[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 01/Dec/2019]
I am determined to make an effort to invest more time in reading the Bible. As part of this endeavour, a few days ago I was reading Paul’s letter to the Galatians. It seemed straightforward initially. Essentially, he was concerned that there were people leading the Galatian Christians astray from the truth they had been taught. As I moved into chapter 3 however, it became a bit more difficult and by the time I got past verses 22 and 23 of the chapter, I had to admit to myself that I had no idea what that bit I just read meant. I was reading a Bible with quite a few footnotes however and they helped to explain things…. a bit.
We often, when we want people to know more about the gospel, encourage them to read their Bibles. For some like me, perhaps for many also, though we are reading the Bible in English, it can seem like a foreign language (Greek perhaps) and it doesn’t take long before we fall out of the habit of reading it. It got me thinking. How then do you get people to be able to know the truth that is between the covers of the book, from Genesis to Revelation?
As the season of advent is upon us, it makes sense that we should look to Christ for the answer. When He came to earth, it was as someone that we could all relate to. A helpless child born to a poor young couple, with lowly shepherds as the welcoming party. He worked as a carpenter and mixed with society’s rejects. You could not say that he was inaccessible. He told parables, using people’s everyday experiences to teach the truths of God. He made God known to us as our Father and he called his disciples his friends.
When Jesus was talking to the two men on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection, they said “were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us?” They had clearly read their scriptures, but Jesus opened their understanding.
Jesus did not come to make God less accessible, or more difficult for us to understand. He knows our limitations and for this reason, better than the footnotes in my Bible, God’s Spirit makes things clear to us in ways we can understand.
The song ‘God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform’ has a line in it as follows:
‘Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain’.
A comment from a friend, something on TV, an experience at work…, God’s Spirit uses these things to help us know and understand more about Him.
Just so you know, I did finish reading Galatians. Can’t say I have fully understood it, but I know just as the two men weren’t expecting Jesus to meet with them and reveal truths, I also don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I can’t wait to have the Lord open my understanding.
Onwards and forwards now to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians!
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Contributed by David Makanjuola; © the Author
