An Introduction

This post is from my previous blog, Ear to the Heavens. Enjoy.

In my personal study of God's word, I have discovered things that, to me, are evidence of divine authorship. I do not believe there to be any one man or group of men who could coordinate with one another over time and space to author such a perfect document. No human mind is clever or intelligent enough to architect such information.

When I first really submitted myself to God's call on my life, I decided to read The Revelation. I had always been intrigued by end-times prophecy and I wanted to dig in and finally see for myself what it was all about. I used a popular commentary to help guide me through it, and when I was finished, I decided to start at the beginning and read the whole Bible.

Naturally, I started in Genesis.

As I read, I began to notice ideas that culminated in The Revelation had their genesis in, well, Genesis. The Bible, I was soon to discover, was a beautifully detailed tapestry with "threads" or concepts that ran its breadth and width. Tiny details I read yesterday would later reveal themselves as puzzle pieces crucial to the completion of the whole picture. Numbers that once seemed unimportant or irrelevant, names in genealogies that were unpronounceable, or tiny, seemingly-frivolous details would jog a memory of another passage and suddenly, it all clicked. Now, when I stood back and looked at the whole, there came into focus a bigger picture that had previously been obscured.

There is a passage in Proverbs that reads, "[It is] the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings [is] to search out a matter." Pro 25:2. There is a popular Bible teacher who uses this verse as a proof-text for what I am describing: God has concealed certain ideas in His word that He makes known to those who will diligently seek them out. Sometimes, there are things in the scriptures that only become visible when we have been faithful to explore and desire to know them, and then, and only then will the Holy Spirit illuminate them for us.

I'm not talking "code" here. I'm not talking about using a computer to decipher some hidden meaning in the original Greek or Hebrew texts. I'm talking about details in the manuscript that occur in the natural reading of the text. Little descriptions, or a number, or a detail of an event that contribute to seeing the big picture: ideas that come into focus when all the details of the narrative are known and realized.

Imagine having the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle laid out before you and, after staring at them for hours, you suddenly see how they fit together. The light bulb goes on and everything clicks into place. The pieces were always there, and some of them you knew intimately. You just didn't realize previously how they were related to one another.

Often, the understanding comes as a powerful experience. It's as though the Holy Spirit has just poured an understanding into me that I previously did not have. With it comes joy and the immediate worship of God and His wisdom.

What I have come to discover in addition to the divine nature of the Bible, is that every detail, number, name, etc. is there for a purpose. Our God is perfect. This means He is perfectly efficient and has not wasted a single jot or tiddle in the text. Every word - even every name in those seemingly-endless generations - is there as a critical piece of the integrated whole.

Maybe you're familiar with those logic puzzles in the crossword puzzle books? They are usually a grid with certain facts across the top and certain facts along the left-hand side. You are given clues, like "Bobby is not the one with the blue coat." With every clue you make a mark on the grid, hoping that, at some point, you get enough information to figure out what color Bobby's coat is.

What some people call contradictions, I call clues. The whole picture comes from knowing what is and what isn't. For instance, if A is true and B is true, then we can infer that C is true. Or, if A is true and C is true, then we know B isn't true. By simple deductive reasoning, we can get a clearer picture of the entire picture painted by scripture.

I've also learned, that there are a lot of ideas held dear in the church that are simply not Biblical, and a lot of ideas that knit the Bible together as an integrated whole that the church has just plain missed.

Some of these ideas, revelations, insights, teachings - whatever you want to call them - I've shared with a Bible study group that I taught for 8 years and to small public groups to whom I've had the privilege to speak. As a result, many have asked me to write them down so they can read them over and, in turn, share them with others.

Maybe someone besides me has discovered these same things. I'm not claiming any kind of uniquely divine insight, but I've never heard or read about them and they certainly aren't mainstream ideas in the church. Some of the ideas may have been touched on by others before me, but I don't know to what extent they've ever flushed them out. Like I've said, they're new to me.

I've never taught these ideas as "gospel," but rather possibilities to be mulled over and considered. In some cases, I can't point to any one definitive passage in the scripture that proves or disproves the idea, so I can't and won't be dogmatic about it, unless it is definitive. I can say, that in most cases, it's not a stretch to piece the scriptures together and make the inference that these concepts are there. I will say that there are some widely accepted ideas in the church that have less biblical foundation than the ideas I'm sharing here.

Ultimately, I would ask that you remain teachable and have an open mind. Be willing to accept there maybe more to a passage than you've realized before and, ultimately, that you should allow the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart about the legitimacy of the teachings I will share.

Stay tuned. It's about to get interesting.