Ignorance is NOT bliss! (Part 1)

I was recently invited to join a small team of Youth With A Mission (YWAM) staff to speed read through the entire Bible with the purpose of looking for verses that highlighted the sphere of “government.” We were tasked to do this in 6 days from 8am to 8pm. Although I love the Word of God, I must confess, I didn’t jump at this opportunity. I suppose I thought it was beyond my capacity to sit that long concentrating on one thing. I told them I would pray about it. I did and made the decision to join, seeing this as a challenge that my spirit was more prepared to do than my flesh. I found out the reason why we had been invited to do this exercise. It was because one of our YWAM leaders was formulating a digital Bible (called the Sphereview Bible) that would be highlighting each of the spheres of society (i.e., government, church, media, arts, family, education, economics). When I shared this with Kwanda, my Zulu daughter, she candidly replied, “You’ll be part of making history.” Wow! I hadn’t thought of it that way. By the end of the first day, I was hooked. The Spirit of God has a way of drawing you into the Word and once you’re in, you don’t want to get out. What made the time even more amazing was sitting at the feet of this YWAM leader, who is a Bible scholar. From time to time he would pause and explain to us the deep, inner meaning of some of the passages. One would think that after being a follower of Jesus for 42 years I would understand the Word, but it was like I was being taught the Bible for the first time.

Let me give you one example to whet your appetite. There is a passage in Deuteronomy 17:14-21 where those in authority (kings in this case) are warned against multiplying horses, wives and silver and gold. God knew that with the multiplication of such it would lead them into a lifestyle of authoritarianism, hedonism and materialism. Now I’ve read through the Bible many times and when I came to that passage I even underlined the word “multiply” wanting to remind myself of God’s ability to do just that. Obviously, I didn’t linger long enough in that passage, because I totally missed the list of things that kings were NOT meant to multiply. Let’s fast forward to 1 Kings 10 where it describes the Queen of Sheba’s encounter with King Solomon. Guess what Solomon had amassed during his reign? You’ve got it – horses, wives and silver and gold.

Yes, at the beginning of his reign God appeared to Solomon in a dream and told him to ask for whatever he desired. Solomon asked for wisdom. This request pleased the Lord and he was given this and was told that he would be given what he hadn’t asked for – riches and honour. God was true to His Word to Solomon, but it seems Solomon wanted even more than what God was blessing him with and began to exact excessive taxes from the people. It’s also interesting to note that he spent 6 years building the Temple of God and 14 years building his own palace! So, a pagan queen commends him for what he has multiplied, but God condemns him for his disobedience. We read in the Deuteronomy 17 passage that the king was to write for himself a copy of the law about NOT multiplying horses, wives and silver and gold. He was to keep it with him and he was to read it all the days of his life so that he would learn to fear the Lord his God. This was also so that his heart would not be lifted above his brethren.  Solomon had been placed in authority over God’s people to exemplify God’s righteous value system of servanthood, purity and generosity. He had veered away from God’s commands.

Let’s fast forward to present day. Here we are reading these familiar stories taking from them what suits us, or others, and even praying that we, or our leaders, will be like Solomon. We are taking the words we read at face value without searching beneath the surface to find out the whole counsel of God. Because we are looking at the Word very individualistically and not within the context of the whole of Scripture, we are often living and praying amiss. I have done this countless times.

That’s why I say, ignorance is NOT bliss! (more on that in the next blog)