Does the Bible answer all the questions of life?
Yes!
And Yes again! Even in spite of the differences in economic, political,
cultural and traditional values that marked the period over which the
text was documented and the times we live in, the answer is still Yes!
Why? Because it
addresses the fundamental root of all the questions and problems for
which men seek answers and solutions - SIN, being the rebellion against
the love, leadership and ways of God. This is the same problem that
plagued all the individuals in the Bible, whose lives and relationship
with God serve to illustrate how God views sin, His solution to it and
the results of the various responses of different people to God's
proposal of reconciliation.
The meaning of life and the purpose
of man among other questions, are paramount quests on which the average
man embarks at some point in their lives. It is also in the pursuit of
these answers that both 'heroes' and 'villians', 'good' and 'bad'
distinguish themselves.
The Bible answers all the questions of
life, in and with Jesus - God's sinless lamb slain to win and seal our
reconciliation to Him. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no one
comes to God except by Him.
The world is constantly trying to
fix the symptoms of the problem of our separation from God - trying to
psycho-analyse sudicial and homicidal individuals who are overcome with
despair or striving for attention; to curtail sexually transmitted
diseases spread through undisciplined sexual behaviour; trying to curb
epidemics resulting from the mismanagement of our ecosystems; looking
for more efficient means of distributing wealth among the populace
without curing the greed that sponsors the embezzlement or
misappropriation of funds...
But our problem is that we have
fallen out of favour with God, in seeking independence from Him, and in
indiscriminately indulging every whim and appetite. The source of the
problems all around us is not the weather, or dead ancestors or karma or
fellow humans.
Thus, we must seek to enter and dwell in God's
pleasure. Man is otherwise fated to doom however he endeavours, just as
the leafy branch which has been cut off from the stem of a plant. It is
inherently dead by its dissociation from its source of nutrient. In the
course of time, its death becomes physically evident when the leaves and
eventually the estranged branch itself, withers.
The answers
that the Bible gives are not necessarily in the eloquence of the texts
but rather in the original wisdom of God and the perfection of His ways,
revealed therein. It is in realizing that we have erred from living for
God and have rather been living for ourselves; and returning to follow
the path He has prescribed.
Years of training in an ungodly
system which has matured over several millennia and is still being
refined into more godlessness, may have inculcated us with rebellious
thoughts, values and practices. God is well able to break through all
that and remake us. But we must be willing and obedient to the change He
proposes.
It is obvious that our many experiments of means both
for finding God and with fixing our wounded world, have failed or are
failing. Shall we not turn to the Author of life for help and
deliverance? Shall those of us who have began the race not give even
more due diligence to laying aside the weights of worldliness and the
easily-besetting rebellious tendencies?
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