Something to think on from Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell
The Christian faith is mysterious to its core. It is about things and beings that ultimately can’t be put into words. Language fails. And if we do definitively put God into words, we have at that very moment made God something God is not.
Most of us are conditioned to think of mystery in terms of a television show or a novel or a film in which the mystery is solved at the end. Often right before the credits we find out who did it, or who is actually the long-lost son of whom, or that she is actually a he. Or that Bruce Willis was dead for most of the movie and we just now figured it out.
Mystery is created when key facts are hidden from the viewer. What the writer/director/creator does at the end is pull back the curtain and show us the things that had previously been hidden.
So the mystery gets solved and our questions get answered.
But the Bible has an entirely different understanding of mystery. True mystery, the kind of mystery rooted in the infinite nature of God, gives us answers that actually plunge us into even more…questions.
Take this example from John 3:16. the first part of the verse reads: “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son.”
So why did God give His Son?
“Because God loves the world.”
But what does it mean for God to love the world?
Does God love evil people? Mean people? People who don’t think that God exists? People who think that God loves only them? If you do enough evil, can you exhaust God’s love?
Because God loves the world is an answer to the question, why did God give his son? It’s a real answer you can trust; it’s an answer you can base your life on. It’s an answer you can know. But it also raises a new set of questions.
Why does God love the world?
What motivates God to love like this? What does God get out of it?
The writers of the Bible, especially one named John, would answer this way: “Because God is love.”
Which is an answer, or course, but as you probably have figured out by now, it raises even deeper questions: How can God be love? Is every experience of love and an experience of God? Is every experience of God and experience of love?
So God is love is an answer to the question, why does God love the world? But as an answer it raises even more questions. And we could go on and on and on.
Truth always leads to more…truth. Because truth is insight into God and God is infinite and God has no boundaries or edges. So truth always has layers and depth and texture.
It’s like a pool that you dive into and start swimming towards the bottom, and soon you discover that no matter how hard and fast you swim downward, the pool keeps getting…deeper. The bottom will always be out of reach.
One of the great “theologians” of our time, Sean Penn, put it this way: “When everything gets answered, it’s fake. The mystery is the truth.”
The mystery is the truth.
Most of us are conditioned to think of mystery in terms of a television show or a novel or a film in which the mystery is solved at the end. Often right before the credits we find out who did it, or who is actually the long-lost son of whom, or that she is actually a he. Or that Bruce Willis was dead for most of the movie and we just now figured it out.
Mystery is created when key facts are hidden from the viewer. What the writer/director/creator does at the end is pull back the curtain and show us the things that had previously been hidden.
So the mystery gets solved and our questions get answered.
But the Bible has an entirely different understanding of mystery. True mystery, the kind of mystery rooted in the infinite nature of God, gives us answers that actually plunge us into even more…questions.
Take this example from John 3:16. the first part of the verse reads: “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son.”
So why did God give His Son?
“Because God loves the world.”
But what does it mean for God to love the world?
Does God love evil people? Mean people? People who don’t think that God exists? People who think that God loves only them? If you do enough evil, can you exhaust God’s love?
Because God loves the world is an answer to the question, why did God give his son? It’s a real answer you can trust; it’s an answer you can base your life on. It’s an answer you can know. But it also raises a new set of questions.
Why does God love the world?
What motivates God to love like this? What does God get out of it?
The writers of the Bible, especially one named John, would answer this way: “Because God is love.”
Which is an answer, or course, but as you probably have figured out by now, it raises even deeper questions: How can God be love? Is every experience of love and an experience of God? Is every experience of God and experience of love?
So God is love is an answer to the question, why does God love the world? But as an answer it raises even more questions. And we could go on and on and on.
Truth always leads to more…truth. Because truth is insight into God and God is infinite and God has no boundaries or edges. So truth always has layers and depth and texture.
It’s like a pool that you dive into and start swimming towards the bottom, and soon you discover that no matter how hard and fast you swim downward, the pool keeps getting…deeper. The bottom will always be out of reach.
One of the great “theologians” of our time, Sean Penn, put it this way: “When everything gets answered, it’s fake. The mystery is the truth.”
The mystery is the truth.