The Bible is not a secret code.
Written Plainly
Some Christians act like the Bible is written in a mysterious language, accessible only to a select few. Bible study is left to the brilliant, the professionals who can teach the rest of us.
I remember a time when some people were convinced that the key to understanding the Bible was in the numbers. Biblical numerology would unlock the real meaning of the text and make everything clear. Now, I’m rather fond of mathematics, but this never added up.
You may have run across similar approaches to the Bible. If you look at just the right map, do just the right word study, count the letters in Greek and Hebrew, then you’ll know the truth. Then you’ll be on the inside.
Friends, the Bible is knowable. It is understandable. We need no advanced degrees or initiation rites to grasp the message of God’s word.
God Wants to be Known
The point of a code is to pass a message in such a way that if the wrong people see the message, it will look like gibberish. Only the tiny few intended targets will be able to transform the text into something understandable.
When we treat the Bible as code we make God out to be someone who is hiding, who does not want to be known, who is shielding his real identity from the world.
But this is NOT what God is like!
God wants to be known; he wants to be worshipped and understood. If in no other way, this is clear through the incarnation of Jesus.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. (John 1:14–18)
Jesus came to make the Father known. God does not hide who he is from the people he wants to know him.
The Bible is Deep
This does not mean that the Bible is trivial or obvious. While we can grasp the most important truths of the Scriptures with simple reading, the Bible repays diligent, faithful study. The more we spend time with God’s word, the more we understand and delight in God himself.
The Bible is a pool shallow enough to provide refreshment and keep us from drowning. But it is also so deep that we will never reach the bottom.
The Easy Way Out
Paradoxically, treating the Bible as a code might, for some people, be the search for an easy path. After all, for people that can break a code, everything is made plain. For those without the key, there is no way of understanding. We might as well throw up our arms.
God calls us to the slow, gradual, longterm renewing of our minds and hearts by his word. This is not the task of a computer and an algorithm, it is the joyful work of a life.
How to Approach the Bible
We read and study the Bible to know God and walk with him. We are not looking for secret knowledge or a golden ticket. Rather we labor to learn and remember what is clear, work to understand what is less clear, and apply all of it through the help of the Spirit. And, because we forget so easily, we read and reread.
How do we understand the Bible? We approach it the way we take in any other communication: we observe what it says, interpret its meaning, and apply it in our lives.
Understanding and transformation are available to all in God’s word. Won’t you give yourself to it?
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