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specific does God have· to be
befare it is no longer possible to
reason around what He says?
Actually, it never has been
God's purpose to be specific and
emphatic about every detail He
wants us to know! In fact, the
Bible says those who do only what
they have been specifically com–
manded to do are "unprofitable
servants" (Luke l 0: 17), fit to be
cast into outer darkness (Mat–
thew 25:30) .
Let ' s understand this vital
point.
What ls the Bible?
The Bible is God's instruction
book for human beings.
lt
is a
revelation of the knowledge we
need to fulfill the purpose for
which we were created. In the
pages of the Bible God reveals
what His will is for us-how we
should live, how we should con–
duct ourselves in relation to our
neighbors and especially in rela–
tion to God Himself, how to be
happy, successful, healthy, how to
receive eternal life. In short, how
to choose the right and avoid the
wrong in every situation.
How can one book contain all
that information?
God is practical.
If
He had to
spell out in precise, descriptive
words every single decision every
human being who ever lived
ought to make in every possible
cjrcumstance and condition of
life, the Bible would be so enor–
mous in size that it would be
unusable.
It
would have to con–
tain hundreds, even thousands of
volumes.
Then the sheer size of the
Bible would serve as an excuse for
not obeying what is in it!
But God has made it easy. The
entirety of His will and law is
summed up in one word:
Love.
He knew we'd need more infor–
mation than that to direct our
lives, though. Therefore He elab–
orated by stating the two great
overall laws: Love God above all
and Iove your neighbor as your–
self, "On these two command–
ments hang all the Iaw and the
prophets" (Matthew. 22:37-40).
16
To help us understand more
clearly yet what is expected of us,
God divided up the two great
laws into ten commandments.
The first four in general show
how to Jove God and the other six
show how to love neighbor. Still,
God knew that even this would
not be enough to show us what is
right in every circumstance of
life.
So He inspired the preserva–
tion of one volume-the Bible–
full of examples and principies to
illustrate the applications of His
Law. That one single volume is all
that is needed to know how to
picase God. He did not intend,
nor does He intend to be, explicit
and specific about every facet of
our Iives.
The burden is upon us to study
the biblical examples &nd princi–
pies to see what they reveal about
God's way of thinking and Jooking
at problems.
It
boils down to a
question of how greatly we desire
to learn God's will . lt's a matter of
how open and receptive we are to
what the Bible commands, to what
it implies, yes, to what it suggests
and hints at. Our character is
revealed by our actions-whether
we respond positively to the Bible
or try to reason around it.
"By Every Word"
Jesus was very aware of how to
use the Scriptures. Just before
starting His public ministry He
had to overcome · Satan in the
most significant spiritual battle
that has ever taken place. lt was a
struggle for rulership of this
whole world. Jesus had to decide,
under great stress, whether He
was going to obey God and thus
qualify to be King over this earth,
or whether He was going to do
the easy thing and compromise
with Satan, thus making Satan
the king.
Preparing for this monumental
encounter, Jesus had "fasted for–
ty days and forty nights, and
afterward he was hungry" (Mat–
thew 4:2, Revised Standard Ver–
sion). The original Greek means
"extreme!y hungry."
..And · the tempter [Satan]
carne and said to him,
'lf
you are
the Son of God, command these
stones to become loaves of
bread' " (verse 3). Satan appealed
directly to Jesus' greatest physi–
cal need at the time- something
to put in His stomach. Jesus
could have reasoned as follows:
"Of course I'm the Son of God.
I'll show you I can turn stones
into bread. Watch me!"
But Jesus did not do it. Why?
The answer is this: Jesus was
familiar with
examples
in the
Scriptures that speak against van–
ity. Satan was appealing, by the
. word
IF,
to Jesus' vanity to prove
He was the Son of God. To have
yielded to temptation was equiva–
lent to obeying Satan.
Jesus could have rationalized
His actions like so mañy humans
do. He could have said, to borrow
a phrase from K.R.'s letter, "My
question still is, 'why not ... ?'"
Notice, however, Jesus' answer
and what it reveals about how we
should heed the Bible: "But he
answered:
lt
is written, Man shall
not live by bread alone, but
by
every word
that proceeds from
the mouth of God" (verse 4) .
And Jesus was particularly refer–
ring to the Old Testament be–
cause the New Testament wasn't
even written yet!
The apostle Paul declared–
when speaking of examples re–
corded in the Old Testament,
rather than specific commands!–
"Now these things are warnings
for us
...
they were written down
for
our
instruction .
: .
" (I Corin–
thians 10:6, 11, Revised Standard
Version).
Christians are to heed what is
written in the Old Testament.
That means when God told Israel
not to adopt pagan customs (Deu–
teronomy 12:20-32) and not to
eat unclean meats (Leviticus 11 ),
we ought to pay attention to His
judgment on those subjects, and
not try to reason around it. The
same holds true for the Sabbath,
the Holy Days, tithing and all tlie
other laws ordained for the good
of mankind.
One of the incidents in the Old
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The
PLAIN TRUTH