The Bible is Confusing
Ok, ok, I know, I know…overdone title.
Since September my church has been reading through the Old Testament. All of the messages on Sundays have followed that reading plan. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me that the reading doesn’t make sense to them. And I get it, a lot of the Old Testament is difficult to comprehend.
I was greatly encouraged to read this by a Welsh pastor named Geoffrey Thomas:
“Do not expect to master the Bible in a day, or a month, or a year. Rather expect often to be puzzled by its contents. It is not all equally clear. Great men of God often feel like absolute novices when they read the Word. The apostle Peter said that there were some things hard to understand in the epistles of Paul (2 Peter 3:16). I am glad he wrote those words because I have felt that often.
So do not expect always to get an emotional charge or a feeling of quiet peace when you read the Bible…Let the Word break over your heart and mind again and again as the years go by, and imperceptibly there will come great changes in your attitude and outlook and conduct” (pg.22).
I confess that even as a seminary student, I go through many, many times when the Bible confuses me.
I think pastors can do a good job of putting up the air that they are Bible experts. They weave eloquent sermons every week, and provide answers to questions with Bible verses. Yet, I feel pretty confident in saying that the Bible even confuses the well versed pastor.
This isn’t to say you shouldn’t read the Bible. The only way for the Bible to be less confusing or not confusing, is to read it a lot.
Does the Bible ever confuse you?
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Tyler Braun.
yes….alot….just recently reading that God ‘regretted’ choosing Saul….
fortunately that confusion keeps me seeking
Wow, that is an excellent question! I will say that much of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, was very confusing to me for many years…
Now, I’m certainly not saying I am any kind of expert, I’m no Greek or Hebrew scholar, and half the time I can’t remember where a particular verse is found.
But…
I will say that ever since I have stopped approaching the Bible as something from which we extract some tiny little piece every week, to be dissected and analyzed, but rather begun to see the scriptures as a whole, there has been a dramatic difference…
Growing up in Sunday school and such, the Bible was primarily used to teach little morality lessons, or character studies, and later, was used to provide tiny proof-texts for a very dumbed-down version of the Gospel. But when you stop doing that, and let the Bible speak for itself, it becomes so incredibly rich, and also, (surprisingly…) much less confusing!
For years I had virtually no understanding of what the New and Old Covenants were really all about, I had no concept of what the Law was for, what it’s purpose really was, or the Temple, and priesthood and all that, and so consequently, I had way less of an appreciation for who Christ is… Similarly, my views on Israel, it’s identity and role, had always been taken from what I was taught by others in church, but when I began to read the Word for myself, without the filters that I had always been given, things began to look quite different.
Anyways, I guess the point is, even though we may not ever understand everything exaustively, we can come to a place where we see the “big picture”, the overall message of the Gospel, in the entire bible from cover to cover. It’s there, and sometimes in order to see it, we have to stop combing through individual verses with a microscope, take a step back, and let God reveal His Word to us….
only when John Piper reads from it
Yep. Just as an example…some of the classic prosperity verses vs the sell everything verses…
Some of that makes more sense now than it did last year, but I still don’t totally get why we have those seemingly conflicting positions.
But each time I read, pray, share with others…it gets clearer
Hi, just cruising the Bible Blogs and came across yours.
Can I ask what you see as “the big picture” from the whole Bible? If I was to ask ‘what did God have in mind at the start; what went wrong; and how does God fix it’? What would you answer? In a nutshell, without all the fine details, what are we going through in this life and why?
Just curious about what others think.
Jane
The Bible/Gospel in a nutshell? Okay, let’s take a stab….
God (the Trinity) creates the universe and the earth. He creates Man (mankind) to live in relationship with. Man rebels. Relationship is broken. The world is cursed. Man becomes a slave to His sinful nature. But God has a plan to redeem it all, from the very beginning…
Enter Abraham. God calls him to go to a new place. Abraham goes. God makes some big promises to Abraham, promises to make him into a massive People, that will be more numerous than the sand on the shore. Abraham’s kids eventually become the people of Israel. God calls them His People, and makes a Covenant (agreement) with them. He gives them the Law, a set of rules to live by. He tells them to make him a tabernacle (a big tent) in which His Spirit will live, and in front of which they are to make sacrifices for their sin. The people of Israel eventually become an established nation. The tabernacle is switched out for a permanant temple (with the same purpose…). Lots of history… The Israelites constantly rebel, constantly turn from God. They never keep the Law. They can never live right. Even those who are exceptional in their faith in God, are marred by their sin. This first Covenant (agreement) appears to be a colossal failure…
Enter Jesus. He has power. He does miracles. He teaches with authority. He holds no position within the Jewish (Israelite) priestly system, but amazingly claims that everything written in the Law is pointing to HIM. He says that the temple was pointing to HIM. The sacrifices were pointing to HIM. The priesthood was pointing to HIM. He claims He is the fulfillment of everything that was promised to Abraham, and that the offspring promised to Abraham, the great people that God would make, is not from his physical descendants, but those who have the same faith as Abraham. Jesus says that only those who trust in HIM (Jesus), are the real descendants of Abraham, and heirs to the promises given to Abraham. Jesus explains that these promises were not talking about an earthly, physical inheritance, but an eternal, spiritual one. This is called the New Covenant…
Jesus willingly dies on the cross, and becomes THE sacrifice for the sins of the whole human race. Jesus rises from the dead 3 days later, and becomes the first to experience the Resurrection, which is a major part of the true inheritance first promised to Abraham…
Jesus leaves earth, so that the Helper, the Holy Spirit, can come. A little later, the Spirit comes, and now is available to all who put their faith in Jesus. Through the Spirit, we are all given the power to live free from the old bondage to our sinful nature. We are empowered to become new creations, in the likeness of Jesus. Through the Spirit, the original relationship with God (that was lost…) can be restored.
The Father, Son, and Spirit, now work continuously to seek and save those who are lost, calling people to repentance, and back into relationship with Him. The Bible concludes with a description of how Jesus will one day return, and culminate all of human history, with Him being crowned as the King of all creation. The living and dead will all be judged, and those who put their faith in Jesus, who have accepted His righteousness in place of their own wickedness, will enter into an eternal Kingdom, (which is the inheritance which was first spoken about to Abraham)….
okay, so, that still felt kinda long, but I also left out a ton of stuff… all in all, in was a good exercise for me… (I’ve never actually tried to “sum up” the whole bible like that before!)
I’ll try in one sentence…
God sent his Son, who knew no sin, to be sin, on our behalf…that we might become the righteousness of God. (the … make it so that is one sentence)
I read with 1 corinthians 1:18- 31 in mind. I hear preaching but I listen to experience and people with experience. A combination of the two would be ideal.