Is questioning the Bible wrong?

Bible Difficulties By inspiration, we do not mean that every statement of Scripture is so plain that it will at once be understood. Indeed, it may be said that the Bible is written in such a simple, natural way, with such a multiplicity of subjects, that unless one is in the current of the Spirit's thought, and unless the mind is subject to God, there will seem to be many contradictions, "many things hard to be understood." It is not wrong that we should find these difficulties. We should not seek to turn away from them and act as though they were not there. God loves to be questioned by a reverent and obedient mind. He will explain that which we do not understand, and we may be sure that apparent contradictions, discrepancies and other difficulties which occur to the thoughtful reader can all be explained in due time.

It must not be thought that questions of this kind indicate an infidel mind, nor can they be waved aside by a warning that such things lead to infidelity. The word of God courts the fullest and most rigid examination, and we shall find that while there are things beyond our present comprehension, nothing is beyond reverent belief. Sleepless nights have no doubt been passed by sincere Christians who found themselves unable to answer satisfactorily to their own conscience why there are the apparent differences indicated above. Must the doctrine of verbal inspiration therefore be abandoned? Does inspiration only mean inspired thought, but not inspired language? What is the relation of personal individuality to these apparent contradictions?

And to this the second part of the verse here corresponds. "The testimony of Jehovah" takes quite different ground from that of the "law." Its appeal is not, as that of the latter, to authority, but to fact and truth; and "the testimony of Jehovah is sure," beyond possibility of overthrow. His are the lips of truth: to Him who is the Omnipotent it is yet an impossibility to lie; day to day, night to night, gather a constantly increasing experience which proclaims His faithfulness. So that His testimony "maketh wise the simple" or inexperienced, with the wisdom of experience. Faith, then, is not credulity. It is not necessary to it to shut one's eyes. He who is Light leads in the light. Question, scrutinize, use every faculty that He has given: they shall not be put to shame; only o'erpassed, as finite by the Infinite, and blessed and drawn out by the very overpassing. Not a soul brought to God but the intellect expands as the heart does. Christ dwelling within must needs enlarge the place of His dwelling. His testimony received makes wise the simple.

Every question can be asked in two ways, either in humility and with the sincere desire to learn, or else in presumptuous rebellion against the solution, be it what it may. In the first case the questioner honestly takes the place of a learner, which is the right thing for him to do; in the second case he takes for granted that there is no satisfactory answer or else that it is definitely withheld. Man either comes before God in sincerity and with the prayer which later Elihu taught Job "What I see not teach Thou me" (Job 34:32) or he asks in rebellion "Why is everything so different from what it ought to be?"

The questions of the prophet betray a great confidence toward God. Simultaneously they contain an acknowledgment of ignorance and a strong desire to be taught by Him. He had felt it already before, but would soon fully realize that to know God's ways it is sufficient to know God Himself. Without this knowledge of His Person all that happens in the world will forever remain an unsolvable mystery to us.

“Wherein hast Thou loved us?” (Mal. 1:2). Every question they directed to Him showed anew how hardened they were. Nine questions are recorded in Malachi, twelve in the first part of Zechariah, but the latter were asked by the prophet himself. They gave expression to his faith and his dependence upon the Lord. Although priest and prophet, Zechariah felt how ignorant and unfit he himself was to fathom God’s thoughts. He had only one desire: to receive a direct explanation of the divine mysteries. Let us copy Zechariah in this and ask as he did. If we do, we will receive just as he did. Such dependence we need especially when we begin our look into the visions of the prophet. One who wants to understand them with his intellect will find himself facing insurmountable difficulties. But one who in humble dependence asks God: “What does this mean?” will receive an answer that will build up and strengthen his faith, especially if he first has taken to heart that other word: “Return to Me, then I will return to you.”

