The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. – Deuteronomy 29:29

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 15, 2015): Deuteronomy 29

God keeps secrets. Not everything is fit for our knowledge. There seems to be a few levels of knowledge within the realms of God. Some things are simply revealed to us. These things may be termed “self-evident,” although I have to admit that I am not sure that anything is truly undisputable. We seem to have to work at most things to truly understand them. (Just as a note, I am not convinced that there is anything even as simple as a “plain reading of the text.” Often this is our fallback position with regard to our biblical readings. But I am not sure that God ever intended there to be such a thing as a “plain reading.” God’s intention has always been that we would struggle with his words – and in the struggle truly learn what he expects out of us.) Other things are revealed to us as we work through problems. Every day we seem to unlock more of the mysteries of the universe. Our children will build on the knowledge that we possess, and they will do truly amazing things. But there are some things that we will never really understand. There are a lot of things that I think fit into this last category. The evolution vs. creation argument might be one (and this is often a point that we cry out for a plain reading of the text. I have a recurring fantasy of God trying to teach Moses the processes of a God directed evolutionary process, and in the end the best way to describe the process is simply with the words “I molded you out of dirt.”) Many higher science problems often seem to be unsolvable, at least in this moment in time. We have theories, but we can’t say that we really know. And that is okay. It is the way it is supposed to be. There are some things that God keeps secret.

There is a Jewish teaching that God didn’t really become God until the moment of creation. Before creation, God was something else. He was still a powerful, omnipresent and omniscient being, but he was not God. They also believe that it is a sin to try to figure out what God was before creation. That knowledge remains securely in the domain of God – it is part of what he keeps secret.

I believe that if the people of God could simply embrace this idea, it would be revolutionary for the world. There would be no more fighting over the unknowable. We would find ourselves comfortable with the secrets of God. We would still be responsible for the things that has been revealed to us. We are responsible to love this broken planet, to bring light into the darkness and salt into the blandness of the earth. But we are under absolutely no pressure to know everything, or to be able to describe perfectly how everything works. And what we feel has been revealed, we would hold even that loosely. Our faith has never been based on what we know, except that we know Christ, and we know him crucified. In the long run, that is the only piece of knowledge that is essential. Nothing else really matters.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 30