These passages in Christian Smith’s The Bible Made Impossible were incredibly convicting:
“Sometimes it seems as if believers—myself included—distract themselves with the more obscure, speculative, and cryptic issues related to scripture precisely in order to avoid having to face and act on the parts that are very clear and directive.”
“Wanting and trying to know what we evidently don’t need to know is a great way to avoid having to deal with other, more basic things that we already quite clearly know but prefer to avoid, delay, or ignore. Jesus had a word for this: ‘Whoever can be trusted with very little will also be dishonest with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much’ (Luke 16:10). Why should God trust us with ‘advanced’ things if we are not even faithful in acting upon basic things?”
“Do not all Christians have more than enough to learn and to do simply to obey the two clear commands upon which hang ‘all the Law and the Prophets’: ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself”’ (Matthew 23:37-40)?”
“Why then do so many Christians get so invested in figuring out the intricacies of various biblical and theological matters about which the Bible is not entirely clear when they already don’t and won’t obey scripture on the very clear and simple matter of being generous with money and possessions? How are such believers to expect God to work to deepen their faith and knowledge of spiritual matters when they simply refuse to do what scripture has already made painfully plain and necessary?”
