Embracing the Difficulty

Some time ago a friend of mine who was in a bit of a quandary, came to me for advice.  We were in the chapel getting ready for the praise band’s rehearsal and there were a few other people in the chapel also getting ready for practice.  They were tuning guitars and tinkering around on the piano when she asked if I could help her.  She was dealing with a large and difficult issue but because of the others in the room she didn't want to divulge the all the details of her problem.  So instead of asking me what she should do, she asked how she could know what the right thing to do would be.

I liked that distinction.

She didn't want to be told what to do – she wasn't asking for me to be her mother or her father or her boss.  She wanted to know how to choose the right for herself.  She asked how we can compare competing claims for Right: Should she listen to her Friends, or her Parents, or the Bible, or…  She had all these voices, all these choices and she found it difficult to know how she should choose between them.  This was a good question.

I recommend the bible to her – even over parents and friends (that seems like an obvious recommendation from a pastor, eh?).  Her parents are good people, and her friends (at least the ones I know) seem to be fairly well grounded, but still I recommend the bible. As a general rule, I recommend the bible to everyone.

But there's problem there too- because again there are so many competing voices, each one claiming to know how to interpret the bible the right way. And within the bible itself there are different voices. And then bible doesn't even speak to every issue, the bible doesn't describe every possible moral quandary. 

The bible isn't always clear. 

But even still I recommend the bible.

And then a strident voice entered our conversation.  Another friend sitting nearby (though not so nearby that she hadn’t been eavesdropping…) didn't think that my advice was altogether satisfactory, and offered the opinion that best way to know the Right is to be "on your knees seeking God's will."  This friend continued by declaring that the bible "IS EXPLICITLY CLEAR."  I think she actually said it that way – with the capital letters.  The emphasis was clear to me.  I hadn't been firm enough.  I hadn't been fundamental enough.  I hadn't been black and white about the issue of moral certainty.  

Do I believe that the bible is the word of God?  Yes.  Though, I do not believe that he dictated it word for word into the various writers' ears, or that he moved their hands as they held their quills. Do I trust the bible?  Yes – I'd be in the wrong line of work if I didn't.  Do I believe that the bible is clear?  No.  I do not.

It is a collection of writings that span thousands of years, written by men (and quite possibly a few women) who came from differing cultures, in three different languages, in various countries.  And – to make it more difficult – it was written a long, long, long, long time ago.

All of that makes it difficult for us today to interpret it. 

Yet I recommend it anyway because despite all of those things that make it difficult to understand, it still describes a world that we know and understand.  People – despite differences in language and culture – are people.  (You can hum the Depeche Mode song, if you like.) We think and act and feel very much like the people of the Bible, even if our worlds and cultures are so very different.

It may be difficult. It may be hard, sometimes.  But studying the bible – searching it and wrestling it for answers – can only be a positive thing.  

Embrace the difficulty.  It's okay.

"The task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted." – Soren Kierkegaard