Many years ago, a fellow church member approached me and said that if he studied the Bible as much as I did and the pastor, it would mess up his mind. I can't remember if I even had a response. Maybe I could have thought...”are you saying that my mind is messed up?” I don't know how much Bible study he thought I did, but it wasn't like I spent many hours a day studying it. Usually, I spent a lot of time trying to think through issues I was confronted with, and I read portions of books that addressed issues I was thinking about (by people I would both agree with and disagree with). I had a lot of time to think, because for many years, I did factory work that was very monotonous, standing at the end of a conveyor, stacking automotive parts—for many hours every day.
I have taught adult Sunday School from my early 20's into my 60's, and I had to put some effort into knowing what I was talking about in my class. I did have a tendency to pick some difficult topics. It's the way I am. I need to understand things and know what I am talking about. A pastor from the same church once called me to his office and said: “Jason, tell us what you know, not what you don't know.” He must have heard me teaching on a difficult topic, and thought I wasn't well enough prepared. I'm sure that he was correct about that. Obviously, I've never forgot what he said.
I try to understand what I believe. I try to maintain a consistent understanding. Years ago, a co-worker and I would have a lot of back and forth about salvation, and he told me that according to me, he was in good shape, because even though he had abandoned his faith in Christ and embraced a form of reincarnation that only involved humans, he was still saved if he was wrong. I probably told him that we are saved by faith alone in Christ alone, and that salvation cannot be lost. One day he came up to me and said: “Ok, you say we are saved by faith alone, so what about people in the Old Testament?” I said, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” He just stared at me for a moment, and then said “Oh,” and then walked away. He later told me to quit talking to him, because... he said, “how would you like it if I tried to persuade a new believer away from what they believe?” So basically, he wanted me to leave him alone and not challenge his reincarnationism.
One day, another guy at work walks up to me and asks, “do you believe in eternal salvation?” I said, “yes.” “Well I don't!” He walks away. I think, “what was that about?” At break time, I try to discuss it with him, but a friend of his, sitting by him, tells me to shut up, because she heard that stuff debated growing up, and she didn't want to hear it.
Years ago, the church I was a part of had a booth at the Kendallville Fair, and we had some things on display to draw attention, like a rather long chronological chart showing the origins of people and nations from Adam up to the 1800s. One day while standing by the booth, a man walked up to me with a grin on his face and asked me, “what came first, the chicken or the egg?” My response was, “the chicken.” His grin disappeared, and he just stood there for a moment, then walked away.
I remember at the same church on a Sunday night I was doing the speaking, and I was teaching on regeneration. We had a visitor that night, who had family members in the church. I and the pastor went to visit him one night. He just kind of unleashed anger on me for teaching on such a topic. He claimed that he didn't think his parents understood what I was talking about, and even he, an elder in his church, didn't understand what I was talking about. I was just a little surprised and wasn't sure how to respond. (My pastor actually got emotional about it and defended my teaching.) Maybe I made it too complicated; I don't know. But I think about how Jesus kind of reprimanded the Pharisee Nicodemus for not knowing about regeneration, and he was a teacher of Israel.
Maybe it seems arrogant to others to try to understand and have an answer for the things the Bible addresses. I know there are things that I work at trying to understand that others say they just aren't interested. I've had people say or indicate to me that they just aren't interested in prophecy. I guess I understand that, but I am very interested in those things. One person who once told me that they weren't interested in prophecy must have changed their mind later, because I sent him a book on a particular topic, and a few years later, he sent the book back to me, but it was an updated version of the book, not the same copy.
Maybe only God can know our motives. Maybe what the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy doesn't apply to everyone, but I see value in it for me: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15 Even with the study I have done, I believe I still come up short. And it seems like it gets harder to remember some of the conclusions I have come to—though fortunately, I have most of it typed up and stored on drives, the cloud, forums, and hardcopy. I can go back and see what conclusions I have come to.
Someone once said to me that they were analytical, but I was philosophical. But I think I'm both. It's the way I am. I think I've always been this way.
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