The answer to the riddle

Our last post posed the following question:
What is deep enough for elephants to swim in and shallow enough for babes to wade in?

It was not very hard apparently because two out of two people I asked in person answered right away. The answer is: the Bible, the Word of God.

It's very easy as a church to get locked in to only swimming in three feet deep waters. The amazing thing is that this unique Book is simple enough that even at a mere three feet depth a person can hear and understand the significant truths of God.

Nevertheless the question is, if John Owen was right and the Word of God is deep enough for elephants to swim in, then we have to wonder why God inspired such depths in his Word in the first place if he never wanted us to venture into them? Does he really intend for us to spend our years, Sunday after Sunday, wading in the kiddie-pool of Scripture?

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. (Heb. 5:11-13)

Here the author of Hebrews is rebuking the local church because after quite some time, she was still unable to swim.

And here's the crazy thing: the way we progress deeper and deeper in God's Word is by wrestling with Scripture texts that are too difficult, too vast, too mind-blowing for us to comprehend presently. When those texts have done their work, we actually have an enlarged capacity to understand God's Word (or to swim in the metaphor). Now I'll have to argue for this some other time, but where does that leave the church content to feed only milk? It leaves them with 50, 60, 70 year old infants with permanent Scriptural arm-floaters. Let's not despise either end of the Scripture-pool!

John Piper - "A church that thinks deeply about God feels deeply about God." What would he say out the opposite?

Praying Scripture's Prayers

Something we have most assuredly lost is praying the prayers that Scripture calls us to pray. We can have so much confidence in our prayers when we simply ask God to do the things he has promised to do, and when we ask him for the things he calls us to ask him for.

For one of our Wednesday evening prayer meetings I put together a really quick list of "Prayer Requests and Commands of the Bible". Here is that list:

• Confession of sins (Ezra 10)
• Pray for the peace of God’s people (Psalm 122)
• Thanksgiving for God’s general and specific graces (Daniel 6)
• Pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 6)
• Pray (Matthew 6)
  • For the coming Kingdom
  • For God’s revealed will to be carried out
  • For God’s name to be hallowed
  • For deliverance from evil and temptation
  • For our daily needs (like food, clothing, etc.)

• Pray for laborers to be sent into the harvest (Matthew 9)
• Pray for the grace to forgive (Mark 11)
• Pray that we do not lose heart in our struggles and trials (Luke 18)
• Pray for strength to endure tribulations now and in the end (Lu. 22)
• Pray for the presence and work of the Spirit (Acts 8)
• Pray for each other (Acts 21)
• Pray that the Spirit would help us pray when we don’t know how (Romans 8)
• Praise God for who and what he is (1 Cor. 14)
• Pray for restoration of hurt relationships in the church (2 Cor. 13)
• Pray for the defeat of evil and Satanic powers around you (Eph. 6)
• Pray for an open door for the Word to go forth (Col.1 )
• Thank God for each other (Col. 1)
• Pray that God would make us worthy of our calling (2 Thess. 1)
• Pray that the Word of God would be honored (2 Thess 3)
• Pray for unity in this church without anger (1 Tim. 2)
• Pray for those who are suffering (James 5)
• Pray for the forgiveness and cleansing of sins for others (James 5)
• Pray for those you see sinning (1 John 5)
• Pray that all may go well with us and that we continue in good health (2 John 2)