Neal Pollard
While ancient writers like Origen have been rightly criticized for their overcommitment to an allegorical interpretation of Scripture (every book, often every verse, person and event, being interpreted as having a hidden, deeper, and moral meaning), the Bible is rightly known as “the deep things of God” (1 Cor. 2:10). One of the major synonyms of the gospel in the New Testament is “the mystery” (Rom. 16:25; Eph. 3:3-5; Col. 1:26; etc.). Jesus often couched His teaching in parables, “And He was saying to [the apostles], “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, so that while seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand, otherwise they might return and be forgiven” (Mark 4:11-12). In many ways, Scripture teaches that while truth is so often easy and knowable (John 8:32), there are “some things hard to be understood” (2 Pet. 3:16).
One of the major impediments to our comprehension is us! If we are truly interested in knowing something, most of us have the mental capacity and faculties to learn it. Without that incentive, however, we often see without perceiving and hear without understanding. At times, we can let prejudices and preconceptions serve as barriers between ourselves and accepting Bible truths. Paul addresses some like this in 2 Corinthians. They apparently believed in the Old Testament but they could not see Christ in it. Paul describes them in this way, that “their minds were hardened” (3:14) and “a veil lies over their heart” (3:15). While Paul is illustrating this truth by referring to the time Moses came down from Sinai with the tablets of stone, it applies to more than those who could not see Christ in the Old Testament (3:15).
Paul says, “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (4:3-4). He reveals the condition of those who refuse to seek God’s will in His Word: “perishing.” He reveals the cause of their resistance: “the god of this world.” He reveals the consequences of their resistance: “unbelieving.” He reveals the cost of their resistance: “not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.”
The Bible is an understandable book, but we must apply ourselves. We must not only read, but meditate (Ps. 1:2; 119:97), search (John 5:39; 1 Pet. 1:10), pursue (1 Tim. 6:11), seek and search (Pr. 2:4), be diligent (2 Tim. 2:15), incline our hearts (1 Ki. 8:58), and really be ready to do whatever it takes to grasp the message of Scripture. So often, it is not that the Bible is conceptually difficult. Instead, we discern a cost or a call for change. That’s when it becomes difficult to open our hearts and submit ourselves to divine truth. But, if we will be the blessed person David describes in Psalm one or the person Paul describes as turning to the Lord and being transformed, we must commit to always looking deeper to know what God would have us to do. Be encouraged! “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ‘For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened'” (Mat. 7:7-8).
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