Too Hard to Understand or Just Not What We Want to Do?

He said to his men, “The LORD forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the LORD’s anointed, or lift my hand against him; for he is the anointed of the LORD” (1 Samuel 24:6, NIV).

The Bible is the bestselling book in America. About 25 million copies of the Bible are sold in the US every year to the tune of $2 billion. 92% of homes in America have at least one Bible, the average is 2-3. But apparently, just because you have it doesn’t mean you read it. According to the most recent Gallup poll on the Bible reading habits of Christians, “16% of Americans say that they read the Bible every day, 21% say they read it weekly, 12% say they read the Bible monthly, 10% say less than monthly and 41% say that they rarely or never read the Bible” (http://www.gallup.com/poll/2416/Six-Ten-Americans-Read-Bible-Least-Occasionally.aspx).

I don’t know about you, but the number one reason I have heard rationalizing why people read the Bible so infrequently is that it is hard to understand.

Remember the definition of rationalize? To rationalize is to tell yourself rational lies.

The Bible is not hard to understand. Don’t misunderstand me, there are parts of Scripture that are very enigmatic, but honestly those passages are few and far between. The history of Israel and the Church, the message of the gospel, God’s revelation of Himself and what He is up to are all very clear. You don’t need any special education or advanced degrees in order to understand the Bible. A good study Bible will even help you through those difficult parts.

So why don’t we read it? The Apostle says in Hebrews 4:12 ( NIV ), The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double–edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. The Bible reveals who we are in light of who God is. It makes painfully clear our need of grace, and once we accept it, where that grace means to take us.

I think the reason Christians don’t read the Bible has more to do with fear than anything else.
Fear of being exposed,
of being inadequate,
fear of change,
and fear of the road that change will need to take.

For example, Jesus says in Matthew 5:43-48 (NIV),

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

There is nothing hard to understand in that passage. But it very plainly reveals who we are. We don’t have any problem loving people who love us, agree with us, respect us, or who have not hurt us. We have a real problem loving people who hate us, hurt us, disrespect us, and disagree with us.

Jesus says that love of that kind does not commend us to Him or merit any kind of reward; rather, it is a problem that needs to be solved. If we would be consistent followers of Jesus we need to love our enemies.

What makes that passage hard is not so much that we don’t comprehend it, but that it runs so counter to our old nature. We don’t know what that looks like to do that. How do you love your enemies? A great place to see how this is lived out is Scripture’s accounting of how David treated Saul.

After David killed Goliath he sky rocketed to fame. He was promoted by Saul as a leader in the army. And whatever David did, he did with wisdom and met with success.

But we read in 1 Samuel 18:6-8 ( NIV ) that, When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes. As they danced, they sang: “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.” Saul was very angry; this refrain galled him. “They have credited David with tens of thousands,” he thought, “but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?”

Saul knew that David was the man that God planned to replace him with. But instead of working with what he knew to be God’s will, he jealously clung to his position. This escalated from very discreet tactics (sending David on dangerous missions) to outright attempts to murder him.

So David snuck down to Abathar the priest, who gave him some bread and the sword of Goliath and then fled. Perhaps the lowest point of Saul’s kingship was what he did when he found out; he had Abathar, his family, and the whole town—even the animals killed. Saul was unwilling to proscribe the Amalakites for God, but he was more than up to the task to proscribe the priests of the Lord for himself.

Saul certainly met any qualifications for being an enemy of David didn’t he? I don’t think any of us can say we have enemies of that class in our lives. How did David treat him?

In 1 Samuel 24:1-22 David is given an easy opportunity to end his exile. Saul enters a cave unaware that David was hiding in it. It would have been easy for him to sneak up and kill Saul, but he passes up on it. What is really interesting about this is his rationale: Saul was the Lord’s anointed (1 Samuel 24:6).

One might be tempted to argue rather that Saul was (as in had been but no longer was) the Lord’s anointed. God’s Spirit had left him. Once Samuel anointed David, Saul’s anointing was more a description of who he was before, not who he was now.

But David choses to believe “once anointed, always anointed.” God would no doubt hold Saul accountable for his own treatment of the Lord’s anointed, but David would not be the instrument of that judgment. David not only shows us what it means to love your enemies, but also illustrates Matthew 7:12 (NIV), So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

We’ll dig some more into this in tomorrow’s post. =)