:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

Do the Disturbing Passages Negate the Rest of the Bible?

I’ve read quite a lot about the disturbing passages in the Bible, and I know that many learned authors have tried their best to sort out the nature of God and possible explanations for events such as the conquest of Canaan. Some of us may accept their theories, but I’m going to guess that many of us are dissatisfied by them.

I’ll admit it. I don’t have satisfactory explanations for certain events in the Bible that I simply can’t match up with Jesus.

What now?

For me, 99.9% of the Bible fits together relatively well. There are just a few instances that are hard to stomach. I don’t want to set myself up as a judge of God, and therefore I have an important choice to make. We all do.

Do we let a few troubling passages overshadow everything else in the Bible and the experience of God in our midst today?

After spending so many years studying theology and wrestling with tough passages, I hit a point where I just needed to follow Jesus, worship him, and live in a daily loving relationship with him. There are some gaps in what I understand, but I take these gaps as further evidence that I am not God.

I’m sure my wife appreciates that.

What blows my mind is that God has created us with intelligence and the ability to discern moral choices. I believe he wants us to wrestle with these issues. He wants us to read about the conquest of Canaan and ask him, “What the hell?”

However, he doesn’t want us to stay there feeling bitter, self-righteous, or superior. We have to bring our honest questions to God, while also remembering that we aren’t in this to get 100% on the test, to prove the Bible is flawless, or to prove we are most clever with our theology.

We are committed to Jesus because he is passionate for his people. He doesn’t have to explain every single detail to us, even if we can’t quite understand why he’d leave us hanging sometimes when we bring questions to him.

At the end of the day, we can rest assured that we know quite a lot about God based on the Bible, Jesus is right Savior to follow, and we’ll have to rely on faith when we run into mysteries. I’m OK with that.

I don’t need to spend my time knowing every little thing in the Bible because I am fully known by God, and, despite this, God still wants to be with me.