Good evening, dear people.
I can’t believe I’m still awake at this hour. I did get in a little old man nap—then I had a little old man cup of coffee. I wonder if that’s the combination/explanation for this phenomenon. Anyway, I decided to follow through with a tidbit of inspiration from this reading.
Hope you sleep well. Hope I do too. Good night. Ray.
This familiar setting as gleaned from other translations now strikes me as even funny as presented by this translation. Think of it. Here is this pompous guy, thinking he’s such hot stuff in the arena of theological and religious studies—while he doesn’t really have a clue as to how atoms work, or the composition of a molecule, or what causes gravity, or the marvels of DNA, or the mysteries of outer space. We could go on and on with all the stuff this guy doesn’t know. Yet he has the audacious nerve, as this translation puts it, to “test his doctrines”!?!? When we take in the whole of Biblical revelation and understand something of WHO Jesus really is, this scene becomes absolutely ludicrous—like a little flea of a creature presuming to take on the Sovereign Creator. OK, OK—I guess we can excuse this guy and chalk up his arrogance to ignorance. But if the revelation of TRUTH is made readily available, is ignorance really an adequate excuse?
It occurs to me that the general mindset of this arrogant “religious scholar” is really quite commonplace—right up to our present day. In fact I meet people all over the place who actually believe that they know more about truth, and eternity, and heaven, and hell, and what makes one eligible for heaven than what God knows—at least many become very comfortable with rejecting the legitimacy of Biblical authority. Isn’t that about the same as challenging or “testing his doctrines?”
If arrogance can be set aside, the question this guy raises is really a very good one. “What requirement must I fulfill if I want to live forever in heaven?” Don’t you agree? Don’t you want to know what God requires of you? Jesus first answers with a question: “What does Moses teach us? What do you read in the Law?” (v. 26, TPT). The scholar guy gives a terrific answer by quoting what Jesus confirms as the greatest of all commandments, along with the second greatest—“’You must love the Lord God with all your heart, all your passion, all your energy, and your every thought. And you must love your neighbor as yourself’” (v. 27, TPT).
OK—consider this: If Jesus/God knows everything about everything, including what people need to do and understand in order to make their lives work right and play out to make heaven their eternal home—and if He communicates that truth by means of Biblical revelation so as to remove the excuse of ignorance, if people still don’t accept that revelation as valid or true, are they not challenging and testing His doctrines? I think I see a lot of challenging and testing of God’s truth even within the ranks of those claiming to be Christ followers.
Here’s the bottom line as I see it: Is a passionate love for God an essential or a non-essential? Is it an absolute requirement or is it optional? Can you and I get along just fine without it, or does it actually determine our life quality and eternal destiny?