What We Think of God

What do you think of God and why?  When you think about God, what do you envision?  A lot of us would give textbook answers but when asked for specific reasons why you believe God to be a certain way, if we are honest, it would be because we read it in a book somewhere.  While I am not opposed to books ( I have a amazon wishlist too) many of us spend more time reading books and blogs than the bible.  And when we do read the bible it is typically New Testament.  Let me make this disclaimer:  much of what I have learned about God has come through the pens of many Godly men and I wouldn’t trade the time I have spent in those books for anything.  I am currently writing a little book myself that will bear the name of this blog.  And while books can be a great source of knowledge, spur us to worship, and aid in our understanding there must be one thing that a good book does–drive me to my Bible.

The church universal has such a vast array of ideas about who God is.  Why?  I think there are many reasons but two of the main reasons are fairly obvious.  We believe almost anything we read, and we haven’t read the largest portion of the Bible–the Old Testament. 

Let’s consider the first that we believe almost everything we read.  Now some of you don’t.  But many people that attend worship with you do.  I know first hand that members of my church are reading Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Beth Moore, Henry Morris, John MacArthur, John Piper, and some are studying through Grudem’s systematic theology.  You can imagine what a hodge podge of beliefs that would surface if I asked the question, “who is God and what is He like?”  I would get many different answers but one common conviction–they were right!  Why were they right?  Because they read it in a book by a “Christian” author.  The old addage still holds.  Don’t believe everything you read.  We have one source of ultimate truth–scripture. And while other books may help us in our understanding, they are still fallible.  Only one source is infallible and that must be where we go to find the truth.  This leads to my second reason.

 I attended the Together for the Gospel Conference back in 2006 in Louisville, KY.  J. Ligon Duncan III took a quick survey on what pastors were preaching at their church.  With each question, hands began to go down.  When he got to the last question, “How many of you are preaching through a book in the Old Testament?”, the hands could have been counted by a 5 year old.  And Duncan exclaimed, “That’s why I am here.”  He spoke on preaching Christ from the Old Testament.  If God has chosen to use his word as the primary source for revealing who He is, what He is doing, and why He is doing it, then why do we spend so little time in the biggest portion of the book?  Why can’t the person who has attended church for several years not tell us what Ruth has to do with a kinsmen redeemer?  Why is it that we view the Old Testament as stories that we teach our children in Sunday School, but never teach our adults the great doctrines of the Christian faith from there as well?  Can we not teach the sovereignty of God from there?  Can we not teach the Trinity from there?  Can we not teach Justification from there? 

So often I hear Christians tell me that they don’t like the God of the Old Testament because his only concern is judgment, wrath, and justice whereas the God of the New Testament is loving and forgiving.  When I hear this, I know that they have not read much of the Old Testament.  It seems when we read the Old Testament that God is consumed with making himself known.  And one of the primary ways he does this is through grace and deliverance. 

 I must confess, I am not as well versed in the Old Testament as I would like to be.  That is why this year, as of right now, that is all I am studying.  We have got to know who he is and that means spending time in the Old Testament.  So far it has been very rewarding.  Many doctrines that I have defended over the past few years are finding more and more grounds within the Old Testament.

 If we are to know who he is, we must read the bible and read other material in light of scripture.