I’ve just been thinking about the mind-blowing brilliance of the Bible, about how the Creator of the universe managed to explain, without error or contradiction, everything we need to know in this life. Those who feast on its 66 books, who trust and treasure and meditate on its content, will find the answers to every important question a human being can ask.  

That includes the questions that great philosophers throughout the ages have recognized as the most important of all: Where did we come from, what are we doing here, and where are we going?

And it includes the most profound questions that humans have been asking almost since the beginning of time – for instance, if God is good, why does He allow suffering? Why do the wicked prosper? How might I be saved for all eternity?

In fact, I have yet to think of an important question that the Bible does not address completely and authoritatively.

So here’s the kicker: It does all of this in under 800,000 words. That’s for King James; in its original super-efficient languages of ancient Hebrew and Greek, it uses just over 600,000 words.  

How does this compare to other popular books?

• Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy weigh in at about 550,000 words; add Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment to this short stack, and you’ll be ingesting roughly the same number of words used in an English Bible.
• It took Ayn Rand about 875,000 words to tell the stories of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged – roughly 100,000 more words than God used, and the only question she really answers is “Who is John Galt?”
• For War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy needed 937,000 words to tell tragic tales of the 19th century Russian aristocracy.
• For lighter reading, many turn to combo’s like Margaret Mitchell’s 418,000-word Gone with the Wind and Larry McMurtry’s 366,000-word Lonesome Dove; together, their counts roughly equal the Bible’s.  

 
The trouble is, even if tales like these stick with you for some time, they’re pretty much empty calories. They provide very little in the way of the life-transforming wisdom that is standard biblical fare.

But it’s still a free country, and we can each decide how to spend our literary calories. We can have a great time chowing down spiritual junk food. Or we can reach for the Lord’s far more nutritious revelation of “the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers.”  

I've long been dumbfounded by those who claim to know all they need to know about our Creator via a few verses or chapters or even entire books of the Bible. But I've never known how to expose their error in the nutshell they seem to prefer as their information-delivery systems, at least when it comes to the things of God.

And then I read Trevor McIlwain's wonderful Building on Firm Foundations, Volume I: Guidelines for Evangelism and Teaching Believers (New Tribes Mission, 5th edition, 1991). Here's how he explains, on pages 112-113, the mechanism of God's progressive revelation:

"God's basic method of teaching can be likened to the way an artist paints a picture. An artist does not begin painting in one corner of the canvas and immediately complete every detail. Instead, he will often do an initial, simple, light sketch of the whole picture. To an onlooker, the picture in the early stages will be indistinct. Even when studied, it may not be clear just what the artist intends to include in the final product. But, as the artist continues to work on the picture, here a little and there a little, the details begin to develop with greater clarity. This process continues until the final strokes are applied and the picture is complete.

"This is how God painted His picture of the drama of redemption. He began the sketch in the early chapters of Genesis. Genesis 3:15 is a simple, undetailed sketch of the whole picture of the redemption story. Sharper, clearer details were then added by God in the call and life of Abraham. More color and features were put onto the canvas in the offering of Isaac and the perfect lamb substitute which God provided. Jacob's dream, the Passover, the manna from Heaven, the water from the smitten rock, the giving of the Law, the building of the Tabernacle, the brazen serpent, Joshua's victorious ministry, and other historical events are all strokes of the Artist's brush as He painted the background of the picture. 

"The Master Painter continued adding details as He guided the events of Old Testament history toward the revelation of Christ, the main subject of the painting. Obscure images and lightly sketched areas suddenly emerged when Jesus came to live, die and rise again. But even then, the canvas did not contain the whole picture. Through the apostles, the Holy Spirit continued the painting. The final strokes to God's picture were made when the revelation of Jesus Christ, given to John on the Isle of Patmos, was added.

"God never taught all there was to know about any particular doctrine or subject at one specific time. He often revealed some new area of truth, but He never immediately gave the whole truth regarding any one subject."

So the next time someone informs you that "judge not" means we are not to disrespect someone else's imaginative-but-heartfelt ideas about God, or that "God so loved the world" means everyone is going to heaven except Hitler, try using this metaphor. Then invite him or her to try understanding Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel simply by glancing at Adam's thumbnail. 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately – well, ever since I read Phillip Keller’s Shepherd trilogy a couple years ago – about the 23rd Psalm. Meditating on this most beautiful of King David’s psalms is, in my mind, the perfect antidote to everything from insomnia to any form of worldly anxiety.  

Just think of all that even the first line tells us about King David’s relationship with the Lord – and, I hope, ours as well: 

The Lord is my shepherd: Not the world, not a relative, not a friend, not a newspaper or talk-show host or opinion leader, not a mind-altering substance or food or exercise or any other thing that we humans so easily turn into idols. My shepherd is the Lord Himself, Creator of heaven and earth and everything therein. 

The Lord is my shepherd.  Not “was” or “will be.” Not “might become” or “probably could be.” He is my shepherd, today and always.  

The Lord is my shepherd. Not “our” shepherd, although that’s true too. But even if all the rest of His sheep vanished, He would still be mine and I would still be His. It’s a personal relationship; He cares for me as an individual, not just as a member of a group.

The Lord is my shepherd. And here’s where the fun really begins! What exactly does a shepherd do for members of his flock?

• He leads them to food, water, safety.
• He protects them from all manner of evil, from such predators as wolves to treacherous paths.
• He rescues them from falls, from being fatally cast on their backs, from becoming lost.
• He removes dangers such as poisonous plants.
• He protects them from microscopic pests that can literally drive embattled sheep to death.
• He helps them both comfortable and productive through their chief contribution to mankind – their wool.

 
Are these not excellent analogies for what the Lord Jesus does for all who have repented and placed their trust in Him?

If you’d like to know more, don’t miss Keller’s life-changing trilogy, A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm, A Shepherd Looks at the Good Shepherd, and A Shepherd Looks at the Lamb of God.  

News item: Most cancers are caused by bad luck, not bad judgment.

I know – at first blush, it seems laughable, doesn’t it?But hey, the geniuses who made this discovery are from Johns Hopkins University. 

But then when you think about it, it makes sense: All the best “science” says that life itself, and the very universe we live in, came about because of blind chance. These days, they're even pinning the blame for extinction on the same phenomena. So why not a prominent cause of human death?

Still, it blows my mind. These same scientists who scoff at biblical explanations for all such phenomena -- although they can't be bothered to study the original source material – eagerly grasp blind chance as their go-to explanation for all that happens.  

This modern scientific trend is especially interesting when you consider the question of forever. In addition to providing lucid, logical and detailed explanations for our world and our lives, the Bible claims that its content determines where each of us will spend eternity. Whereas  science can only add “nowhere” to “bad luck” in its theory of everything.  

So let me ask you this: whose explanation makes the most sense? You be the judge.

But given what’s at stake, you’d be wise to avoid basing your conclusion on hearsay; check out the original research for yourself. Here's the "science" (sorry, but you have to subscribe to Science magazine to see the whole thing) ... and here's the truth.