“…oh Beaver!”

“…oh Beaver!” (laugh track) <fade to black>  29:58

Whew!  Another crisis averted in just under thirty minutes by Ward and June in the Cleaver household.

I’m pretty sure that Socrates had sitcoms in mind back in 400 BC when he developed the “Socratic Method.” It was his theory that “to solve a problem, it would be broken down into a series of questions, the answers to which gradually distill the answer a person would seek.” Socrates was Greek and the father of western philosophy…linear thought. If he was the father then Voltaire was the great-great-great-great grandchild. Voltaire was one of the leading authors of the “Enlightenment” in the early 1700’s. The enlightenment taught that “reason was the primary source for legitimacy and authority.”

Socrates and Voltaire conspired to bring us the 30-minute sitcom. Our desire to have everything linear and resolved in under 30 minutes. It drives everything. Sitcoms, the nightly news, highlights, summaries…and sermons. To resolve every tension and put a big red bow on it.

This blog is my contrast to the big red bow.

I’m greek. I’m linear. I want closure. But there are questions in the Bible whose answers are sealed. There are answers beyond our ability to understand on this side of heaven. I dont want to fight that. I want to embrace the mystery.

Do we choose or is God sovereign? Yes. God’s sovereignty is frightening to an enlightened mind. But if I allow my greek, linear mind to put a red bow on the Bible then I often reduce God to a cheap magician or a candy machine that dispenses treats in commensurate amounts to what I put in.

Sometimes the answer to “Why?” is just…”because He desires it to be so.”  Daniel 4:35 tells us that He will do as He pleases.

There are absolute truths…God had a plan, there was an act of rebellion, there was an offer of reconciliation in Christ, and through Christ we have God as our treasure.  But I want to learn to seek and embrace the mystery by which this occurs and find God there too.  The mystery of Romans 16:25.  Its beautiful…but finding it is a long dirty road called “sanctification” and there are few red bows along its path.