“I can’t read the Bible. It’s just filled with so many obscure passages. It’s unclear and just pointless, I can’t get anything out of it.”
Have you ever heard those objections to reading the Bible. I would like to say that I mostly heard that as a youth pastor—but I’ve heard it just as much from adults. Some would prefer a Sunday school quarterly or a seasoned teacher to explain the Bible to them. Picking up a Bible and reading on their own is just out of question. Others, will forget the whole thing all together.
I’ve never quite known how to answer this. At least not in a way that satisfied me. Part of me wants to agree. There are places in the Bible which are tough to read and understand. Often what I’ll do with such a one is sympathetically suggest they start in the Gospel of Mark. But now I’m going to take the path of Soren Kierkegaard:
Before I have anything to do with this objection, it must be made by someone whose life manifests that he has scrupulously complied with all the passages that are easy to understand; is this the case with you? (For Self-Examination, 29)
Kierkegaard does a great job at getting to the heart of the issue. It’s one thing to labor over a difficult passage of Scripture. It’s quite another to use that as an excuse for neglecting the vast majority of the Bible which is abundantly clear. Kierkegaard rightly shows that our problem isn’t with what we don’t know—it’s that we don’t obey what we do. He goes on to say this:
…it is not the obscure passages that bind you but what you understand, and with that you are to comply at once…God’s Word is given in order that you shall act according to it, not that you shall practice interpreting obscure passages. If you do not read God’s Word in such a way that you consider that the least little bit you do understand instantly binds you to do accordingly, then you are not reading God’s Word. (29)
Are you using the difficulty of the Scriptures as a dodge for reading and obeying the parts which are clear? This is a word not only to the person who has a dusty Bible on his shelf but also the seminary student or pastor who spends his time trying to untangle difficult passages while neglecting to be captivated by the ones which any simple person could understand.
Yep, the Bible is difficult in spots. But it’s clear enough for us to give our lives in obedience to the Lord. There is enough in the Word which is comprehensible to make us all humble and to cause us to tremble at the Word.
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I just did something similar to this the other day. A fellow asked for a teaching and discussion about the will of God. It’s hard to turn someone down who wants to be taught, even if their initial goal is to refute the teaching. I ended up on the practical idea that as much as anyone can learn about the will of God, it does no good unless we obey it.