The Golden Verse of the Bible

I think it is safe to say, in our modern culture we demand brevity. We don"t like long books; baseball games are too long; we criticize our preachers if they preach over thirty minutes. We don't like long winded speakers or sales presentations or negotiations. The head of a company to whom I was making a presentation say, "Stop, tell me in ten words or less, 'What is your point?'"

The task of reading the Bible through requires a great deal of patience particularly when you get to books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy with all those laws and rules. Half way through you want to plead with God, "What's the point? Can you tell me in as few words as possible?"

Brevity has another benefit, perhaps it's most beneficial. Once in our history, people, having few books, committed things to memory; family linage, historical events, important documents, anything worthy of remembering. With the advent of the printing press, these things could be written and copied and recorded and saved. There was not need for memorization. Frankly, our attention span grew shorted. We no longer memorized long passages; brevity became the key to memorization.

So, you ask, what does all this have to do with the title of this article? In God's infinite wisdom, the problem is solved by the inclusion of a single verse in the Bible which is short and to the point and is easy to memorize.  That verse I call the Golden Verse of the Bible. It is in John 3:16.

I just do not understand.

I have to admit, there are things about God and Jesus and the Bible that I just do not understand. I am not saying these things are wrong, I just have trouble with them. Maybe my problem Is I do not know enough about the Bible. One of my Bible study guys said, "Everything you want to know is in the Bible." He may be right, but I still do not understand some things..

I do not understand, "Why the Jews?". Presumably God could have chosen a group of people from the vast area we call China or maybe from India or Europe or even the Americas. There were people in those areas. Why not there; why not a group of people from one of those other places? Why Abraham? Why Issac and Jacob? And on a related subject, once the people who would later be called Jews were chosen to receive God's attention, what about all the other people in the earth? Did God abandon them? Did basically say to Chinese ancestors, "Sorry guys, you lost out on receiving my favor. You are on your own. I'll see you in 4000 years when I send missionaries to tell you about Jesus." 

I need a Burning Bush

What does God want me to do? I am willing to follow in His will, but I am at a loss to know what His will for my life is. Do I stay in my current job or look for another? Do I continue in my current relationship or does God want me to be in a different relationship? I am happy where I am, does God want me to do something else? Where should I live? Where go to school? Stay in this Church or go to another Church? What does He want me to do?

I suspect quite a few of us ask these questions. We love God. We know God loves us and wants the best for us. We really want to do God's will. We want to go where He wants us to go. We want to make decisions pleasing to God. We are willing to sacrifice our treasuries if it is God's will. We are a bit jealous of others who are doing God's work and enjoying it. We want that same joy of doing what God wants us to do.

But...

What is it God wants? Living in Nashville or living in Charleston; dating Judy versus dating Betty; or Bob versus George; being an engineer or being an accountant; staying at my current job or taking another job; all good choices where there is no difference so far as we can see.

Some choices would seem to be obvious. Do I stay in an unhappy marriage or do I leave it and search for happiness alone or with another person? Do I report a wrong in the workplace or do I keep silent? Do I run and hide from trouble or do I stand up against it?

All the choices whether obvious or not so obvious have pros and cons. Maybe God wants me to stay in the unhappy marriage and change the other person, maybe He wants me out of that marriage because He has a better one for me. Maybe God wants me to leave my extended family in Nashville and move to Charleston because He has a person in Charleston who needs to be saved and will listen only to me.

Choices, Choices. What's a Christian to do.