Monday, March 12, 2018
591 - The Root of Our Faith
Spirituality Column #591
March 13, 2018
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
The Root of Our Faith
By Bob Walters
It is fatefully and frightfully easy to misread the Bible by assuming
its main focus is to tell us who we should be, what we should do, and how we
should love, behave, and think.
While
that’s all good stuff to consider and the Bible does provide much direction on
all those things, there is an infinitely larger scriptural point to be made
that is often lost amid the too-easily-seductive search for specifics about
Creation, prophesy, heaven, eschatology (end times), miracles, healing, and the
like.
I’m
convinced the purpose and key message of the Bible is to tell us who God is, and
that who we are as human beings emanates from that. Focusing on the relative minutia of the
smaller pieces of God’s cosmic glory, to me, is akin to studying a single tree
and missing the grandeur of the forest.
Here’s an
example. Consider the Creation story in
Genesis. The Bible says “six days” and
many insist that means “six days” (with the seventh for God’s rest). Fine.
Whether it is literally “six days” or not, let’s don’t trip over the
very first chapter of the Bible and miss the far larger divine point: God
created everything, and did it with love and righteousness. The big news to me is that everything God
created He pronounced to be “good.” After
creating man on the sixth day, in Genesis 1:31 He pronounced His entire
creation “very good.” (One could surmise that God then made the
whole thing perfect when He created woman because Adam needed help).
Taking the whole Bible into
consideration, the Gospels (e.g. John 1:1-2) and elsewhere teach us that God
declared Jesus responsible for creation and gave Jesus authority over all Creation. That truth is way bigger than me or how long creation
took.
The point
isn’t to ignore the trees: by all means study them, get to know them,
understand them. But don’t get tangled
up in a tree to the extent that one of two disastrous things happens. One is to
become convinced that one’s salvation depends on one’s view of that one “tree”
– a single biblical, theological, or doctrinal theme. The other is to judge others’ salvation
(always a bad idea) based on their view of Creation, heaven, miracles, or what
have you. This is where souls become
lost and fearful amid the trees instead of beholding and trusting the
magnificence of the forest.
If I’m
convinced of anything else it is that a relationship with God through Jesus
Christ is unique to the person who has it.
This is how I read the “arms and legs of the body” and the “mansion with
many rooms” imagery of the New Testament.
Our talents and interests matter but our salvation arrives through our faith
in Christ, not our knowledge of how God operates. There is room for us all in the Kingdom of
Heaven.
I don’t
spend much time on Creation, heaven, eschatology, prophecy, miracles and so
forth. I have no doubt whatsoever of
God’s provision, presence, and perfection in these areas, but gladly rest and
find peace in the arms and splendor of Jesus.
He is the
root system of the entire forest.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that as “the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy
6:10), the love of Jesus is the root of all good.
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