When Jesus lived His short thirty-three years on earth, He and His followers were decidedly a minority. But as He ascended, He admonished His disciples to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel…making disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you…and lo I am with you always even to the end of the world.” Matt. 15:16ff. And Scripture says in multiple verses (inferred and specific) that He will not return until everyone has heard the gospel. Another verse emphatically and specifically says, “Narrow is the road that leads to life everlasting, and few there be that find it. Wide is the gate that leads to destruction and many there be that enter thereat.” Matt. 7:14 These verses of Scripture and others like them inspire questions that have had multiple and very diverse answers. And the sin is not in the questions, but in the insistence of the questioner on binding the absolute rightness of his answer above all others. (Remember Job?) We need to put our hand over our mouth, as Job did, and recognize the character of Almighty God. He is good, just, righteous. He will take care of those who come to Him in simple, trusting faith. We have been informed in unmistakable terms what is the good and perfect will of God. We do not need to know the specifics of every imaginable question. We need to question the questioner’s motives in demanding an answer. What a shame that we divide over these unknowables! We violate the absolute command of God to love one another by our vindictiveness over what we cannot know for sure. We behave like spoiled children. How the Savior must weep over us as He did over Jerusalem!
Ours is not to have our every specific question answered to our satisfaction, but to do and die, if necessary, in the keeping of every clearly enunciated precept recorded in Holy Writ. Then, like the woman who anointed His feet with the sweet-smelling ointment, we will have done what we could. She was commended for that tender act by the blessed Savior Himself, Who said it would be recorded as a memorial to her forever. And it is.
Let’s please examine our motives before we deride and divide over unanswerable (for us, that is) questions. Our dear Lord has given us all we need to know until we get home. Loving God and one another supersede all other commandments, and dividing over what we cannot know is travesty indeed.
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