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The Simple Complicated Truth

Or Common Mistakes We Make, Part 1

Have you ever heard this statement before? “Don’t make the bible more complicated than it is.” This statement never fails to amuse me, as it is impossible for man to accomplish. The bible is the most complicated work in existence. The amazing thing about it, is that it’s also the simplest to understand.

How is that possible? Simple. (Yet complicated.) Only the Holy Spirit can open the eyes of your heart and lead you into truth. What God’s done is He’s created a situation in which you will comprehend exactly what you need to comprehend at that given moment, and you will not truly comprehend any of it beyond its physical, historical value, if you have closed your heart to the influence of the Holy Spirit. It’s an amazing piece of literature because of the fact that it’s alive.

Before somebody freaks out on me, let me say that if Nazi’s take my bible from me and burn it, God doesn’t die. The typewritten words on a page are not what’s alive. A book is just that, a book. What’s alive is the original speaker of the words who’s still speaking them today. When real truth is discerned from scripture, from a minister, from a song or anything else, it’s discerned because God himself is speaking and teaching. This is why a spiritual infant and a spiritual elder can read the same passage of scripture and each grow in understanding and wisdom.

One of the problems we have in understanding this concept, and also in understanding and translating scriptures, is in our limitation of God. We fail to understand, through either a misunderstood ignorance, or a willing desire to keep from fully understanding, that God is… well, God. He’s bigger than we can possibly conceive, and generally bigger than what we give Him credit for. Let’s put it this way. Most people who believe in God, not even just Christians, but all who say they believe in God, will say that they believe that God is everywhere. But do we understand that God is also everywhen? Not only that, but have we comprehended that God is everywhich, everywho, and everywhy? God IS! Period. For us, existence relies on God, not the other way around. Even if we acknowledge that as true, it’s still nearly unfathomable for our finite minds to truly comprehend. This is why Heaven is beyond what our wildest imaginations can conceive of, because Heaven is wherever God’s manifest presence is. Being in the presence of God will blow our minds and make us see how utterly we limited him while we were on this Earth. (My guess is that Enoch came the closest, but that’s really nothing more than an educated guess.)

One of the most common mistakes we make when studying the bible, and we make so many, is in allowing this mental limitation of God to influence our translation of scripture. Before I go on, let me say that this is not a horribly wicked thing to do. In fact, it’s natural. We’re growing. Just like my six year old can’t yet understand algebra, calculus and other higher mathematic concepts because he’s still trying to wrap his head around basic addition and subtraction, we can’t expect to understand everything right away, or even in our lifetime for that matter. But the common mistake that I’m referring to is the fact that we refuse to acknowledge anything greater than what we know. It would be like my son claiming that Pi or negative numbers didn’t exist because he claimed that higher math would conflict with the truth that two plus two equals four. They aren’t in conflict, but rather one truth leads to another. The fact that you or I can’t understand a higher truth at our present level of growth, doesn’t make it less true.

We need to understand that, although we don’t necessarily get how it applies, God’s word applies to nations and groups as well as individuals, the past and future as well as the present, and the physical and mental as well as the spiritual. The physical laws God created in the Old Testament have spiritual significance. What God commanded to the nation of Israel, he commanded to you individually. What God said applies in the past, applies now. What God said will come, has already happened.

What we tend to do is grasp one simple aspect of truth and claim it is the truth entire. Let me give you an example of how we err in this manner. In chapters two and three of Revelation, God writes to seven churches which existed in Asia at the time John wrote the book. Some say that these refer to different ministering angels. Some say that these refer to progressive historical periods. Some say that these refer to an individual’s spiritual condition and growth. Some say that these refer to denominations or movements in the church. Some might even say, shock of shocks, that they refer to specific churches in Asia at the time John wrote the book. Go figure. So which of these is actually true? The simple, yet complex answer is that not only are they all true, many hundreds of applications are true that you and I haven’t even thought of. God’s words apply to everything, and not just everything we know.

I know individuals who have grasped one of these truths and then totally rejected the teaching of someone else on another of these truths, because they felt that accepting the second truth meant they had to give up the first. This is where limiting God comes into play. It’s equivalent to saying we have no mind because we accept the fact that we have a body. We rationalize that it’s obvious that both can’t exist at the same time, and since the body is so definable and easy to comprehend, we stop there. The difficulties in correcting a person with this mentality lay in the fact that they really have discovered a truth. Their perception of us when we try to make them understand that it’s not the only truth, is that we’re denying that truth.

