would present him with a white
elephant. The unfortunate man could not get rid of the elephant for it was sacred as
a gift from the king. The expense of keeping the useless thing would soon put him in
the bread line. It was a gift that was a curse.
June 1973, Phoenix, Ariz., only one 6 alarm fire in its history. It called for 35 fire
engines and 150 fire fighters. The Builtmore Hotel was a world famous landmark.

18. Damages were in the millions. The investigation to determine the cause discovered
that it was started by the welding torch of a welder who was installing an automatic
fire-prevention sprinkler system.
PARADOX HUMOR
In Kirby, England zoo officials paid out more than 280 dollars to visitors for
articles stolen from them by monkey's. The monkey's specialize in snatching eye
glasses from the wearers noses as they bend forward to read a sign on the cage
which says, Warning! These monkey's snatch glasses.
A woman walks into a store. Curious about a shiny object, she asks, What is that?
The store clerk responds, It's a thermos.
The blond then asks, What does it do?
The clerk says It keeps hot things hot and cold things cold.
So she buys one. The next day, she brings it to work with her. Her boss asks, What
is that shiny object?
She replies It's a thermos.
He asks, What does it do?
She says, It keeps hot things hot and cold things cold.
He then asks, What do you have in there?
Two cups of coffee and a popsicle.
Both true, but not at the same time.
A customer said, Your veal parmesan is better than any I had in Italy on my
vacation. The host said, Of course it is. Over there they use domestic cheese, and
here we use imported.
MY father, pastor of a church on the outskirts of a large city, was accustomed to
receiving calls from transients down on their luck requesting some sort of
assistance. One evening he had a phone call from a man requiring transportation to
a neighboring community about 20 kilometers away. My father met the stranger
and drove him to his destination. As it was a cool evening and the fellow was lightly
dressed, my father insisted that he take his overcoat. When the man got out of the
car he thanked my father, buttoned the overcoat, tucked a large heavy shopping bag
under one arm and hastily walked off. The next morning, my father had a call from
the police informing him that they had apprehended a man trying to unload some
rather suspicious items at a local pawnshop - candle holders, vases, ornaments, all of
distinctly ecclesiastical origin. They had found my father's name on the label inside
the man's overcoat. Asking the constable to hold the line a moment, my father went
next door to the church for a quick inspection. Sure enough! Someone had broken
in the night before and had made off with a variety of items. My father, the pastor,

19. had unwittingly driven the getaway car. author unknown
Pat and Mike were watching the construction of a
building and Pat asked Mike what keeps them bricks
together? Mike said it is the mortar. ot at all insisted
Pat for that is what keeps them apart. Both were right.
COCLUSIO:
The end result of it being a reality that opposite and seeminglycontradictory
things can be true is, opposite and seemingly contradictory things can be true.
On a practical level this means that in a controversy over an issue where there
are strong evidences on both sides of the issue, it is likely that there is truth on
both sides. The whole truth would be some combination of the two sides. either
side has the full truth, and so the only way to get the full picture of what is true
is to see how the two sides can be combined into a third view which take in the
values of both sides. Again, I quote J. Wallace Hamilton who wrote,Truth is so
mighty that it has to come in pairs,...or the world itself is held in balance by the
pull and tension of opposites-negative and positive, high and low, light and dark,
east and west, cold and hot, pro and con. The truth is not in some middle of the
road between then but in some higher insight that transcends both.
Awareness of the reality of paradox will make people wiser in areas of controversy,
and more humble about what they think is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth.