Mystery. Mysterious. Mystifying. Words that conjure excitement, dare, the unknown, the unexplainable, difficult to understand, truth, bravery, beauty, questions, answers, and a thousand other things and images.
I always thought it mysterious HOW a magazine is delivered to your doorstep via the US Postal Service, being handled by various machines and people, and upon opening, immediately all the postcard inserts fall out. (Andy Rooney must have missed this one)
Pick a line at the grocery store, or at the drive thru bank. I tell ya its a mystery, the other line invariably moves faster. We all can recognize the whimsical mysteries of life and enjoy them.
There are though, other mysteries of depth, beauty, and sobriety. Paul the apostle said in remarkably clear language:
‘behold I show you a mystery.’
He taught something that was not previously known, yet now revealed and understandable, showing the wisdom and love of God toward His own. Death would have no sting, and the bodies of all who died will be changed. Blessed be the true God.
He spoke again of the Lord and His purposes.
‘And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.’
How God was manifested in the flesh, how He was preached, believed and received. Paul spoke of the genius of God and how He made a new thing, whereby all would have access to the truth of God, and be a partaker of His grace, both Jew and Gentile in one body:
‘Even the mystery which has been hid for ages.’
When Daniel was asked about his understanding of dreams, he took credit for nothing and said:
‘There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.’
Yes, God unlocks all mysteries and in his time. He is the source of all wisdom and knowledge, and it is certainly a good thing to ponder the deep things of God. Isn’t it tremendous that He would entrust us with these mysteries? Our hearts and minds should be exercised unto godliness, that we may lead quiet and peaceable lives. However,
Belief in a Creator is no mystery, and requires no effort. It’s rather natural.
Now belief in a Redeemer, that’s another story, for there is a price to pay, and no man has the resources. Fortunately He who reveals all mysteries has already paid the wages.
(Obviously, creation itself is not simple to man as to HOW. But the One WHO created all that is, did so, that mankind is without excuse)
The Lions Den 
Tkx arcH-
Didn’t know that quote-
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, AND THE LESSER LIGHT TO RULE THE NIGHT: he made the stars also.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
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“And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, AND THE LESSER LIGHT TO RULE THE NIGHT: he made the stars also.”
Most likely, the Bronze Age priest who wrote that, while sitting in captivity in Babylon, didn’t have enough scientific background to realize that the moon is actually not a light. Interestingly, he never mentions that the Earth was created to rule over night on the moon:
Equally interestingly, I’ve seen the moon in the daytime – why wasn’t it doing its job, ruling over the night like it was ordered? We can’t just have moons coming and going willy-nilly! Why that would be just something else you can’t explain.
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Dontcha love God’s poetry arcH? Imagine Him calling the moon a light to rule the night when it has no light of its own.
He must have said that at great risk………….
A pure minded child knows that the moon is a ‘nite lite,’ as do all reasonable people who dare not challenge creation, as the post states is no mystery.
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I certainly don’t mind a little poetry, as long as it’s filed under Fiction, where it belongs.
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Simply amazing arcH how this alleged book of fiction has captivated your attention, and has driven you to comment 115 times 😉
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That should give you some idea of how I feel about nonsense. How many times have you commented?
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Well arcH-
The difference? You are promoting a grand accident, while we promote One greater; who is Lord over all, even you. its pretty simple.
What do you have of value that you would like to share, as far as the origin, purpose, and destiny of man?
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Humankind – not your misogynistic god’s “Man”kind, has whatever destiny it chooses for it’s self.
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Well arcH-
You may want to turn on the news; doesn’t look good for your side.
On the other hand, the word of God explains everything, past, present and future, in absolute perfection.
Pick up a copy, and ‘read all about it.’
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“You may want to turn on the news; doesn’t look good for your side.” – got the news on, says it won’t rain tomorrow – was that your big news?
“Pick up a copy, and ‘read all about it.” – Of…what, the “National Enquirer”?
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Good post.
Ah the tides, yes, just the simple “gravitational attraction of the moon” LOL, nothing to see here, move along.
“read a book sometime that isn’t the Bible”
Okay. Speaking of gravitational attraction, will this one do??
“…tell me the story
about how the sun
loved the moon so much
he died every night just
to let her breathe…”
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“That’s the beauty of Humankind’s collective imagination…”
Yes, truth and beauty are awesome things. Quite lovely too how our imaginations, our poets and our theologians always arrive at the same place eventually.
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Yes…He paid the wages. We each could. ..but we really don’t want to…do we?
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That’s a whole other mystery huh Wally; thankfully ‘it is finished.’
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Yes…Colorstorm. ..thankfully
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Explaining a mystery by appealing to an even greater mystery is not exactly what I would call unlocking the mystery. The mystery of creation is solved by creating an even greater mystery. God.
