The more we view the Bible as the authoritative revelation of God and His purposes, the more we desire certainty about the Bible. This is not just certainty that the Bible is the word of God, but also we want to be certain about what is Biblically true. After all, this is what we are building our lives upon.

But here we run into a problem. The careful study of Scripture does not always lead to certainty about Biblical truth. I began to realize this in graduate school where I was taking courses in theology and Biblical studies. In theology classes, we studied doctrines, which are statements that are attempting to summarize and emphasize Biblical truths. These doctrines made a lot of sense and were studied as the bedrock truths of orthodox Christianity. But in Biblical studies classes, there were times when we would study particular passages and realize that the truths in those passages did not fit very well with the doctrines, and even seemed to contradict them. The Biblical Studies professors were not liberal, but they were also not interested in glossing over biblical passages in order to support doctrines. Just the opposite, they would point out how the doctrine that was considered to be orthodox did not account for the truth that was found in that passage. More than once we would be listening to the Biblical Studies professor, lean over and comment to each other, “Well, there goes that doctrine.”

I was discovering that the Bible was too complex to provide the certainty I wanted about its truths. It was too diverse, too embedded in culture and history, and required too much interpretation for there to be certainty amongst scholars as to the correct meaning of many passages. And this was not because scholars came from different denominations or theological positions. One example is with the book of Ecclesiastes. Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart are such like-minded scholars that they co-authored the popular book How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth. In that book they admit that they have “polar opposite interpretations” of the book of Ecclesiastes.

What do we do with a desire for certainty about Biblical truth when two well-respected evangelical scholars have polar opposite views on what a book in the Bible is teaching? At some point, we have to consider that the Scripture that God has given is designed to not give us the certainty that we desire. After all, God could have provided a Bible that was much easier to grasp and provided for more certainty. We believe that God is able to perfectly give us the revelation we need to know Him, so the certainty we desire must not be as helpful in knowing Him as we would think. Next time I will explore why this might be the case. What do you think? How might a lack of certainty serve God’s purposes in developing a people who glorify Him? Or, how could a stronger sense of certainty actually be a stumbling block for us?

I would love to connect with you about these posts if they have stirred any thoughts or questions. Take a minute, shoot me an email at bo@leavenedlives.org, and let’s see where that takes us.