Articles
Reading Between The Lines
Maybe you have heard someone say that to understand what someone just said, you have to "read between the lines." The phrase originated with the field of cryptography, where coded messages actually once had hidden messages between the lines. It moved into mainstream usage sometime in the mid-1800s and now has a common meaning of understanding someone or something by what is not said or by what is not obvious.
Unfortunately, men from time to time approach the Bible with the idea that God has some hidden messages in the text and they alone, of course, have discovered it! [Not coincidentally, they reveal what that message is in their new book, which they happen to be promoting and want you to purchase.] There have been books like The Bible Code [with versions II and III also now in print], Numbers in the Bible, or even How to Unlock the Secret Codes in Bible Prophecy. In each of these books [and in several others of the same genre], the author proposes that the message of the Bible — the one no one has discovered until now — is hidden in some code or mysterious combination of words, and all of us have to now "read between the lines" to get what God really wanted us to know.
May I give you some advice? Don't waste your money on these books because the only thing they will teach you is that some men are charlatans and will do anything to make money off of gullible and unsuspecting customers — even amongst people seeking religious truth.
If you are genuinely seeking the truth, it is important to know where to start. If you accept the fact God is real, then the next logical question might be, "What is He like?" or, "What does He want me to do?" You should know that God does not ask man to blindly follow Him, and He especially doesn't want you to blindly follow just anyone who claims to be speaking for Him. As an example, consider the man known to us as the apostle Paul; when he went about preaching God's word, when he came to a city called Berea, the Jews there listened to what he had to say, but they then “searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11. Here was a man personally chosen by Jesus to go out and preach the gospel, and who was given the Holy Spirit to guide him in all he said, yet they did not just accept his words without verification. We should note well that they checked what he said against the written word!
You see, God revealed Himself to mankind, and revealed His expectations of [and commands to] mankind through the written word. Long ago, He spoke directly with specific men, and spoke to certain men we now call prophets, and much of what was said was written down in the record now called the Bible. In the Bible, we find God — who He is, His character, His power, and His nature — and we also find revealed to us His plan for our salvation. That was necessary, for we also find within the written record the fact we have all sinned (Rom. 3:23) and are in need of forgiveness. That is what the Bible is all about!
In brief, God sent the Holy Spirit to certain men [the apostles] to reveal the message fully to them (John 14:26; John 15:26; John 16:13; 1 Cor. 2:9-13; Eph. 3:3-6), and those men went out preaching and teaching that message (Acts 2:11ff; this was just the beginning), and they also wrote down many things given to them for individuals and churches [for example, the letters to Timothy and Titus, and letters to churches in Galatia and Ephesus]. When we consider all of this message together, we have God's revealed will in its entirety, for God had told the apostles the Holy Spirit would guide them “into all truth” (John 16:13).
Again, we should note that God's will has been fully revealed. Jude admonished the early disciples to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3), and Paul reminds us, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16, 17). Now, if the faith has been “once for all delivered to the saints,” and if Scripture is able to make us complete, what else do we need? The written word is sufficient for our understanding of God's will, and we look for nothing else.
It is at this point some religious leaders might stop you and tell you that this is all well and good, but the common, ordinary man cannot really understand these words; to understand the written word we call the Bible, one must attend a seminary or school of theology and obtain a higher degree of religious education. Others, who hold to one of this world's most popular, but false, doctrines, will tell you that man is so morally corrupt, he is completely unable to understand a word of it without Divine intervention. Are they right? And what about these individuals who have written numerous books that claim the real message of the Bible is encoded and one must go through an elaborate series of steps to decode that message before it can be understood? Can man understand the written word of God, the Bible?
First, let us acknowledge God has commanded that we “understand what the will of the Lord is” (Eph. 5:17), and that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:3, 4). Now, friends and brethren, if God has revealed His will to us — which is acknowledged by Jesus to be truth (John 17:17) — and if He desires we know the truth [i.e., His will] and even commands that we understand it, then this means, my friend, that we can and must know it and understand it. In fact, Paul had written of this now-revealed mystery of God's plan for our salvation to those in Ephesus and said, “when you read, you may understand” (Eph. 3:4). When we consider the likelihood that "probably only 3 percent of Jews in Palestine were literate" (William Harris, Ancient Literacy), and if they could understand it, who would believe that in a country where we have only around 10% of Americans who cannot read, that we cannot understand God's word?
Don't be fooled by those who claim one must obtain a degree in theology to understand the Bible; they have an agenda, and it will be come evident the further you progressed through their school of theology or their seminary. Don't be fooled, either, by those who claim we must have Divine intervention [the Holy Spirit sent into your heart to cause you to understand and believe]; there is not one case of that mentioned anywhere within the Scriptures in any example of conversion.
In fact, as the apostle Paul said in his letter to Titus, God “has in due time manifested His word through preaching, which was committed to me” (Titus 1:3). In other words, God designed it so His will would be made known to man by preaching it — not by some direct operation of the Holy Spirit on men predestined by God to salvation. That is what God Himself has told us about it!
So, if you really want to know God's will, read your Bible! You don't need a degree in theology or to "read between the lines" to understand it! —— Steven Harper
