The path from Darkness to Light requires the mind be renewed, reconditioned to accept things of the Spirit. We who grew up in Western culture are particularly far away, and have a much greater distance to travel. Our minds are fundamentally conditioned with a matrix of understanding frankly hostile to the Spirit. Our world educates us in such a way to prevent spiritual conditioning, belittling the ways of the Spirit, making anything which fallen man cannot grasp a threat. Not just the damage done by the Fall, but we suffer a subconscious rejection of the meaning of "path" as the Spirit calls us to move toward God.
Certain conventions and assumptions have to be called out, named and shamed, as hindrances to the truth. As we delve into the Scripture, we must set aside expectations which block us from receiving God's full blessing.
First, we must understand Truth is a Person, not some static entity, either personal or impersonal. God is alive even more so than you and I, and as Truth He is hardly a robot. Truth is whatever He says it is in every context, and the point is not for you to contain truth in your little mind, but to trust in Him to choose for you. The idea of a Truth which might not be logical, predictable and precise in all situations is alarming to us, and many Christians vociferously object when it is so portrayed. They are wrong, for they make God into a block of stone. It is further a false dichotomy to then insist without an "unchanging" truth, we are forced to see truth as relative. God is neither relative and shifting like the wind, nor is He dead like stone. He lives, and is the definition of truth. The issue is not truth itself but your fallen mind's inability to really know it, and your utter dependence on God to reveal only so much of it as you need to serve Him.
Not only will we each come to different conclusions at various times about a given thing, based on our experiences and the context, but no two of us will ever quite agree on the definitions of truth. We must each find room for the other to hold answers at variance to ours. The question is never, "Who is right?" God, and God alone is right. Rather, the question is whether the two can still walk side by side, serving together at the same place and time. It is altogether likely most of us are not flexible enough, yet paradoxically, at times too flexible. We hinder our fellowship, our service, and most importantly God's glory, because we have an all too rational sense of what must be, instead of a spiritual sense. Variations in viewpoint are essential to God's glory, since it shows He is powerful enough to do things we cannot.
Second, we must never assume ancient Hebrew people would write in such a way as would satisfy anyone's curiosity. Dry facts are rare; characterizations are the norm. Man is a moral creature, and all things must be viewed through the moral lens of our duty to God. If all you extract from reading is facts and chronology, you wasted your time. Chances are quite good the text will not follow chronology as we think of it. Time in Hebrew is not parceled and measured, but a constraint upon on our conscious minds as a result of the Fall. God seeks maturity and readiness, and schedules mean nothing to Him. So it is far more important we gather the impact and import of a text than any other possible analysis.
Third, the most important thing we gain from reading Scripture is not what we learn and remember, but what we absorb at a much deeper level. Scripture is for application, not interpretation. While that old saw is often spoken in churches, it is seldom actually the way things are done. Our entire focus in living is glorifying God; we have no other purpose. We come to the Book seeking how it has been done in times past by the people who knew Him best. The Book remains ink on paper. Yet we are accountable to God for what it says, for what it ought to do to us. The Book does not reveal Him; we do. That revelation is not a matter of knowing God as we think of "knowing." Rather, it is knowing God as regards our duty in desiring His pleasure. That pleasure is loving each other as Christ loved, willing to die on the Cross, but loving those who might yet come to know Him, too. These things are all tied together: His glory is His love working in us, as we live out our loyalty in His service. To stop at simply knowing what are the words of the Book is to know nothing important in the Kingdom.
We are citizens of the Kingdom, and our one duty and loyalty is His glory. Our performance is His concern, as we must typically fail in some way. Rather, it is our desire for His will we must sharpen. We will never know more of that will than we can pursue with what resources we have awakened at any time. The whole focus is that loyalty of heart -- the will -- to our Nomad Sheik, leading us across the sands of time in this fallen world.
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By Ed Hurst
23 March 2009
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