I feel bad to have stopped writing on His Whisperings, but doing so is making a big difference in my being able to handle all the other demands on my live over the next three months. I am still reading the Book of Daniel, and instead of reading only the chapters in the recommended reading from the Sunday school book, I am reading them all. It takes far more time to read and write than it does to only read.
But I would like to make a few general comments about the book of Daniel that have been on my heart for years. My commentary is as much on the status of seminaries as it is on the book of Daniel.
Because my father was a pastor for many years of his life before leaving the ministry to become a science teacher, I became aware of his skeptical attitude towards taking the Bible literally. The book of Daniel was one that he would not believe. Apparently there are names in this book that pre-dated the times these people lived. He and his seminary teachers made the decision, based on this information, that the book of Daniel was written much later than the time in which Daniel was supposed to have lived. They may have some valid points worth looking at – for myself, I don’t have the time to search it out just now.
But I do have this to say. Who are we to tell God what he can and cannot do? Is God too small to give Daniel some names out of the future (if indeed that happened in the book of Daniel)? Are we so smart that we can decide for ourselves what God isn’t capable of doing? It is presumptuous to put it mildly for any human being, no matter how smart he/she is to decide that something didn’t happen because we have problems understanding it. If we are smart enough to understand everything about God including what he can and cannot do, then we would be equal with God. Now that is what I can’t swallow.
Of course we don’t understand it all. Neither does a child understand that he has to go to bed at a certain time, that he can have only so many cookies or pieces of candy before he must leave the rest for another day, and that sitting and working out math problems after school every day is important.
I have heard a story told of a father and son. From several feet away, the father was watching his son who was playing in his sandbox under a tree when the father suddenly turned serious and said, “Son, come to me.” Now the boy knew he hadn’t done anything wrong, and he was thoroughly engrossed in building his sand castle. He could have stood there and demanded to know why he should stop playing just now. He could have asked his father to come to him and look at his castle too. Or he could walk away from his project to see what his father wanted. But the boy didn’t know what the father knew. His father was watching a poisonous snake on a branch directly over the child’s head.
We are like that boy. We have to decide whether to trust God to be who he says he is, or to decide for ourselves who we will let God be (as if our decision had any influence whatsoever on the reality of God.)
Unfortunately too many of our current seminaries are taking the scoffer’s approach to understanding the Bible. These misguided theologians are willing to discard the truth of anything bigger than they can understand. In their teachings, they deny God’s power and capability to guide a human being in the writing of scripture, and they deny God’s influence over a group of dedicated Christian men who determined which writings were to be identified as Holy Scriptures and which were not (the canons).
Thankfully, there are still a few good seminaries that are willing to accept all of God’s word as holy. These faithful ones are willing to acknowledge what they don’t understand without faulting the Bible and God for their own lack of understanding. They accept that it is possible not to know all the answers on this side of eternity.
As you read about the Bible from any source other than the Bible itself, ask God for his wisdom and discernment on what you should believe and what you should dismiss as yet one more scoffer’s opinion.
