Principles for Understanding Some of the Ways of God.

1. God doesn’t show you all his cards all the time.

• Consider Job. Hell smacked Job around really hard, and Job complained that God had done it. God takes his time answering Job, but when he does, he never says, “That wasn’t me, that was ol’ stink-butt.” Rather, God took the blame, and basically told his boy that “This requires more understanding than what you have at the moment.”

2. God lets his kids write his story. His kids are people. They don’t always get all the details right.

• Consider David’s impetus for numbering Israel: who was it? Compare these versions of the story:
○ Again the anger of the LORD was aroused against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, "Go, number Israel and Judah." [2 Samuel 24:1]
○ Now Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. [1 Chronicles 21:1]

3. God works within the expectations his kids have. He doesn’t change everything all at once.

• [God] also said to him, "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it." But Abram said, "Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?" So the LORD said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon." Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. [Genesis 15:7-10]

God did not tell Abe to cut the animals in half for the covenant. That was just what Abe was used to. God went along with it, since it didn’t break anything.

• Consider Genesis 22, when God tests Abraham. Abe came from a culture where the gods demanded human sacrifices, so God starts the conversation in those terms [22:2]. But then he interrupts the process in order to show his boy that He doesn’t do things that way. [22:11-13].

4. Everything really does point to Jesus.

• Consider “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” [Luke 24:27]

• “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” [Hebrews 1:1-3]

• “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!” [John 5:39].

5. The people of God don’t always interpret God right.

• The Pharisees of Jesus’ day should be enough proof of this point all by themselves. [See the gospels.]

• Job’s friends sure don’t get God right either. “After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: "My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” [Job 42:7]

6. The Bible is not a textbook about right and wrong. It’s not how to know God [John 5:39]. The Bible is the story of God’s relationship with his people, and his efforts to build relationship with them.

7. The things that you experience from God are not always about you. Sometimes, they’re lessons for someone else.

• God was teaching the Egyptians a lesson, too during the Exodus: “And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” [Exodus 14:4]

• Sometimes he’s showing us off to ol’ stink butt, or to the hosts of heaven.

8. Understanding God is ultimately well beyond our capabilities. We know what he shows us, and no more, though we might have theories and guesses that may or may not be distractions.

9. Progressive Revelation is a real thing. As time goes on, God reveals more and more of himself.

Job & Abraham didn’t understand much about God. David had much more revelation. And He has revealed so much more of Himself in Jesus.

Bottom line: We in the New Covenant have a much better understanding of some of the ways of God than did people before us.

Correlation Does Not Imply Causation

I was working my way through the Book of Acts recently, and Philip really caught my attention. Philip is awesome!

Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed; and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. And there was great joy in that city. [Acts 8:5-8]

Philip has some of the coolest stories. One day God said, “Go over there,” and he met a senior administration official from Ethiopia, a guy who has come almost 2000 miles to worship God, who had questions about the Messiah from his readings in Isaiah. Phil introduces him to Jesus and the guy wants to get baptized in the first puddle they pass.

When they come up out of the water, God transports Philip to Azotus, a coastal town 30 miles north. That’s just plain cool.

 

As I was enjoying the stories about Philip, my mind recalled, “This is Philip the rookie Deacon, not Philip the apostle.” Besides, these are the actions of a young and enthusiastic revivalist, not a senior church leader.

I considered, “Some of those deacons did some pretty great things!”

And as I was thinking this, it seemed that Father whispered, “Correlation is not causation.”

OK, that caught me off guard. I waited. He didn’t say any more, but I realized I was correlating “Philip is a deacon,” with “Philip has some awesome God stories!” 

Both statements are true, but they are not necessarily connected. Just because Phil was a deacon, just because Phil served widows does not explain Phil showing up in the middle of Azotus, dripping wet from the baptism, with no wet footprints behind him. (No wonder people listened to his preaching!)

The principle strikes me as much bigger than Phil’s wet footprints in the desert. 

Just because Jesus spit in the dirt and rubbed the resulting mud in a blind guy’s eyes does not mean that spitting in dirt is the way to heal blindness. [See John 9:6]

Just because Jesus was the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” does not mean that God set Adam & Eve up to fail.

I’ll bet you can think of some other correlations that we are tempted to think of as cause-and-effect stories.

On the other hand, this principle does not prohibit deacons from doing amazing things in God, and does not prohibit God from healing blind eyes with mud. God knowing what’s going to happen does not imply that God caused it to happen.

It seems to me that we’ve been too darned lazy in our faith. We see two things together and we’re quick think “Cause and effect!” And if I’m honest, too many Bible teachers are quick to point out such correlations, because they preach well and because digging deeper is kind of a lot of work! And so we just believe them.

So this is going to be another point in my ongoing story of “Believers need to think for themselves, durn it!” We need to think things through with the insight of Holy Spirit more than … well … more than short-cutting the process.