by J. Randal Matheny

People who tell us we can't all understand the Bible alike often have an agenda to push or a doctrine to promote. They like to create a chasm between the original readers and us today. We are so far removed from that original setting and situation, they say, that we can't be totally sure that what is being taught therein is applicable today. By doing so, they purport to muddy the waters and cast doubt on the ability to comprehend and apply what the Scriptures say.

Jesus himself shows that no such chasm exists. Much time had elapsed between the day God appeared to Moses in a burning bush and 30 A.D. or so, when the Sadducees plied our Lord with a question about the resurrection. In spite of a time span of more than 1,500 years, Jesus cites a phrase from Exodus 3 to demonstrate the existence of life after death and the resurrection.

Before doing so, he says, "And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, ..." (Matthew 22:31, NRSV).

Jesus affirmed that in the Exodus passage, God was talking to the Sadducees. "Said to you by God." They should have read it and understood that it taught the resurrection of the dead. They were therefore culpable of teaching there was no resurrection. It mattered not at all that so much time has passed, nor that they were not present to understand fully what was taking place on that lonely mountainside.

Yes, the truth was there to be read and understood. But they had been influenced by philosophies and teachings of men. So they read over that verse and kept right on going, happy in their self-imposed ignorance.

Jesus told them, however, that God was talking to them through that passage. God was communicating important truths in something he had said more than 1,500 years earlier. Only their political and social agenda kept them from admitting it.

Be sure that when people today cast aspersions on the ability to understand the message of the Bible and come to a right conclusion about what it teaches, Jesus doesn't share their opinion.

We can know what God is saying to us about the nature of salvation, the proper human response to the gospel, the right way to worship the Lord, how to conduct ourselves in this evil world. We can know and we can fulfill God's detailed will for our lives.

Don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

For God's talking to us today. Will we hear, understand, and obey?

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