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36 CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX “To will one thing”: Section 14

Seeking to Understand the Bible and Life through Discernment

Understanding the Bible has always been challenging, which can be off-putting, but also a source of richness. Jesus spoke in parables and said and did many things that appear confusing or even contradictory, and inconsistent with scripture. Jewish religious leaders have long debated the meaning of the scriptures, with widely varying interpretations, a prime example being that is that, at the time of Jesus, Sadducees (who only believed the first five books of the Old Testament—the Torah—were sacred) did not believe in the after-life, while the Pharisees (who recognized the importance of other books in the Old Testament as well as oral traditions and interpretations) did believe in the after-life. They may have disagreed in interpretation, but they both knew that they were searching for the same ultimate truth—God’s truth.

When faced with challenges in understanding the Bible, it’s not hard to understand why some might conclude it doesn’t make sense and give up. I’m reminded of John Henry Newman’s quote, “Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt”: scientists don’t give up when things don’t make sense and neither do people of faith—they both believe that there is a truth they are seeking. As Spurgeon said, “Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.”

A magic mirror

Regarding the richness offered by the challenges, I believe, and many have written, that a passage of the Bible can legitimately mean different things to people at different times in their lives and different things to different people at the same time.

Jesus said that the parables were meant to hide truth from some people and make it apparent only to others, so the idea that it might be cryptic in places is to be expected. But it is all true—none of it is untrue—in the same way as a good riddle might be or that puzzles in the MIT Mystery Hunt and other such challenges might be: they don’t say anything that isn’t true but you have to be able to pick out the parts you need to solve the puzzle at that time—and the same information might provide a different answer to a different question later on when read in a different context and with different background information.

Again, I sometimes think trying to understand the Bible is similar to when our family is working on puzzle hunts that require solving some complicated problems involving lateral and other non-linear thinking. A lot of what we do involves following hunches, many of which might seem crazy, but some of which are validated because they produce something meaningful. People with experience are better at developing fruitful hunches than novices, but anyone can get a feel for it with practice. And everyone participating has faith to formulate and pursue hunches because they know there is a design—a logos—to the whole thing. These puzzle challenges are not the same as life and hunches aren’t the same as the voice of the Spirit, but the validation seems parallel and the comparison seems useful to me.

Again, Jesus said that his words would not be understood by all and that he was speaking in metaphors and parables. He often had to explain the meaning of what he said to the crowd to his disciples. So it makes sense that it would take some work to understand.

And we all progress by degrees—we don’t need to get there all at once, but need to keep making progress (which is true with lots of things!!). Each step of progress is valuable and valued.

And I always need to remember that the Bible isn’t the puzzle I’m trying to figure out—I am. The Bible is the guide.


Sections in this chapter:

  • The heart of faith
  • The core message and goal for your life
  • Seeking to trust God and become more like Jesus
  • Knowing your role—and God’s
  • Fruit of the Spirit
  • Managing our priorities and our praise
  • Identity, the creeds, and unity
  • The struggle of finding and holding faith
  • Faith must be our own
  • Levels and types of faith
  • Faith vs. knowledge
  • Faith and the Law and Works
  • Free Will and The Fall
  • Seeking to understand the Bible and life through discernment
  • The challenge of discernment
  • Handling different discernments
  • "Our own words"
  • Exploring challenging passages and ideas
  • The importance of prayer
  • Personal reflections
  • The importance of living the life
  • It’s not too late

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