Further, I don’t what the big reveal is here. Countless cultures have looked at the natural and explained the presence of a given natural object or given natural phenomenon by appealing to an all-powerful, supernatural and/or mysterious being. If something can’t be explained, then God or the gods or Paul Bunyan did it. There is nothing unique about the ancient Hebrew solution to the “mystery” of the origin of natural objects. Appealing to God or gods is a trivially easy solution to the problem of the origin of anything you chose. It’s the facile solution to any mystery.
Now, if your ancient text had explained that the Moon and Solar System is an emergent product of the interaction of gravity and numerous mutually attracting masses and of a long period time, THEN I’d be impressed. This would not have been a trivially easy answer or solution for ancient near eastern culture to produce. This might have shown true divine revelation.
Or if your ancient text had explained that disease was the product of pathogenic microbes and narrowed coronary arteries and mutations in tumor suppressor genes instead of the wrath of God, THEN I’d be impressed. However, it appears that your source of all wisdom and knowledge who entrusts us with the mysteries of the universe chose to keep us in the dark. We’d have to make these discoveries for ourselves, and in the meantime, our burying grounds filled up with the bodies of our pathogen-killed children for thousands and thousands of years. Now, that’s a benevolent god.
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“Now, if your ancient text had explained that the Moon and Solar System is an emergent product of the interaction of gravity and numerous mutually attracting masses and of a long period time, THEN I’d be impressed.” – I’d have settled for a simple mention of the Lamb’s Laptop of Life.
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Sorry, couple of typos here. To correct…
Further, I don’t see what the big reveal is here. Countless cultures have looked at the natural world and explained the presence of a given natural object or given natural phenomenon by appealing to an all-powerful, supernatural and/or mysterious being.
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“The word of God explains everything, past, present and future, in absolute perfection.”
The word of God does NOT explain everything. If it did, there wouldn’t be thousands of versions of Christianity. If it did, you could shut down the theological seminaries on the grounds of redundancy. If it did, then be no problem of theodicy.
In fact, in practice, the word of God fails.
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Now that’s an interesting observation David that the schools of theology’ would be shut down for redundancy,’ if the word of God explained everything as I suggested.
If a thousand theological seminaries and its professors taught there was no ‘flood,’ no rainbow made as a covenant, no man named Moses, I would show you a thousand depots of unbelief, and God’s word still true and unimpeachable.
His word is perfect, held in contempt by sinful man who always has an agenda.
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To take that a step further, there IS no “word of god” in the Bible – every verse in every chapter is comprised of words of men SAYING that they represent the words of their god.
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And God said,
Let there be light: and there was light.
As I said, knowing OF whom is no mystery.
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A Levitical priest, sitting in captivity in Babylon in the 500’s BCE, SAID that his god said, “Let there be light.”
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I’m sorry arcH that is incorrect,
would you like to try Sports for 200?
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No, it isn’t.
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Need to see your evidence arcH- that your priest was sitting in captivity in 500 Bce, and said that his god said ‘let there be light.’
BY YOUR OWN WORDS you hang your entire belief system or lack thereof.
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This is only one of many, MANY sources, but I won’t waste my time providing the others, as I have every reason to believe you won’t read them, or slough them off if you did. I did make one small mistake, it was an Aaronitee, not a Levite priest, in captivity in Babylon:
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You obviously did not get the point arcH-
Don’t u get tired of looking for flaws that are non- existent? It is almost comical that a person would spend so much time and effort trying to to chisel at something that is indestructable.
Dontcha know that the word of God has wore out every paltry hammer against it? There is Nothing, Nothing that you could find, that would contradict the pages.
You think God has a defect? There is Nothing too hard for the Lord. It is just as easy for Him to preserve His word, as it was to inspire it.
The devil knows more scripture than most people, and even he respects it. Your assaults are like pea shooters compared to the audacity of the devil.
You want help outside scripture? Read anything by Alfred Eidersheim, specifically ‘the Life and times of Jesus the Messiah,’ which singularly silences the mouth of many a critic. His work and reputation is Unparalleled, and is one smooth stone which has leveled many a Goliath.
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“Don’t u get tired of looking for flaws that are non- existent?” – You misjudge me, I scan the Bible looking for parts that AREN’T flawed, – so far, no luck.
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“His word is perfect, held in contempt by sinful man who always has an agenda.”
Aren’t you also a sinful man? Doesn’t everyone have an agenda?
Maybe those “thousand depots of unbelief” exist because, in fact, the Bible is as clear as mud.
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And thousands of years ago, an ancient near eastern tribesman wrote, “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
Fixed if for you.
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Yep, the good book speaks of you David when you make God in YOUR image.
Nice work.
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We all make God in our own image. All of us. You, me, everyone. It’s just that some of us understand this and some of us don’t. Try stepping back and opening your eyes. It’s scary, but you can do it.
