Monday, July 01, 2013

Cool In The Way, Hot in The Hay

Good Monday morning! I am just absolutely not sure what that title is supposed to mean. I may have been making up some nonsense verses, or thinking of something rural. I got it, it's a farm metaphor for something, but I just wish I knew what it was. Sometimes reading and deeply studying the Bible we come to a passage that appears to have been a mistranslation of an advanced Martian language. We read it, ask the Lord for understanding, and still, the passage remains stubbornly elusive in meaning. We might take a few moments to rant and rave: How am I supposed to know God if I cannot understand His word?!

Some parts of the Bible keep life-long scholars baffled. We just cannot know until God reveals and God reveals on His time table, not yours or mine. It may be like one of those epic journey games where we must understand this other passage over here first, and then come back to the one in question. Or, you or I might need more experience of God's love, or a new growth of faith. I like the sneaky little footnotes found occasionally in the Old Testament, "[fn]meaning of the original Hebrew is uncertain." Yet, as we go back to that verse, we can read that someone made a stab at it anyway. If the scholar in the old tongues is uncertain, how can you and me get it?

Fortunately for our peace of mind and understanding of the Word, God sent His Holy Spirit to us. Some verses we may not need right now in the particular place along the narrow way that we walk. Other verses may be for us to understand when we see Jesus. Some may be purely to keep that old enemy, intellectual pride, from overtaking the scholar or the very educated. Trust God to reveal to us exactly what we need, when we need it. Some passages of scripture, we might have to shrug and say, "I am just absolutely not sure what that means!" and leave it with God for now.

The week of Independence Day is upon us. I hope that some of you are taking the entire week off. God bless the USA!

Bucky

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