On Providence and the Bible.
Or
What I don’t Understand and What I Do Not.
This is my Study Bible. Back in my early twenties the Vicar of the church I attended asked me to lead a bible study group, I said I was happy to give it a go, but then he added I would need a Study Bible. A Study Bible has notes around the text with helpful explanations and cross references, so I could see his point, however I was working on the minimum wage at the time, and with a new mortgage, so I was not impressed – Study Bibles are expensive. Like most Christians, I don’t mind doing something for the Church so long as it doesn’t put me out too much.
That was the Sunday, on the Tuesday I went in to work, I ran a Charity Furniture Shop, and in the first box of donated items that I opened was a Study Bible, which I purchased at a Charity Shop rate. It seemed God was cooperating with my Vicar’s plan that I should lead a bible study group.
Providence is God’s hand at work in our world, I firmly believe in providence, and what I firmly believe about providence is that sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn’t. Zealous people of all faiths claim to know what God is up to, but as God is infinitely wise and we are not what is given as God’s opinion is more often than not just a human opinion dressed up a white beard and robe.
I am also a firm believer in the bible, and what I firmly believe about it is that sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn’t. When it makes sense to me it is really powerful, nothing has given me a greater understanding of myself, of others, and of God. The bible has been to me a source of inspiration, joy and consolation, when I open the bible I find from within its pages the face of God looks back into me. Putting aside divine inspiration of the bible for a moment, I am not going to always understand a book written over thousands of years by people very different to me, and I am certainly not always going to understand the hand of God at work through those people, just as I don’t always understand God’s hand at work in my world.
The Holy Spirit takes up a lot of the slack in my understanding, Jesus called the Holy Spirit ‘the Spirit of Truth’, and He certainly is a patient teacher. There are parts of the bible, and my life, that it has taken me years to understand, and I suspect if I am willing to listen my understanding will continue to be formed by the Spirit. The mistake I must not make is, having gotten the beginning of an understanding, is that I have got God all worked out.
Jesus is God’s most understandable self-explanation, He is the image of the invisible God, He is a human sized explanation of God, He is God for those who are not clever enough to get their heads round infinity – and that’s all of us.
Instead of humans dressing up their opinions as God’s, the Son of God became human to let us know what God really thinks.
The bible, and particularly the life and teaching of Jesus, helps me to better understand God’s providence, to begin to make sense of His hand at work in this world. Little incidents like the Study Bible turning up are signs that I am on the right track, but the ultimate sign showing the way to go is Jesus, he is ‘the way, the truth and the life.’
As Psalm 119 says, “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”
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