The Gospel Is Not Always ABC

"Many among his disciples heard this and said, "This is tough teaching, too tough to swallow.""John 6:60 MSG

I once overheard a few individuals who happen to be Christians and churchgoers of some degree draw the absurd conclusion that one of the ways to vet or validate the genuineness of a preacher was to take keen note on how simple he or she preached or simply put, how easily the preacher man or woman manages to make them comprehend salient biblical truths within the shortest possible time. The palpable error in this very familiar perspective amongst modern day churchgoers is one that can be felt through the fabric of our church set up.

The blatant reality of what it means to comprehend the Bible amongst a fast paced christian populace is that, oftentimes many of us are just too lazy and unconcerned to stretch our mental, intellectual and spiritual faculties when it comes to delving deeper into the Bible.We almost always prefer to play it safe as long as it saves us the trouble of having to exact mental prowess and spiritual energy in unearthing mysteries that can only be discovered in deep waters . Psalms 107:23-24 KJV expresses it accurately by saying ; they that do business in great waters; These see the works of the LORD, And his wonders in the deep." We must be willing to throw our net into deeper waters of knowledge if we desire to do business with heaven .

It’s no surprise that even in the days of Jesus His words of revelation, inspiration and rebuke were not always understood or comprehended. They referred to it in John 6:60 kJV as tough or hard sayings that just could not permeate their own closed and limited minds. A lot of them usually went home disappointed and bamboozled. Contemplating this as it relates to our lives today, maybe it’s the notion most of us maintain that teaches us that when we hear a message it’s of necessity that right there and then we comprehend or understand. If the opposite becomes the case then certainly that message was not simple . This is gravely erroneous. I can’t even begin to count the number of scriptures, messages and sermons I encountered years prior that I’m still trying to decode and unravel.

Why? Simply because sometimes the word of God or the contents of the Bible and its related enterprises are not ABC. There are moments you may have to keep digging until you manage to discover its treasures . It must certainly be for some reason why the Bible itself renders God's word on some occasions as strong meat particularly in Hebrews 5:14 KJV which says "But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." It’s interesting to note how the writer of Hebrews points out how even our discernment begins to sharpen the moment we begin to engage the deep things of the word of God.

We will literally die for a bowl of assorted spiced meat even if it inflicts hardship on our teeth but unfortunately when it comes to the Bible and the word of God nobody wants strong meat everyone wants to play it cool . Nothing to stress our little heads .

This presentation is not in any way suggestive that a simple message or preaching does not accomplish anything, it certainly does in many ways more than we could imagine . The issue on blast is , if our idea of Biblical knowledge is that it must always fall within our own understanding without almost never stretching us to seek more, brood more or learn more, then truly that kind of simplicity will only make us less and less of all that God intended us to be .

In John 6:51-66 Jesus begins to metaphorically explain the essence of His body and blood as it represented the eternal work of salvation and how His disciples and anyone could buy into its blessing by partaking of it .

In the ears of some of these disciples all they could hear was a crazy man who was intending to feed His flesh and blood to His fellow men and they were not having any of that. I think their problem was they were not patient enough to push further to comprehend what Jesus really meant . They took the matter on face value and made the most terrible mistake of their lives by deserting Jesus. Thank God for people like Peter and the rest who though may equally not have understood Jesus’s sayings at first were willing to stay and push further to comprehend the depth of what He was saying . That’s the attitude we must keep maintaining to push deeper until the deep things of God become our nominal.