Special Saturday Edition
Ethan Barton, Pastoral Resident, Tallowood Baptist Church
Faith is hard. Wouldn’t it be easier if God would just speak to us? Wouldn’t it be easier if he just showed us some incredible sign in front of our faces so it would be easier to believe in him? The Jews in Jesus’ time were constantly asking him for a sign. They hadn’t seen enough evidence that he was the Son of God. I’m not the only one who’s had similar doubts, am I?
There’s a lot going on in this rich and perhaps uncomfortable parable that Jesus tells. But most importantly, Jesus makes one thing clear: God has indeed spoken to us. He has already given us everything we need in order to know him, through his Scirptures. That means the Bible is not merely “the good book,” or even a handy step-by-step guide to life—it is the holy way that God has revealed himself to us. The Bible is all we need in order to know about God and how he saves us! We’ve been asking for a word from him, while his Word has been here all along!
Jesus ends his parable rather hauntingly as he says that if we don’t trust Scripture, we won’t even trust a supernatural sign from God. Faithlessness is powerfully stubborn like that. Any revelation will fall on deaf ears unless we are ready to receive it with faith. Even knowing and believing Scripture requires faith. And again, faith is hard.
Now, that’s not to say that you can’t be saved if you don’t have the Bible. In fact, there have been reports recently of hundreds of people in the Middle East, who have never heard of Jesus, all being met by Jesus in a dream in the same night. In a place where evangelism is essentially nonexistent, people are still encountering the Lord and giving their lives to him, because God is still on the move. He reveals himself a multitude of ways! However, we are blessed to have God’s Word encased in leather—that’s how God has revealed himself to us. That’s why it’s worth it to thoroughly and consistently read it; and when we read it, study it; and when we study it, believe it; and when we believe it, apply it; and when we apply it, grow deeper in our knowledge of and intimacy with God. We have his spoken Word; let us listen to it!
