God’s Word, contained in Scripture, is plain, simple, and straightforward, yet it seems that it is continually bent and twisted into all the different religions and denominations we see around us today. How can we all come to one mind and one understanding of God’s Word, which has been given to us through the Scriptures?
Let’s think about it...
Imagine a professor at a university trying to teach three students about an exotic bird from a foreign land. He gives each student an exotic bird of their own and tells them to study it over the holidays. When the professor returns, he will ask them how much they have learned about the bird he has given them. After several weeks pass, the professor returns and confronts each student to see what they have learned about the gift he gave them.
The first student holds up the cage containing his bird and the professor knows immediately what has happened. This student had lost interest in the gift that the professor gave him and had left it unfed and untended until one day, the bird was found dead in it’s cage. Knowing that he would stand before the teacher, this student had gone out and found a substitute that looked a lot like the bird he was given. It was almost exactly the same, but one look told the professor that this bird was not the one the student had been entrusted with. With anger, the teacher told the first student that he had failed and sent him away from his presence.
The second student held up the bird given to him, and the professor gasped in shock. The second student had taken his gift and had cut it up into all of it’s separate parts, pinned the parts on a board, and had carefully labeled the parts: “heart”, “lungs”, “stomach”, etc. He proudly awaited the professor’s questions, knowing he could answer any query about the bird given to him. He had studied it very, very carefully.
The professor exploded in anger, crying out that not only did this student know nothing about the beautiful gift given to him, but he had made it impossible for anyone else to know the shimmer of it’s song, the colors of it’s plumage, and the wonder of it’s flight into the sky. The professor cursed the second student and banished him forever from his presence.
The professor looked at the empty cage of the third student and raised his eyebrow expectantly. Smiling, the third student carefully opened his shirt and showed the professor the bird, sleeping peacefully inside his shirt, next to his heart. He gratefully thanked the teacher, explaining how, slowly, day by day, he had fed the bird from his hand and how he petted and stroked his little friend each day. He allowed confidence and trust to develop between themselves and each evening, he would let the little bird out and sit back in his chair and just listen to it sing. The professor congratulated this student and told him that his reward would be that he could keep his little friend next to his heart and enjoy it always.
Now substitute “Word” for “bird”. When our Teacher returns, which student will you be?
Sit back, open your Bible, and just let God’s Word sing to you. You’ll be surprised.
