The Bible gives us instruction in how we are to live in order to be pleasing to God, and be a reflection of His love in the world around us.
God never left us floundering around, trying to figure things out. He gave us all we would ever need, for whatever we we have to deal with.
So many people think the Bible is filled with obsolete, archaic rules, and things that don't make sense in our society today.
But nothing could be farther from the truth! It isn't just a book of "thou shalt not's" or "thou shalt's" - it's so much more than that. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever (see Hebrews 13:8), and His word never changes or becomes outdated.
And although there are some rather obscure passages, it is our understanding that is lacking, not scripture!
But the fact is, we don't have to worry about the parts we don't understand. Most of the Bible is as clear as crystal. All we need to do is follow the part that we CAN understand!
But therein lies the problem!
We often know exactly what God's word says, but we'd still rather do what we want!
We know what God's words says about gossip, for instance, but we still repeat things about others that we know we should not. And seldom do we refuse to listen to a
juicy tidbit - especially if it's about someone we dislike! Or we know that we are supposed to bring all our thoughts into captivity to obedience (II Cor. 10:5), but we still
allow our thoughts to run rampant in ways we know we should not. We know we are not to show favoritism, but we have our favorites anyway, if we're honest with ourselves.
We know we are to be building the kingdom, by sharing the gospel (Matt. 28:19-20), but how often do we actually do it? Barna, the organization that studies church trends and compiles statistics. shows that fewer than 5% of all church-goers have shared
the gospel in the past year. We know we are to love our enemies, bless them that curse us, and do good to them that hate us, and pray for them which despitefully use or persecute us (Matt.5:44),
but how many of us actually achieve that?
No, we don't need to worry about trying to understand a few obscure portions of Scripture. We need to focus on doing the part that we DO understand.
We are not going to be held responsible for what we did not know, but make no mistake about it: failing to do what we know is right is a sin!
It is a sin of omission, rather than one of commission: We may not be actively committing sin, but we are passively sinning when we fail to do what we know God's word says!
