Because You Asked...

{As featured in OSC Comet: Summer Edition}

Here's a challenging question that you may have been asked by someone who was hostile to Christianity or just confused about Christianity:

Since so many Christians disagree with so many other Christians on what the Bible means in so many different passages, how can you be sure that your understanding is correct? How can you be sure that the Bible is even right at all? 

You may have even thought something very similar to this in your own mind:

If there are so many possible interpretations of words and passages in Scripture, then why even try to understand it? Why attempt to study the Scriptures at all?

One of our resident scholars, Charlton Connett, will tackle one helpful strand of these kind of questions for us and help us get headed in the right direction.

If you are going to take Scripture seriously, you need to take study seriously. The person who struggles with these questions (If I can't understand Scripture, then why am I bothering? How can I live by a book that I can't even be sure that I am interpreting correctly? Etc...) is the person who is asking the right questions that will eventually lead them to confidence in the Scriptures. 

"The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law." Deuteronomy 29:29 (ESV)

I believe this passage gives us a beginning point for why we should read and study Scripture: 

Because we believe that God has revealed Himself in his Word so that we might know what pleases him.

While there are mysteries in Scripture, passages that we don't fully understand and unique words and cultural realities that seem to challenge our comprehension,

these passages do not stymie our ability to know the will of God. After all, consider that Romans 12:2 tells us that we, through the renewal of our minds, can discern the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.

Consider what Christ said in John 17:3, "And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." (ESV)

But how can we know Christ? Only in Scripture do we find a clear, historical, and realistic testimony of Jesus, the Christ. Only in Scripture do we find the prophecies of the coming of Christ, the testimony of how Christ fulfilled the various prophecies in his birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection. Only in Scripture do we find the testimony of his apostles, telling us what his death and his resurrection mean. Only in Scripture do we find the Word of God which is able to save us to the uttermost.

We also read, study, pray, and share Scripture because the Word of God is a two-edged sword. Scripture is able to cut into us; it shows us our own hearts, reveals our desires, and leads us to truth. Jesus himself speaks to this powerful ability of God's Word to change his people, "Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth."

We read Scripture and we find that God uses the power of His Word to continuously sanctify us, transforming us into the very image of Christ. God has given us His Scriptures so that we might know His Son and live.

Though there are phrases, words, and terms that we don't fully understand, they don't prevent us from knowing God and Christ through the power of the Spirit. So we read and we wrestle. And the Holy Spirit helps us understand. We read and we rejoice. We rejoice because what we read speaks of our great God and Savior, and what Scripture says is that we can find life in him!