DON’T SETTLE FOR A SIMPLE GOD
So now we know that God knows how difficult the Bible is for us to understand. Just knowing that is not much comfort, however, if we remain confused, perplexed and ignorant. Worse yet, the one thing we do understand is that he intentionally made it difficult. It seems like a kind of a cruel trick for God to play on his people to make understanding so difficult. How could he expect us to be holy and follow all his commandments if he makes it so difficult to understand? That awareness does not do much to increase our trust in Him. Actually, it tends to make us a little wary of a god who would make it all so hard.

Nevertheless, that is the way it is. We can either accept that God intentionally made it difficult for us to learn his mysteries, or we can ignore the hard stuff and settle for the easy stuff. If you settle for the easy stuff, however, you miss a major portion of who God is and what he wants you to learn about him and about you. That is not what we would call devotion. That is not what we would call trust. Skipping the hard stuff does not demonstrate trust that God will guide you to the truth that exists in the hard stuff. Skipping the hard stuff  only reflects discouragement and weak faith. Think about that next time you come to a scripture that taxes your understanding.

We (most of you and us) sincerely want to believe and understand. We spend hours reading the Bible and books and going to church and movies and conferences and all those other things that feed our desire to know God better. We even pay good money, lots of money, to learn some little tidbit that will increase our understanding.

But, despite all our efforts and money, we remain ignorant, confused,  perplexed and immature. We may learn a few facts about God, and we learn how to do religion, but we do not know God. All we have is head knowledge. God’s laws are not written on our hearts. The mystery of it all eludes us because we do not have spiritual eyes and ears. For most of us (you and us) there remains hundreds, maybe thousands, of passages that seem contradictory, nonsensical, and, dare we say “ungodly’.

We are fed, but we are still not satisfied. Sooner or later we give up trying. We have tried so hard. but learned so little, that it does not seem worth the effort to try anymore. And it appears that others are in no better shape. So we figure that this is as good as it gets and settle into a dull, lifeless, religious routine. It ain’t great, but we never hear that anyone else is getting any breakthroughs regarding the mysteries either, so we conclude that this must be what God has in mind for His people. People who have studied, and even been to seminary keep teaching from the same scriptures (typically New Testament) so we come to accept that New Testament is all we really need to know in order to be a good Christian. And they never venture into those mysterious areas to explain deep spiritual truths.

Christians are stuck in a New Testament rut (with occasional ventures into Psalms, Proverbs and major prophets, and never into Leviticus or Numbers). Jews, on the other hand, are stuck in an Old Testament rut that keeps them from New Testament scriptures that explain it. Both religions comfort themselves with the knowledge that they are in good company and that they belong to a good, Bible-teaching church/synagogue. But the nagging awareness remains that God said “all scripture is God breathed  useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness“, and neither religion studies the whole Bible.

Unable to understand the whole Bible in all of its mystery, we slip into ambivalence about nearly everything that God says. We think we get the part about church or the Sabbath, so belonging to a “good, Bible teaching congregation” becomes the most important thing for us. And a high priority is put on “having a “personal relationship” with God, especially in an emotional worship experience, so we don’t want to miss that on Saturday or Sunday mornings. Thus “church” and “worship” become euphemisms for “fearing God“, and ambivalence descends into dull, lifeless religion. It is a sad state of affairs that results, at least in part, from the “one literal meaning” belief that denies the mystery of it all.

No wonder so many people are dissatisfied with church and leaving it. We want to be careful to avoid simplistic answers as to why people are leaving church. Nevertheless, we will offer an opinion that one plausible reason is the tendency to think that the mystery cannot be solved while we are physically alive on earth.   We agree with Job that “God is beyond our understanding” and hold out hope that it will all be revealed to us when we die, go to heaven and see God face to face. Then, finally, the mysteries will be revealed. In a certain sense this is true. But we need to reconcile that thinking with “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.” And this produces even more ambivalence and uncertainty. We don’t understand because we haven’t tried to uncover the mystery of it.