Remember elementary school math problems like this? You either rub your hands together, excited to dive in and solve the equation or you look at this and your eyes gloss over…. or your heart races and you begin to twitch at the prospect of having to solve this. Personally, as an adult, I find these questions humbling because, ugh, where do I even begin? Fortunately, that question is answered simply enough using the order of operations acronym – BEDMAS (Brackets, Exponents, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction). This means that starting from left to right, you start with the brackets and then do the exponents, etc. Having a system like BEDMAS to direct how we tackle math equations makes the equation far less intimidating and ensures that we come away with the same answer which, in this case, happens to be 82. ….correct? I mean, for those math-inclined, please do the question and confirm if I got it right.

Why am I talking about math order of operations this week? Because there’s a metaphor there, obviously 😉! Something that keeps coming up in this role, I’m finding, is just this plethora of views of the nature and character of God that emerge from all of us reading the same Bible. Some perspectives of God rely on punitive/retributive traits to create a dominant understanding of God while others might see his mercy and grace as the main means of forming a picture of God’s character. It can all be a bit overwhelming and confusing and anyone who says it’s really not that hard is not reading the same Bible I’m reading. There’s a reason for this, of course. For one, although the Bible tells one continued story of the people of God and their relationship with the Divine, it does not do so univocally. That is, there are a myriad of voices that, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, have sought to understand and communicate who this God is and what he’s like. Each comes with their own flavour, their own emphasis, their own perspective, etc. As such, different views of God can emerge from the text and it can be challenging to make heads or tails of it all. 

One quick example to make my point. David in the Psalms frequently mentions God being far from him, hiding himself in times of trouble and ignoring his pleas for help (Ps. 10:1; 13:1-2; 42:9; 69:1-3, etc.). Elsewhere, he proclaims God’s faithfulness and his confidence of his presence (Ps. 23:4, 34:18, 145:18, etc.). Can we reasonably say that the latter is true but not the former? I would emphatically say yes, of course, but how can I say so with confidence? What’s my rationale for making this assertion about the proximity of God and his posture toward us?

Thankfully, there is an “order of operations” similar to BEDMAS that we can use that maybe, possibly, hopefully, can help at least get us all more or less on the same page. We begin with the conviction that Jesus is the perfect revelation of the Father (John 1:1, John 1:14, John 1:18, John 14:9-11, Colossians 1:15, Colossians 2:9, Hebrews 1:1-3, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Philippians 2:6, 1 Timothy 3:16, 1 John 5:20) which means any ideas we form of God have to at the very least look like Jesus. From here, we move out and ask “What was Jesus like?” and although there are varied descriptions and angles one could take to address this, the most prominent picture is that of grace, mercy and compassion, exemplified throughout his ministry over and over again toward the sick, vulnerable, sinners, etc. (Matt. 9:36, Mark 1:40-41, Luke 7:13-15, John 8:10-11, Matt. 14:14, Matt. 15:32, Mark 6:34, Luke 10:33, Matt. 20:34, Mark 8:2-3, Luke 19:41-42, Matt. 11:28-30, Matt. 18:21-22, Luke 23:34, John 11:33-35, Matt. 8:2-3, Mark 5:19, Matt. 12:20, Luke 15:20, Matt. 9:2, among dozens of other passages) but most acutely and profoundly it is represented at the cross where Jesus pours out his mercy and compassion by dying for us and in the process forgiving those who are literally in the process of crucifying him (Luke 23:34). We call this wild, counterintuitive form of love cruciform love (cruciform just means “cross-shaped”). If clarity is still needed, we would then move out from here to the actual teachings of Jesus and, I might suggest, beginning first with the Sermon on the Mount, as that seems to really get at what values Jesus esteemed highest and embodied himself. Hopefully at this point we would begin to form a view of who God is. So, if we were to give this an acronym like BEDMAS to help us remember, we could try something like…. JCLSMT: Jesus –> Cruciform Love –> Sermon on the Mount –> Teachings. It just kind of rolls of the tongue doesn’t it? Okay, fine, I’m open to suggestions for making this more memorable.

So there you have it. Although, to some degree I don’t know that we can ever come to a perfect consensus in how we understand God (that’s an ambitious pursuit), I do think this JCLSMT order of operations can help us narrow our interpretive scope and lead us to a general consensus on who God is and what he’s like. 

We’ll be talking more about this on Sunday! I hope you’ll join us in person at 10am. See ya then!