Just How Big Are You?

This semester is teaching me that basically everything I thought I knew about God I understand only because it has been chewed up for me and spit into my mouth for easy swallowing, like a nasty little baby bird or something. Another way of saying it is that in many ways I am only scraping my brain's fingernails (if my brain had hands, which it does) along the surface of the vastness of God and the consequences of belief when I really could be taking a huge shovel and plunging as deep as my mind can go. So, here are some things I have been chewing on. They are random, but just things on my heart. 

#1

It's high time my generation got past the pre-chewed food and nickel sayings about God, claiming to seek, all the while being perfectly content to responding with "Well, I believe it because the Bible says it." 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to diminish the authority of Scripture. Nor am I trying to make waves regarding its inerrancy. I believe we can take God at His word and trust in the truth of the Bible. Yes, DO believe everything the Bible says, but ask yourself, "WHY does the Bible say this? What is the context? Who is the author speaking to? How does the audience of the time compare to me, now?" Question, seek, search, grasp. 

#2

Let us not be guilty of reading into the Bible what we want and putting words in the Lord's mouth. Just guessing, but making God or the Bible say something that was not God's intention is maybe a sin. 

#3

God is not a big floating question mark. There are things about our God that can be understood. God wants to be known. He seeks us out so that He may be known. He gave us the Bible so that He can be known. There is a trend that I see in my generation of young Christians who want to do away with any preconceived notion or characteristic of God; I guess they want to make the discovery for themselves...I don't know. Point is, there are certain things God says He is, and things He is not. We cannot be swept away by this idea that theology is wrong and irrelevant, and that the great mystery is the only way that value can be found in the Christian lifestyle. It's dangerous to throw away reason and rationality, much less Scripture, and let the most mystical or mysterious feelings and findings become synonymous with God. 

That said, there is a lot to be said with regard to the mystery of God as well. I am of the opinion that if someone has "outgrown" the mysteries of God, it is evidence that they don't understand God at all. We must walk the fine line of seeking the truth and knowledge of God without boxing Him in. 

#4

Jesus was a man. A man's man. I love Mark Driscoll because he is not afraid to say that we've got Jesus all wrong. Look the dude up. Anyways, the pictures in your Sunday School class are inaccurate. Jesus was not a feathery-haired, lotioned-up, wussy European-metro guy with his beard perfectly trimmed and his baby blues glistening as his clean, dainty feet tiptoe around Jerusalem (like you would see in almost every portrayal of Jesus, as well as in most* people's minds). No. He was a Jew from Nazareth (which means not white. Hard to believe, I know). He was a construction worker. He hung out with 12 dudes and went all over the place preaching fearlessly. He got angry. He made people** angry. He was sarcastic at times. He got in people's faces over sin. He got the junk beat out of him and refused to change the story one bit. He was loyal to his friends and loyal to the gospel. Definitely a real man. I love it.

*including me 

**not just for the sake of starting a brawl (which is not manly),but because he exposed their lifestyles, their hypocrisy, and convicted them.

Ok. I'm done. Just had to get that out.