Let's be honest for a second... do you find yourself easily bored by church and Bible sermons? Do you feel as if there is a spiritual void in your life, even though you go to church regularly, pray and even read your Bible some?
Do you have a sense of a world beyond what we experience? I am not talking about heaven,or the after-life I am talking about an unseen realm where the rules of time and space may be a bit different.
As we read scripture, we catch glimpses, here and there, of supernatural beings we do not really understand. We read about events or descriptions of visions which are outside our frame of reference, therefore, we pass over these passages, without really thinking about them.
When was the last time you heard a sermon on Ezekiel's vision of a wheel? When was the last time you heard a pastor elaborate on Psalm 82:1 where it says, "God as taken His place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods He holds judgement."
So often, we have filtered the Bible through a Western mindset and forget it was written by men who accepted the supernatural as part of God's natural order.
Why do we accept a young shepherd boy was able to slay a giant with a sling and stone, yet, we balk when someone suggests angels mated with humans and created a race of hybrid giants? Did you ever stop to wonder where Goliath came from in the first place?
Churches and Sunday schools readily teach about Elijah being taken up in a chariot of fire, yet we do not get many lessons on Ezekiel's encounter with, what can only be understood as, a powered craft of some kind.
I wonder how we got away from the more supernatural aspects of scripture and who decided it was OK to ignore parts of scripture because they are too difficult to understand.
The one thing we must keep in mind, the Bible was given to us by an all powerful, all knowing Being from beyond our confines of time and space. God exists extra-dimensionally from us and to think God is the only being who exists extra-dimensionally from us is foolish.
Humans, generally speaking, are limited to understanding things for which we have a frame of reference. We can understand eternity future because we are destined to live forever. Eternity past is not so easy, since we have, and everything we experience has, a definitive beginning.
Do not allow difficult to understand passages of scripture deter you from studying and learning. Do allow doubt to creep into your mind because parts of scripture seem to conflict with your understanding of the natural order. The Bible comes to us supernaturally from a supernatural Source, so, of course there will be things beyond our understanding of the natural order.
Imagine how the Apostle John felt when he was given visions of our future with all of it's tech. We do not have to imagine Ezekiel's reaction when he encountered, and traveled in, an extra-dimensional craft, he tells us himself he was in such great shock from the experience he couldn't speak for seven days.
Please don't take my word for this stuff! Check it out for yourself and prove me wrong... if you can. I promise, if you begin to look at scripture from the perspective and worldview of the writers, rather than the perspective of our modern lenses, Bible study will be a great new adventure of wonder and awe. Hopefully, this new perspective will define how you look at the world around you, as well.
Bible study and spiritual growth should affect your worldview and lifestyle, not vice versa. Pray before you study, ask God for wisdom and proper perspective. Ask God to make it real and relevant, I promise He will!
Now, go live as Christ... and give the devil hell!
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