Seventeen years ago, I attended a nine month Bible school. At the time, I was 23 years old, and was convinced that 9 months would be enough time for me to answer all of my Bible questions. Forget the fact that great Bible scholars and church leaders had argued and wrestled with the Scriptures for thousands of years, they were amateurs compared to me. Tertullian, Augustine, Luther, Schaeffer; all lightweights compared to my vast intellectual powers. I mean, think about how much time those guys wasted doing useless chores like lighting candles, cutting firewood, studying dead languages, translating the Bible, or pounding theses to church doors. Other than an occasional distraction like buying a Coke and Snickers, I had way more time to devote to studying the Bible.
Needless to say, all those questions about the Bible weren’t all answered, in fact I left with way more than I had when I started. Over the years though, the same, main questions come up time and time again. Questions about Revelation and the end times, the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit, and the 3 main ones I call the Paradoxes of the Faith (and no I am not even going to mention Melchizedek or the Nephilim, unless Melchizedek was a Nephilim… did you ever think of that???). A paradox is a group of statements that when added together (if true) would defy human logic and reason. The big three that I have seen are 1) God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Free Will; 2) The Trinity; and 3) The Deity and Humanity of Jesus.
It is no wonder then, that these three have seen massive division within the church. We also tend to see extremism with each one as human logic pushes people to declare one side to be true at the expense of the other. For example, Hyper Calivinism vs. Open Theism, Modalism vs. Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Doceticism vs. Historical Jesus. God is in control and man only appears to have free will. Man is free and God doesn’t know the future. God is one and only manifests differently. God is one and Jesus is not God. Christ is God’s Spirit resting on Jesus the man. Jesus of history was a man, whereas Christ the God was invented by church fathers. Take your pick.
Another name for these three could be the mysteries of the faith. Not mysterious in that God is intentionally hiding truth from us. Mysterious because perhaps our human brains simply can’t fully comprehend these truths that seem to be paradoxical when comparing Scriptures. Can we only as Paul says in Romans 9 be the lump of clay that doesn’t argue with it’s potter? Not likely this side of heaven! We have proven incapable of humility as a race, and the consequences of extreme views is too harmful to the church to not attempt to grasp these concepts.
God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Free Will? Here we come. Tremble at our intellectual might.
The Bible Nerd 