Devotions

Rev Gav

Scripture

Luke 9.43b–45

While everyone was amazed at all that Jesus was doing, he said to his disciples, "Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands." But they did not understand this saying — its meaning was concealed from them so that they could not perceive it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.

Reflect

Jesus used an idiom from his day, “Let these words sink into your ears.” In other words, “Let this sink in!” He had something important to tell his disciples however, at the time, they were unable to understand its meaning. The Son of Man (Jesus) was going to be betrayed into human hands. Jesus wanted them to remember the saying, such that when the betrayal happened, they would remember. Today, we have hindsight and we understand exactly what the saying meant, but if you put yourself in the position of the disciples hearing it for the first time, it is quite understandable that they would have been confused.

There is a lesson here and that is that words from God are always true but they have a season in which they can be interpreted. For the disciples, this word from Jesus was important but it was not for ‘now’ but for a time in the future. In the same way, I wonder if we expect every word in the Bible to be instantly applicable, but we can appreciate that many parts of the Bible were not understood at the time but interpreted at a later date, for example, prophecies about the Gentiles being welcomed into the Kingdom of God were not understood until it happened.

I expect there are still parts of the Bible that will only make sense to us one day in the future. Generations from now, someone will have hindsight and understand how scripture spoke about something and it will make perfect sense to them.

What all this means is that we need to understand the importance of Scripture but hold lightly to it. We need to be humble and accept that our ‘instant’ interpretation may not, in fact, be the correct interpretation. We must also not worry if there are verses or themes that do not make sense to us — and there are many. They may have made sense in the past, or they may make sense in the future however, all we have to do is trust that God’s word is important and remember it.

At FAB we will continue to do our best to read and understand scripture in context and apply it to our lives, with a humility that sometimes it will not always make sense, but trusting that it is God’s word to us.

Pray

Holy God
Thank you for your Word
that reveals who you are
and speaks to my soul.
May I be humble
as I approach scripture
recognising that
I read it through the
lens of my culture,
yet trusting that it is
divinely inspired and
God-breathed.
Now and always.