Why is the Bible so hard to understand?
Have you ever tried to read the Bible, after a few pages you are confused and frustrated. In my younger years, I tried to read the Bible and thought ‘There’s no way I can do this.”
Many people can certainly understand when reading and studying the Bible it is evident that everything that is presented in the Bible, is not always clearly self-evident. Everything in the Bible is not understood not easily understood using natural human reasoning or logic.
The Bible contains many outstanding truths, even though the Body of Christ hasn’t been able to, and many agree on a lot of them. It is a challenge to understand what people face when reading the Bible.
Based on a number of Christian denominations in the world you can see God has chosen to conceal Himself not only from the people in the world, but He has also chosen to hide Himself in His Word to give to His church, the opportunity to search for Him and discover Him. By searching for the truth we come to know Him who is the Truth (John 14:6).
We can conclude that God, if He wanted to remain a mystery forever and keep people in the dark all that He would have to do is stay silent and not speak to us. Clearly we see by the Bible along He has not chosen to do that. Also we must remember that biblical times are much different and the language or sight was not given to the scribes in the Bible. How would you describe nuclear weapons 2000 years ago.
For example let’s look at Proverbs 1:23: “Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words to you.
To make something known implies something was first hidden from plain view. To make God’s Word known implies that what we read in the Bible we need God’s help to understand it. There is a unveiling process in this act. There is an intentional act of uncovering. To reveal what was hidden.
The Bible is God’s Words written down by chosen men. These words are not encrypted in a modern coded system of unreadable text. Yet these words according to the Bible must be revealed in order to be understood.
And for me, the utterance may be given unto m, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel.
Ephesians 6:19
In Ephesians we are told that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was a mystery. Even Jesus confirmed this reality when He told the Jews to search the scriptures because these were words that testified about Him ( John 5:39). If they had to search to find Jesus it is very clear that Jesus was hidden in the words that were written in the Old Testament. As we have seen the Jews did not understand the scriptures and did not embrace the Gospel of Jesus. Paul and the other apostles used the Old Testament as the basis for their message, very few of the Jewish leadership understood it. So was it hidden from them only? Or did they choose not to see it?
Now to him that is of power to Stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.
Romans 16:25
In this letter to the church, God declares that which was being preached came as a result of revelation being given. A revelation is a revealing of that which in their language, but they did not see it or perceive it. Why is that so important to understand?
Proverbs 25:2 says, “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing; but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
Here’s a Old Testament reference that describes the nature and character of God. This verse declares that it is to God’s glory to conceal or hide information. But in the same sentence it also declares the ‘kings”are intended to search it out. Who is are these ‘kings’ that Jesus is King of? Who are the kings that need to do this searching for the hidden information? I believe that these kings (queens) are us.
There are a number of reasons that I believe God has hidden information in the Bible. One reason, if you can see all the information from His enemies. Another reason is to give a man a choice, and what they believe. Still another reason for hiding information is to allow God to reveal the information at the right time to the right people. There are certainly other reasons for God doing this, but no long as you can see, and understand that he has done it, you will at least be far ahead of a lot more believers in the world. Do not understand this.
So knowing God has control, spiritual truths within His Word, we should be smart enough to recognize some of the techniques that God used to hide these truths. I called is concealing or hiding the truth in plain view. Every word in the Bible is clearly readable by anyone that picks the book up, but every word is also equally hard to understand because of the methods and techniques that God has selected to record His words in a book format. It is much like a game of hide and seek for everyone that you were looking for, is out in the open in Pine view, but many of them are in camouflage and have blended into their surroundings so you don’t see them clearly. They are right in front of you, yet you walk right by them.
So what is with the Bible, just because you can see all of the words and read them, it is clear to me, that we need to follow some very strict rules in order to understand what they say, correctly. Satan can read the same words that weekend, and he didn’t understand them, and he is getting everything hour to make sure that we don’t understand them either. It certainly would have understood what was written, he would not have crucified Jesus.
In reading Proverbs 25:2, it reveals to us one of God’s intentions and purposes for giving us the Bible. this verse specifically informed us that it is God‘s glory to conceal information. Is he real word translated as “conceal” means to keep secret, or to hide from plain view. When you can sell something that means it is not clearly visible or self apparent. The military often times, camouflages themselves and their equipment to conceal them to cause themselves not to be seen by the enemy. If a government in our world wanted to conceal information from our enemies, they would probably would created a code on encryption system that would in effect make message unreadable to others. (Like the Navajo code talkers). This way, the encoded message is only readable is the intended person to whom the messages sent using the decryption method and the key that would unlock the true meaning.
To me, Bible codes are just an additional proof that God exists and He was written something for us. Those who don’t believe inGod, it is a sign that someday they will understand.
From Pity to Praise 