Category: Illumination

John Chrysostom (around 387 CE) appears to be the first writer to use the word Bible to refer to the Old and New Testaments together. It later became a favorite destination for the collection of writings.

Since then a lot of false expectations have arisen about the Bible. Many have become stumbling blocks to people.

One of those false expectations is in treating the Bible as a history book, or a science book. The Bible is not a history book, it’s not a science book, it’s a book about the relationship between God and humankind.

Science and History

Now it is true, that the Bible does contain history and science. But that’s beside the point. The Bible is not a history book, and it is not a science book,. Therefore, the accuracy of its science and history is not that important.

A lot of ink has been spilled trying to defend the non-essential parts of the Bible. The Bible is filled with myth, metaphor and parables. This is how you use language to hint at what can’t be defined in literal language.

Essentials and Non-essentials

It takes a little bit of wisdom to understand the difference between what’s essential and what is non-essential when it deals with God. And unfortunately, in the modern age, people have mistakenly thought the non-essential was the important part.

In essentials, the Bible is true. In non-essentials, the Bible is fallible. The Bible is both human and divine. It is divine and true regarding God and our relationship to him. It is human and fallible regarding the world and our understanding of it.

A Relationship Book

The Bible is not written to tell us about the world, the Bible was written to tell us about people’s relationship with God. It documents how God dealt with humankind throughout the ages.

A lot of doubt has been created in the world, because of false expectations of the Bible. The Bible is a book that God inspired men to write down, not about science and history, but about their relationship with Him. That’s what the Bible is. It’s a relationship book.

“Though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said” (Acts 17:27-28).

A. W. Tozer once wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” I believe that this is true. I think that most Christian’s God is too small.

God is not the Supreme Being

What do we mean when we use the word “God”? Many people envision God as a being like other beings, he just happens to be the Supreme Being. This makes God just one more thing among others, he just happens to be the biggest, strongest, and smartest.

But I don’t think God is the same order of reality as us. God is Wholly Other, completely different from anything we know.

In fact, God is so completely different that we speak most accurately about Him when we say what He is not. God is not a being, but the Ground of Being. For the Bible says, “In him we live and move and have our being.”

The Best Definition

David Bentley Hart gives the best definition of God.

God “is the infinite fullness of being, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, from whom all things come and upon whom all things depend for every moment of their existence, without whom nothing at all could exist.”

Your God is Too Small

For most of my Christian life, my God was too small. David Bentley Hart was the one who opened my eyes to the reality of God, an Absolute Reality upon which our contingent reality rests.

God is Being Itself, the cosmos is becoming. There are two realities, the reality of Being and the reality of becoming. One is nothing but change, the other is changeless. One is Absolute, the other contingent.

Confused and Ignorant

Until we view God rightly, all else will be confused and dark. Language conceals as much as it reveals. Language merely points to a reality beyond words.

It is only when God becomes Wholly Other does Jesus become ever present. God reached out from the reality of Being and reached into the reality of becoming in order to reveal Him (John 1:18).

“And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen” (Matt. 6:13 NKJV).

In the Lord’s Prayer, we say, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil.” Does God lead us into temptation? It sure sounds like it.

Are we not saying, “God, please don’t lead me into temptation, lest I sin against You.” But James tells us, “No one, when tempted, should say, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13). So there is no way God is going to be leading you into temptation.

So what does it mean when Jesus tells us to pray to God, “do not lead us into temptation?” There are two solutions to the difficulty. Either we don’t understand “lead” or we don’t understand “temptation.”

Time of Trial

The first solution is to translate the word for temptation as “trail.” And so the New Revised Standard Version translates it, “And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.” Clearly, God does lead people to be tested. “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil” (Matt. 4:1).

But I don’t think this is correct. Why would we pray against the leading of the Holy Spirit. A faith that can’t be tested, can’t be trusted. And the sooner we find that out, the better.

So no, I don’t think that answer is correct. For James tells us not to pray against the “various trials,” but to “consider it all joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance” (James 1:2-3).

Don’t Let Us Be Led

The second answer is that the word “lead” is passive, not active. That is, God is not doing the leading but is allowing us to be led, by not interfering in the process. This is the solution that the New Living Translation takes, “And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.”

In other words, don’t let us be led into temptation. “Keep us from falling into sin when we are tempted” (Matt. 6:13 NIRV). “Do not let us agree to do wrong things” (Matt. 6:13 EASY). The world, the flesh, and the devil are trying to lead us into temptation in order to get us to sin against God. But Jesus tells us to pray that God would help us not be led into temptation, but resist it. This, I believe, is the correct interpretation.

So the next time you are praying the Lord’s Prayer, remember that “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil” means “let us not be lead into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

“So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27).

Patriarchy is a real thing. In this passage, we are clearly told that the image of God is “male and female.” Yet where do we see the feminine aspect of God.

Holy Ruach

Actually, we see it in the fact that the Holy Spirit (ruach) in the Hebrew language is a feminine noun. In the New Testament, she becomes neuter. Even the pronoun is neuter, “the Spirit itself” (Rom. 8:16 KJV). This is the correct literal translation.

But modern translators change this to “Himself” (NKJV, NIV, NASB). But why not translate it “Herself?” There is no precedence for the masculine, but there is for the feminine. So why is there no translation reflecting this?

Holy Sophia

We also see in the Old Testament another feminine figure named Sophia, usually translated as Wisdom. When God established the heavens, Sophia was there. The Bible says that Sophia was beside him, like a master worker. She was daily His delight (Prov. 8:22-31).

In the Book of Wisdom, Sophia is described as guiding the Israelites during the Exodus through the wilderness: “she gave the holy ones the reward of their labors, conducted them by a wondrous road, became a shelter for them by day a starry flame by night” (Wis. 10:17 NAB). Could Sophia be the name of the Holy Spirit?

Holy Mary

The lack of the feminine was later filled by the exaltation and veneration of Mary as the Mother of God. Clearly, the void caused by the lack of the feminine created a felt need in the Church.

But patriarchy will not allow the feminine to reach all the way up to the Divine. That even though the “image of God” is both “male and female.” Nor can it accept that the Holy Spirit is not a “He.” Perhaps it’s true that in the beginning, man created God in his own image.

Learn from all, but cling to none, except God Himself. For only He alone is infallible and all-wise.

But God reveals His secrets to those who pursue Him. And God is not a respecter of labels, denominations, or titles.

I have found pursuers of God in Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Churches. I have found them in all ages, and in all nations.

The key is to be open to truth no matter where it is found. Even if it’s not from your religion. Because, as St. Augustine said, all truth is God’s truth.

Be humble, be teachable, and listen to the voice of truth in the most unusual places.