Most westerners think that at least at some level being a Christian and reading the Bible is about finding answers to life’s questions.

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

Western thinking is very analytical. We see this in how we are taught in school, our science and engineering and advanced technology. We are taught that the way to solve society’s problems is through analysis and engineering. Find out what’s wrong and fix it, in laymen’s terms. Since we are conditioned from a very early age this way, we then approach spirituality the same way. But spirituality does not follow these rules. When we try to use spirituality to solve society’s problems we end up with this endless search for answers. When we think we have found the answers we stop searching. We tend to apply this same process to theology and the Bible. We can tend to see the Bible as the answer book. The way we study the Bible then becomes a search for answers to life’s questions. I have heard pastors preach it loudly: “God gave us the Book to find the answers to life in! If you want to find answers, read the Book (Bible).” But was this what God intended when He gave us the Bible? Did He intend for us to use it to find all the answers? What about the mystery of it? For many centuries, the church embraced mystery. But then the technological age hit, and now we think we have all the answers or if not if we look hard enough we will find them. So why not with spirituality? We abandoned mystery in favor of answers. I believe that the Bible should cause us to have way more questions than answers. In places it almost seem deliberately obtuse! The Bible was never intended to give all the answers to life. It was intended to raise questions that we must go to the source and ask Him. The Bible is a revelatory book. Its purpose is to reveal God, not provide answers. When we try to study the Bible without being intimately related to the Creator, we run the risk of misinterpreting it and bring forth death instead of life. This is why we have over 30,000 Christian denominations, sects and cults in the world. They all think they have the truth, which they get from the Bible, many of them exclusively. Now to be totally honest with you, many of these groups formed because they did get some fresh revelation, but the parent group they were a part of would not accept it. So they either recanted their revelation or they left the parent group and formed their own. Sadly these then became the next group to try to control the dialog and anyone after them who had more fresh revelation was treated like they were. And on it goes down through the generations.

So, do we continue this trend, or will we be the generation that says “enough!” Because if we are really, really honest, we will readily admit that we really know next to nothing about God, creation or life in general. Oh we think we know. But really we don’t. It’s time we embraced the mystery of not knowing. It’s freeing! We don’t have to have all the answers. As a matter of fact, if we say we have the answers, we are no longer operating in faith. “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6 I just completed three years of ministry school. One of the teachers and leaders says that the purpose of the school is to get you to understand that you do not know what you are doing! It’s so true. Many came here thinking they had it all together, only to find out in the first few weeks of first year that they knew next to nothing! Then by second year you start to think you know something again. But by the end of third year you realize you may never really know anything. It’s all to get you the rely on the Holy Spirit. To embrace mystery. To be comfortable not knowing. The church today needs this. When God says He want us to know Him, it’s not just know about Him, It’s know Him. And to know Him is to know mystery. He is mysterious! Every time you think you have Him nailed down He does something to blow it up. Every time. We have lost this sense of adventure in favor of having all the answers. Let’s get it back! Where are we going? I have no idea, but it will be great! Come along!