Stephen
Terry, Director
How
to Study the Bible
Commentary
for the May 2, 2026, Sabbath School Lesson
"Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the
unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy
on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon." Isaiah 55:6-7
Decades ago, I attended a mandatory
class on discrimination and inclusiveness for Washington State employees. The
class was taught by a psychologist who struggled with mental health issues and
was on lithium to deal with the affliction. He stated that he had pursued
studies in psychology to help understand his condition better. He taught the required
class well. I do not remember much of what was taught back then, but I have
never forgotten the lunches he and I enjoyed together. We talked about philosophy,
psychology, and religion, all areas of interest to both of us.
One statement he made has stuck
with me over all the intervening years. He remarked that he wished as a psychologist
he could offer his patients what religion could offer them. He went on to say, "The
greatest threat to mental stability is unresolved guilt. Psychology has no
answer for that. We can medicate for the symptoms of mental illness, but we
cannot treat the guilt that lies at the root of the illness. Christians do not
realize the power they have to bring healing through forgiveness and pardon."
If, as he said, the greatest
problem in the world is unresolved guilt then anything that could heal that problem
would be miraculous to those who are healed. Imagine the poor woman taken
before Jesus and accused of adultery (John
8:1-11). Living with guilt is a heavy enough burden to carry, but then to
have the cause of that guilt publicly laid bare, I would not be surprised if she
wanted to just shrivel up and disappear before her venomous accusers. But Jesus
knew that we all carry the guilt of our sins as Paul pointed out in his letter
to the church in Rome when he wrote "for all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God." (Romans 3:23) Jesus therefore said the right to punish the
sinner belonged to the one who was without sin. The woman's accusers, each
familiar with their own secret sins, slunk away, knowing they did not have that
right. The only one who could claim the right, Jesus, did not do so. Instead,
he declared, "Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin." In
other words, stop doing the things that are creating this heavy burden of guilt
and fear of discovery. God has no desire that we carry such a heavy load
through life.
We are told in John 3:17, "God
did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world
through him." God does not seek condemnation but rather redemption and healing
for each of us. But how do we reconcile this with all the condemnation in the
Bible, particularly in the Old Testament? Isn't it all literally true, including
the horrible punishments for sin? If it is, shouldn't we like penitent flagellants
go about beating ourselves into a bloody mess over guilt for our sins? Will God
be impressed into saving us and taking us to heavenly places as a reward?
We need to remember that
claiming the Bible is God's word does not make it so. The Bible itself says
that Jesus is God's Word. (John
1:1-3) He is the only true and final word on God's character and actions.
All else is humanity's attempt to make God such a one as we are. We love to
rise and punish the wicked as they sought to do with the adulteress woman.
Therefore, God must feel and act the same. But Jesus revealed otherwise.
Instead of accepting humanity's anthropomorphized god, he continually taught
that we should seek to be remade after God's image, not the other way around.
Where mankind taught that an eye for an eye was justice, Jesus taught we should
love our enemies just as God does. (Matthew
5:43-48)
I once taught a Bible study to a
neighbor who revealed she was looking forward to seeing all her enemies burn forever
in hell. When I shared with her Jesus' statements about loving our enemies and
the Apostle Peter's statement that God is not willing to see anyone perish (2
Peter 3:9), she refused to accept God if he is like that. The most important
thing in her life was to see her enemies punished as harshly as possible and
for as long as possible. She never revealed the source of her anger. She
refused to continue studies about a loving God as she only wanted vengeance for
something that had taken place in her life. Although she no longer wanted my
teachings in her life, I know God never gave up on her.
Experiences like this have caused
me to study into the Bible's purpose. Is it to eradicate sin in the world by
zealously pursuing eye-for-an-eye justice? Ghandi once opined that if that were
God's will for the world, such justice would leave the entire world blind.
Ghandi said that he loved the Jesus that was less interested in judging sinners
than saving them, but he had trouble loving Jesus' followers who had few qualms
about destroying sinners, imagining that in doing so they are creating a
Christian utopia. Too often, such utopias become hells on earth as in Salem,
Massachusetts where they sought to root out the sin of witchcraft, doubtless
murdering several innocents in the process before Increase Mather put a stop to
the hysterical murder spree.
Those who let their desire to
eradicate sin in others carry them away on dark paths become like Moses who initially
thought that God's will for him to free his people was to murder an Egyptian
task master who was beating an Israelite. It took forty years of spiritual growth
before Moses could become that man who could say "The Lord will fight for you;
you need only to be still." (Exodus 14:14) I have lived over seven decades and
still struggle to remember this when I see all the evil in the world and am
tempted to rise and confront it. But if I chose to do that, it is an insult to
God. It says God cannot manage what is going on without my opinion. It says I am
still in the desert with Moses and that Egyptian he murdered.
At this point, we might be
tempted to ask why such different pictures of God's character are found in the same
Bible? First, the Bible we have today is simply a collection of books brought
together in one volume in the fourth century in accordance with how well they
conformed with the popular theology of that time. Just as modern translations
are the result of committees of individuals with agendas, so it was with those
who hammered out what would be in the Bible canon and what would not. This is
why we end up with volumes within that canon that quote from volumes no longer
seen as inspired. For example, Jude quotes from the "Testament of Moses" and
the "First Book of Enoch," and in the Old Testament in the Books of Kings I
& II, repeated reference is made to the "Annals of Solomon," the "Annals of
the Kings of Israel," and the "Annals of the Kings of Judah," none of which
made it into the canon. Some of these volumes we no longer have access to but
others like the First Book of Enoch we do. It would be interesting to hear the
arguments from back in the fourth century for including or excluding certain
books. Some of the excluded books like "The Shepherd of Hermes," and "the
Didache" were frequently quoted in early church patristic writings though now
rarely if at all.
Second, what if the diverse
portrayals of God's character is a test to determine our nature as much as revealing
God's nature. Surely the character of God as we hold it to be reveals much about
our own character. If we see God as a thunderbolt hurling Zeus, maybe in a crunch,
we will be more apt to hurl thunderbolts of blame and vengeance also. As the name
"Zeus" indicates this is an ancient, pagan understanding of what is considered godlike
character. Those who would try to reconcile this character with the Good Shepherd
would be more apt to lose their temper and start kicking the sheep and driving
them from the fold instead of caring for them with compassion and grace.
Third, it is important to
remember who the Messiah is. It was not Moses. It was not Elijah, David, or
Solomon. It was not Isaiah. Jesus is the Messiah. We would do well to remember
that as we ferret out God's character and thereby what ours should be from the
Bible. Jesus in the Gospels is the best example we have as a pattern to build
our own character. He is the standard we should measure everything in the Bible
against. After all, he is God, and we were intended at Creation to be made in
that image. He can make it happen.