Your Bible Is a Gold Mine
Jon
Bloom
Staff writer,
desiringGod.org
“ . . . we often find treasure in unexpected
places.”
The word of Christ dwells richly in the one who dwells in
it long enough to discover its riches (Colossians
3:16).
The Bible is the divine mine that contains the
theological mother load.
Any theology book based on it is only a small fraction of
the Bible’s unquantifiable wealth. That is why there will be no end to
theological book publishing.
The wonderful thing about this mine is that we often find
treasure in unexpected places.
God loves to lace and layer revelatory riches in what at
first seems like a fairly straightforward historical narrative.
One example is the account of Jesus and Peter walking on
water in Matthew 14:22-33.
This aquatic hike is astounding. But if we are not
careful, we may only see the obvious gold and miss out on much more.
Here are a few less obvious nuggets I found when digging
recently.
Jesus Makes Us Face
Strong Waves in the Dark
Jesus “made” the disciples get into the
boat (Matthew 14:22).
At the time, they probably did not think much of it. It
was not an unusual directive from the Master. But in retrospect, it became
clear that God knowingly sent them to face an adverse wind all night.
After an exhausting day of ministry (feeding the 5,000),
God did not lead them to a rest beside quiet waters, but to row against
battering waves for most of the night.
The sovereign Lord sometimes
intentionally sends us when we’re already weary to struggle against adversity
in disorienting darkness.
Jesus Comes in
Unexpected Ways at Unexpected Times
When Jesus finally came to the disciples, He
came in a completely unexpected way — walking on the water.
This so caught them off guard that they did not even
recognize Him at first (Matthew 14:26).
Furthermore, Jesus did not show up until “the
fourth watch of the night” (Matthew
14:25) — between three and six in the morning.
The weary disciples had been fighting the wind and waves
(and probably each other) for long dark hours. No doubt they prayed for God’s
help.
In the apostle John’s account, once Jesus reached them
and got in the boat, “immediately the boat was at the land to
which they were going” (John 6:21).
This must have come as a welcome relief, but notice that
this relief was not provided until they were extraordinarily tired.
When God comes to us in a moment of need, he might arrive
in an unexpected, unrecognizable, and frightening way and later than we hope.
Ask Jesus for
Impossible Things
Peter’s request of Jesus was outrageous.
It may be that this story is so familiar or has been told
to us so matter-of-factly that it does not shock us. If that is true, we need
fresh eyes.
We must put our sleep-deprived selves in that wave-tossed
little boat in the dead of night, feeling the wind-whipped sea spray on our
faces while we squint at the strangest thing we have yet seen — Jesus standing
about ten feet away on the heaving water as if it were solid ground.
Imagine our nerves being on edge from the terror-induced
adrenaline rush. Would we ask to get out of the boat and join Jesus on the
water?
We might best answer this question by asking ourselves
how often we are asking Jesus for the privilege of risking the humanly
impossible with Him now.
Jesus may have admonished Peter for having “little
faith” (Matthew 14:31).
But Peter was a faith giant in that moment compared to
the other eleven. He was the only one who asked to do the impossible with
Jesus. And Jesus granted it to him with pleasure.
God is pleased when we ask him to enable us to get out of
the safety of our “boat” in order to do the humanly impossible with him, and he
does grant such requests.
Jesus Sovereignly
Responds to Our Asking
This story illustrates a profound mystery:
God in His sovereignty interacts with our initiative. Note the very brief but
loaded exchange between Peter and Jesus:
And Peter answered Him, “Lord, if it is you, command me
to come to you on the water.”
[Jesus] said, “Come.” (Matthew 14:28-29)
There is towering theology in these few words. Peter
recognized Jesus as the Sovereign Lord of all nature who was commanding the
water to support him.
Peter also knew that walking on the water would require
faith, but he did not mistake his own faith as the power that would command the
water beneath him.
So he asked Jesus to command him to come. And when Jesus
commanded, Peter exercised faith in Jesus’ word, which Jesus honored. That is
how Peter’s faith helped him walk on water.
It is true that when Peter’s faith weakened, he sank (Matthew 14:30).
But his cry to Jesus for help proved that Peter knew
where the power to hold him up resided, and was itself an expression of faith.
And again Jesus responded to Peter’s faith by pulling him
back up (Matthew 14:31).
Notice, Jesus did not call any of the disciples to join Him
on the water. Peter took the initiative to ask Jesus if he could come. Forgive
the pun, but this is deep theological water.
If Peter had not taken the initiative to ask Jesus, this
aspect of the story might simply be missing. What might be missing from your
story if you do not take the initiative to ask Jesus?
God alone has power to command reality, but He encourages
us to request whatever we wish in prayer (John 15:7).
And He loves to respond to our faith by
commanding answers to our requests.
Dig, Find, and Be
Enriched
O, there’s much more gold in this story to be
had, but time and article word limits fail me. I must refrain. Go dig, find it,
and you will be enriched.
In only twelve verses we discovered four theological
nuggets:
1. The sovereign Lord sometimes intentionally sends us when
we are already weary to struggle against adversity in disorienting darkness.
2. When God comes to us in a moment of need, He might arrive
in an unexpected, unrecognizable, and frightening way and later than we hope.
3. God is pleased when we ask Him to enable us to get out of
the safety of our “boat” in order to do the humanly impossible with Him, and He
does grant such requests.
4. God alone has power to command reality, but He encourages
us to request whatever we wish in prayer (John 15:7).
And He loves to respond to our faith by
commanding answers to our requests.
The Bible contains over 31,000 verses — so much gold and
so little time. We will never exhaust the gold it contains during our brief
lives, but we must discover all we can.
The apostle John said this about the three years he spent
with the Word made flesh: “Were every one of [the things Jesus did] to
be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that
would be written” (John 21:25).
Well, the written word is written.
But of this word we can say that if all it reveals were to be written, the
world itself could not contain the books that would be written.
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Jon Bloom (@Bloom_Jon)
serves as author, board chair, and co-founder of Desiring God. He is author of
three books, Not by Sight,
Things Not Seen, and Don’t Follow Your Heart. He and his wife live in the Twin
Cities with their five children.
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/your-bible-is-a-gold-mine
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