Here’s another example of what I’m talking about. (I’m a story teller. I love examples.) Jesus said that if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move mountains. Anybody who’s gone to church for any length of time has heard preachers share this scripture and its relevance to removing obstacles, or spiritual mountains, from your life through faith. I believe this to be true. But in Rick Joyner’s book, “The Final Quest” Wisdom/Jesus tells the Christians fighting from the mountain of God never to leave the mountain when they state that they want to chase the fleeing enemy. He exhorts them never to fight the enemy on his ground, but to always stay on God’s higher ground. Reading further along, the Christians ask how they can possibly go rescue Satan’s captives if they can’t leave the mountain. Wisdom/Jesus responds that with their faith, they can move the mountain to wherever it needs to be. This revelation opened that scripture for me in a new way, but if I had set the limits on God that I have described here, I would have rejected this revelation out of hand due to my acceptance of the original truth. I accept both interpretations of the scripture as true, because I refuse to limit God to one and only one truth.

Let me once again give pause before somebody freaks out on me. Am I saying that God is a pantheon, and/or there are multiple paths to reach God, and/or that truth is subjective or any other such garbage. Not at all. When I speak of multiple truths, I speak of varying levels of faith and understanding. All scripture can be misinterpreted. Not every interpretation of scripture is automatically correct. All truths lead to the one central truth of Yahweh God’s divinity, His son Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for our sins, and the Holy Spirit’s guidance in truth.

Going back to the math analogy: two plus two equals four is a true statement, and the existence of negative numbers is a separate truth, but they both fall under and adhere to the “higher truth” of the principals of mathematics. And then one day somebody walks up to you and says that two plus two equals nineteen to them. They tell you that that "truth" works for them and you should be open minded enough to accept it. No matter how much they mock you for rolling your eyes at them, their “truth” is still worthless made up of false logic and a misapplication of math. I wish I could remember the formula, but one of my high school teachers showed us an algebraic formula that “proved” that one equals two. The process followed algebraic principles flawlessly, but the problem that the teacher pointed out was once you substituted real numbers for the A and B of the problem, at one point you ended up dividing by zero which is a mathematic impossibility. The same problem exists in scriptural misinterpretation. According to human logic, a mistranslation looks good. But once you plug in real value, the same conclusion can’t be reached.

The bible talks about the wisdom of listening to not one, but many counselors. Is this wise as a physically practical course of action? Should I get several people’s advice on a matter that can have serious implications on the rest of my life before moving on? Of course. This is why world leaders have war councils and not war individuals. But going back to the “don’t limit God” theme we’ve been discussing, ask yourself what else it refers to. It refers to the scriptures themselves. It refers to the various words of God. Don’t grasp at your own understanding of a scripture. Let the entire bible validate your interpretation of any individual scripture. Every scripture should point to the same conclusion. If they don’t, then you’ve misinterpreted something somewhere down the line.

How much of the bible is prophetic? One hundred percent. The dictionary defines prophecy as divinely inspired instruction, exhortation, utterance or revelation. True prophecy is nothing more and nothing less than the very words of God. Jesus was the ultimate prophet because He is the word of God. When God speaks, He speaks from a place outside of time. Time itself is a creation of His. He not only sees our future, He is our future. We exist inside of time and time exists inside of Him. When God spoke in the bible, He often directly referred to our future, but He just as often directly referred to our past or present. All of the words of God are prophecy. The dictionary also defines prophecy as divine predictions; the foretelling of what is to come. This human definition of prophecy as foretelling the future, came about by our limited focus on a single aspect of what true prophecy is.

Let me wrap this up by putting it to you another way. The first part of John says that the word became flesh. The word of God is Jesus Christ. The written words on a page, given to us in order that we might know the person of the word better, are like a study guide not meant to be the end-all-be-all in and of themselves. Jesus Christ is the living word and He is both complicated and simple at the same time. He is eternally complicated as He is God, the same as God the Father and God the Holy Spirit are God. Jesus was there at the creation and he’ll be there when Satan is utterly defeated. He is the word of God that spoke the tiniest molecules and the mightiest suns into existence. He is far more complicated than we can grasp at this time. However, He is also very simple to understand, as the song says, “Jesus loves me, this I know.” That’s all you have to understand. The rest is gravy. He who is complicated, made Himself simple for our sakes. I’m not saying the rest is unimportant, but “Jesus loves me” is all you absolutely need.

“Jesus loves me” is the starting point. Unfortunately, many Christians make it their stopping point too, but that’s another essay.

I am the pen.
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