I readjust my backpack strap. My coat is stuck in it, per the norm, and one strap is longer than the other. What a mess.
In my mind, I fume over aspects of the previous class. Don’t get me wrong; I love Bible Doctrines class. But at some point, watching videos of men bickering over whether they’re pre-millenium or post-millennium, Calvinist or Anglican, started getting to me.
It’s funny though when you hear the same thoughts murmuring in your head instead coming out of other peoples’ lips. The same sentiments seem close-minded and even like gasp what a horrible Christian.
But then there’s the “Oh wait . . . I was just thinking that too.” We just didn’t have the gall to say it out loud.
We live in a world of Christians who have an “it doesn’t matter” mindset. When people pull out their charts mapping where the rapture is in correlation to the great white throne judgment, many run for the hills and grab their hand-lettered Bible verse pillows that say “With God, nothing is impossible.”
And on one side, yes: there are some Bible Doctrines that aren’t a make-it-or-break-it problem.
Some have way too much fun fighting over Bible verses that support premillennialism. However, that doesn’t mean we can just write it off and move on to the next shiny thing we see.
I don’t think Jesus would’ve taken the easy way out. He wouldn’t have gotten antsy when people bring up these differing views, excusing himself.
I was reading through my devotional notes the other day and saw that I wrote down that
“God has given us all the information we need. If it’s not in the Bible, we don’t need to know it right now.”
And I think there’s a balance here. It’s important to care about obscure Bible laws and prophecies because, if we don’t, it’s like being an astronomer but refusing to study your occupation’s history.
This may involve boring things like studying why Pluto isn’t a planet, but that’s still important because if someone hears you’re an astronomer and asks you about Pluto, you don’t want your position as an astronomer to fall apart.
If God put it in the Bible, it must be important, right??
So. It does matter. Those lists of genealogies; the obscure purity laws; the boundaries of Israel; these all really do matter.
They aren’t worth arguing over if you have to depend on your own logic to resolve it.
But also . . . there are those that don’t want to talk about thing that do matter but are hard. Things like where we’re going when we die, matters of God’s justice, and why He allows suffering. These topics may make us feel uncomfortable, but there are far too many people painting God with a love-colored brush and then discarding all His other aspects.
These are things we are called to wrestle with. We can’t ignore the bright pink elephant standing in the room. Life is uncomfortable; being a Christian is uncomfortable. If you just read Job, you’ll see that God isn’t a God that allows people to do whatever they want in the name of “love.” That isn’t true love.
So.
Care.
But always remember that no one can totally understand the mind of God . . . and that’s how it’s supposed to be. We are called to unity, and maybe some of these ambiguous or difficult points were put there to test us and see how spiritually mature we are: will we bicker like children, simply write it off because we don’t understand, or will we seek to do what Jesus would?
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