It’s impossible to read the Old Testament, in particular, without coming to the conclusion that Yahweh is an awful lot like the humans who are writing about him. Yahweh behaves much as a human would (if you made the mistake of giving a human supernatural powers). It’s not difficult to see that Yahweh is just the local god of a particular ANE ethnic group. If I’ve made my own god, well, the ancient Israelites did the same.
If God is, God isn’t what you think God is.
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“Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves.
Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.”
— Robert A. Heinlein —
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So, when, where and how exactly did God say to some human..
“So, like here’s what happened. I said, let there be light: and there was light.”
Seriously, how did this go down?
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That’s the point, David, it’s the word of God, He whose word has never failed.
Ya kinda gotta understand it the same way you understand 2 plus 2 equals 4. By faith.
The evidence is self proving and obvious. When will you drop your pride and simply bow the knee in awe?
Its always wise to do it sooner rather than later.
By the way, EVERY knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
This is also just as true as ‘in the beginning God…’
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“Ya kinda gotta understand it the same way you understand 2 plus 2 equals 4. By faith.” – that’s only true in a Base 10 numerical system, in a Base 4 system, 2 + 2 = 1!
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(Sorry, wrong place again.)
“That’s the point, David, it’s the word of God, He whose word has never failed.”
So, you can’t answer the question. You give me nothing here. You have no idea about the when, where and how. This just some “truth” that is out there in the ether to be believed absolutely and believed by faith? The account in Genesis couldn’t possibly the product of the human mind, even though countless cultures have developed countless creation myths? Nope, that couldn’t be.
How do you know “his word has never failed?” All you are doing is deciding a priori that his word has never failed, and saying it again and again and again. We’re back to the untestable hypothesis. No observation can ever be seen as contradicting the a priori statement, even though thousands and thousands of observations contradict the Genesis text. Again, I don’t mean to rude here, but simply saying “his word has never failed” is a weak and totally unconvincing argument. I’ve seen “God’s word” fail again and again. This difference between the two of us is that I’m willing to open my eyes.
“Ya kinda gotta understand it the same way you understand 2 plus 2 equals 4.”
Two plus two equals four because if I have two objects on the ground and I add two more objects to the pile, then I have four objects. Two plus two equals four because we’ve chosen to use certain words to describe X number of objects and to describe the total number of objects when I combine X number of objects. This is not understood by faith, it’s understood by human definition. You’re arguments are much closer to the Orwellian statement that 2 + 2 = 5, because that’s what Big Brother says, and that’s what Winston Smith comes to truly believe.
“By faith.”
So, in the end, you have no evidence. This has nothing to do with pride.
I’m genuinely disappointed at the weakness of your line of argument.
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Yep, at the end of the day, its all about faith.
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“By the way, EVERY knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”
Yeah? And just how were, say, the ancient Mayans supposed to do this when they had ZERO knowledge of Jesus Christ? How does EVERY knee bow when NOT EVERY knee has knowledge of Jesus?
What a tiny, tiny god you have here. First you hypothesize an entity capable of creating universes. This is an extraordinary, magnificent, indescribable and unimaginable entity. And then you conclude that this extraordinary, magnificent, indescribable and unimaginable entity somehow needs and demands that individuals of a single species on a single planet in a universe that 15 billion light years across should worship and bow to that entity. And if individuals of this sad little species should fail to worship or “love”, then your god would torture these individuals for all eternity. Love me or I’ll torture you? This isn’t the behavior of a magnificent god. This is the behavior of a psychopath.
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Its simple pride David-
You want to contain God in a box, and blame others for not being able to unwrap your package.
Since His ways are perfect, then you are not qualified to question his doings, man is on trial, not Him.
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Where’s your lapdog, Wall-E?
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Apparently he is wiser than me by not giving u the attention u crave-
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“Apparently he is wiser than me” – Who isn’t –?
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“Man is on trial, not Him.”
You still don’t get it.
It’s your particular version of “Him” that’s on trial here. I’m not questioning God. I’m questioning YOU. I’m questioning whether your particular view of any entity that we might refer to as “God” bears even the slightly resemblance to what that entity might actually be. The problem is that you’ve cloaked yourself in the mantle of a perfect god speaking perfect words to make your views impervious to evidence and reasoned argument. Not much I can do about that, so maybe I’ll just get off this particular carousel and catch a ride on a future post.
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It won’t make any difference, David, it will be, “Same song, second verse” – “Rah, rah, rah, sis, boom, bah – yeaaaaaay, god!”
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Colorstorm, enjoyed reading this exchange of ideas here as well as your post. As you point out, there are aspects of God that can be known and mysteries that remain hidden. He is God and under no obligation to reveal anything about Himself to sinful man. The fact that He even permits discussion and debate of His very existence is evidence of His grace – we deserve death, He sent a Redeemer to bring life! Amazing Grace!
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Thank you Betty-
‘The fact that He EVEN permits discussion and debate of His very existence……’
Well done, great thought, I do appreciate this observation which adds value to the topic here.
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