If we were simply willing to bow to the word, reasoning really would not be necessary. We should need divine teaching to have our understandings opened, but we should learn — not have conclusions to draw. However we are not so simple as this; and there is pleading and reasoning; and if carried on in the spirit of grace, and continually tested by the word, it elicits truth, though it calls for watching one's spirit very closely. God has so ordered it. There is a convincing of gainsayers, as well as teaching the truth. We need the Spirit of God for this as for all else. How bright examples do we see in scripture, as Paul, and Stephen, and others, of this power of confounding the opposers of truth! Discussion and enquiry, if rightly pursued, if there is, through grace, a love of the truth, are a means of enlarging and deepening our own thoughts also, as well as of convincing others; of correcting them too, of course, w here needed, of perfecting them, rendering them, if in the main true, free from such objections as may apply really only to adjuncts to them, but serve to cast doubt on the truth we hold. Thus the truth and all its bearings are better known as they stand in the divine counsels, and it is held as from God (that which is alloy being removed).

Whilst we are thus impatient of inquiring in the temple in the attitude of worshippers, we are no less impatient of inquiring among ourselves. Self-confidence will lead a few to dogmatise; while, to save the trouble of thinking and judging for themselves, the many will follow on in the wake of dogmatic teaching. The result is opposing theories; and then all the help which one might afford another is lost. When Christians, with the single desire of ascertaining the mind of God, have inquired one of another, as in His presence, concerning the meaning of scriptures, how many a crude thought has been shaped! how many a precious thought has been disentangled! while some imaginative mind has perhaps been checked in carrying out a particular truth beyond its limit. Thus too have "hearts been knit together in love, unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding;" all have been edified, all have been comforted. And can we only say that such things were? May the Lord, in His abounding grace over all our sin, grant to us in His own time such profit and refreshment again!

There are many passages more fully opening the subject, but perhaps not so strongly leading a previously unconvinced mind, as these. It would have been my own delight (oh, how much more so!) to have rather followed, in inquiry, the opening of Scripture as to the ways and promises of God as our God. Oh, high and holy place! unworthy we, utterly, to have it, enjoying the confidence, because the mercy, of Him who hath called us out of darkness into His marvellous light. I mean not of myself, but with the brethren in the Lord. But they have forced upon me the necessity of other inquiries. In the suggestions I have made to them, I have only put the questions in the broadest terms, on which Scripture throws a glare of light, which, as far as I can see, cannot be struggled with, if we pursue our common attainments, walking by the same rule, and minding the same thing; if in anything we be differently minded, God will reveal this also unto us. Let me beseech the brethren to be thus minded. Let me beseech those who yet stand out against these truths, to inquire for themselves, to lay them to heart, to submit themselves to the word, not to throw scorn (I pray them to forgive me for thus speaking) on any part of the testimony of God before they have inquired the purpose of it and their own concern in it. Are they not every way debtors to do this? Let those whose minds are open, pursue, with humble desire, inquiry into the Lord's mind. We are surely all interested in knowing that. Let us pursue it as learners in the fear of God, not as speculators; as those who see that God is great in His glory and righteous in His judgments, and one that judgeth the earth and holdeth the waters in the hollow of His hand. The Lord has revealed much, all that man can comprehend; and it belongs to us and to our children, that we may keep the sayings of His book. There are those, doubtless, who will please themselves, and not seek the church's good; but such shall bear their burden, whoever they be. In many things we all offend. I pray God to give His grace to bear one another's burden, and so fulfil the law of Christ. Oh, blessed time, when the church should care one for another, as fellow-sufferers or fellow-heirs, as He did, who needed none of their sympathy, or had but little of it when needed, and who knew no want, no necessity but the necessity of love. May we be found labouring in this spirit when He shall return! Oh, may His people be perfected in Him, one and all! His grace and the knowledge of His glory be with them in every place. And to Him be praise and dominion and glory according to His Father's will. Amen.

A teacher who comes from God will always direct his hearers to Christ, and cast them upon God's unerring word as the sure resting place for the soul. When the truth is spoken, like the Bereans, true believers will receive it "with all readiness of mind," but they too will search the Scriptures for confirmation of what they have heard (Acts 17:11). The faithful teacher will always desire those who hear him to test what he has said by the authoritative words of Holy Scripture; for he will seek to convey only the thoughts of God.