Manchester Lutheran Church

Because of our explanation of fasting earlier, today’s sermon is particularly short, there’s less time to explain things. So, if you have any questions, do please ask them over coffee afterwards.

Why does the Bible make no sense?

It’s got to be the most common theme in the comments on our online YouTube Shorts:

“Prove it! It doesn’t make sense!”
“If there’s things I don’t understand, it must be false!”
“If you can’t test it by evidence, it can’t be true!”

And this week several of us have been messaging back and forth with a few of the common issues people have about understanding:

—What about dinosaurs?
—What about free will?
—Why does the universe look billions of years old?

Now, we can give some answers to these, and in fact this week in our latest YouTube Short we have: God created Adam as a mature human being, who probably looked maybe 25. So presumably he created the cosmos as a mature universe that looks about 13.8 billion years old.

And there are so many simple, reasonable, responses to many objections. …but people still struggle to understand them.

Jesus’ own disciples had this problem in the Gospel of Luke.

Our passage today comes at the end of the central part of Luke’s Gospel—Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem in chapters 9-19.

And near the beginning and end of this journey, Jesus predicts his death and resurrection, but the disciples don’t understand it. So chapters 9-18 begin and end in a way that raises this question:

Why does the Bible make no sense?

And Luke answers that question in this passage. He says two things:

1) The entire Bible is about justification by faith
2) So, Jesus’ mercy leads to understanding

Luke’s first point: The entire Bible is about justification by faith

Please look again at vv. 31-33:

And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.”

The entire Bible is about Jesus’ death and resurrection. This is one of Luke’s major themes throughout Luke and Acts. Luke writes this in ch 24 v. 27 at the end of the Gospel:

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

And v. 45:

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,

The entire Bible is about one thing. One person. And one particular thing he has done. And so, because the entire Bible is about Jesus’ death and resurrection …the entire Bible is about justification: the thing his death and resurrection achieves …by faith: the only way that we receive that justification.

But, we cannot understand justification by faith from our reason …which means we cannot understand the Bible from our reason. Please look again at v. 34:

But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

Even the disciples, standing physically with Jesus, cannot grasp the Bible’s central meaning from their own powers of reason and understanding.

People naturally struggle to understand justification by faith: in fact, sin means people naturally reject and suppress it.

That includes us:

—we think as though we deserve things because of our faith and turn faith into a work

—we imagine faith is just intellectual agreement rather than trust in God’s goodness

—we have secret attitudes that, really, we’re quite good people and we deserve things from God, making Jesus death and resurrection pointless

But, if the whole Bible is about Jesus death and resurrection, the whole Bible is about justification by faith, then we naturally don’t understand justification by faith by dismissing parts of the Bible as about something else.

We don’t like to be different. We want to be included in something larger. And so we dismiss some doctrines as less important or secondary.

But, the whole Bible is about justification by faith, so every doctrine is about justification by faith, and justification by faith is inside every other doctrine.

Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, predestination, end times, spiritual gifts, the roles of men and women, the nature of hell, the age of the earth… …all the scriptures, including those that talk about these things, are about Jesus death and resurrection …and his death and resurrection is inside each one of them.

Part of the reason we find that difficult to understand, is because we don’t want to understand it.

The spirit of our age is ecumenicism, pretending we agree when we don’t, dismissing differences as unimportant.

But, if everything in scripture is about Christ’s death and resurrection, then to treat some doctrines as less important than others is to diminish Christ’s work in one way or another.

This is one way that spiritual blindness expresses itself in our culture.

Which leads us to the second part of Luke’s answer: Jesus’ mercy leads to understanding. Please look again at vv. 35-39

As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” And he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Blindness is a theme that occurs in all four Gospels, including Luke and Acts.

The Gospel writers are selective about what healings they record Jesus doing. The most common ones are blindness, lameness, and leprosy. Because these teach us something about Jesus’ identity and work.

And the healing of blind men is used in all the gospels as a picture of having our spiritual blindness cured.

This man is physically blind, but he has spiritual eyesight. He sees that he needs Jesus, God’s King, the son of David, …and he sees that Jesus is good; …he appeals to Jesus’ mercy.

So, he calls out to Jesus, and he persists: The noise of the crowd drowning him out. His inability to see where Jesus is. People angrily telling him to shut up. None of this stops the blind man calling out to Jesus.

What is Jesus’ response to spiritual blindness?

Please look again at vv. 40-43:

And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.

Jesus stops and listens. He is interested, attentive to the needs of the blind man.

He invites the man to come to him. Jesus wants us who are spiritually blind to know him.

He asks the man what he wants. Jesus is concerned about you personally and the things that matter to you.

Jesus heals the man purely through the man’s trust in Jesus’ goodness, he demands nothing from the man to earn it.

Jesus’ mercy leads to understanding And Jesus wants to give you understanding. He wants to open your eyes. He wants to be good to you personally.

So, Why does the Bible make no sense?

There are answers —simple, reasonable answers to many apparent problems. But, the key answer to this question lies in Luke’s two part response:

1) The entire Bible is about justification by faith

We struggle to understand the Bible, because of our sin, which naturally desires to reject justification by faith. This doctrine is all over the Bible, and inside every other doctrine. And, without help we are blind to it.

But, 2) Jesus’ mercy leads to understanding

Jesus is interested and attentive to your needs. Jesus invites you to come to him. Jesus wants you to know him, and Jesus is concerned about you personally.

So, when blind people seeking understanding throw themselves on Jesus:

“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!“

Know that he always responds:

“Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.”