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Missing The
Forest
We have a saying, a colloquialism, when
someone looks minutely at a matter to the point of not seeing the
overall picture. We say, “He missed the forest for the trees.”
Jesus dealt with people like that on a
spiritual level, the Jewish rulers and scribes. The ‘forest’ they were
missing was Jesus Himself, the Son of God, deity in the flesh.
In John 5 Jesus spoke of several “witnesses”
who testified as to who He was. John the Baptist, Jesus’ miracles, and
the eternal Father all “bore witness” or “testified” to
Jesus’ person. But Jesus also declared that the Scriptures as well
testified of Him. He told the Jews, “You search the Scriptures, for
in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which
testify of Me” (5:39).
Sadly, Jesus went on to say, “But you
are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (v. 40). They
had the Scriptures which spoke of and pointed the way to Jesus, but they
would not believe.
The word translated “search”
denotes an anxious or diligent search, an investigation. This the
scribes notoriously did with the Old Testament Scriptures. They
searched, they investigated, the Scriptures. It is reported that many
of them knew how many words, even how many Hebrew characters, were in
each book of law or prophecy. Yet in their meticulous searching they
missed the message of that which they searched. The entire story of the
Old Testament was about the impending coming of the Messiah, but these
Jews looked so intently at the minute details -- even to the point, at
times, of making up their own details -- that they didn‘t recognize the
Messiah standing right before them. They missed the message of that at
which they diligently and daily stared. They ‘missed the forest for the
trees.‘
There is a lesson in this for us if we
will learn it. Let us never become so bogged down in the details of a
verse, or even a word, that we miss the good news message of the entire
Bible! God’s grace has been manifested in the giving of His Son, Jesus
the Christ, for the sins of the world, “that whoever believes in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Any
meticulous study that would keep us from seeing how such is a part of
the Bible message may keep us from seeing Christ.
We will add that it is not a lesson to
be learned to cease ‘searching the Scriptures.’ God forbid! Searching
the Scriptures is extolled elsewhere (Acts 17:11; 1 Corinthians 2:14).
Without a knowledge of Scripture we’re lost (John 8:32). But any
‘search’ of the Scriptures that would focus our minds off of the message
of the Bible and away from Christ must needs be shunned. We may marvel
that such can happen, but happen it can. And yes, we can be guilty of it
just like the next person.
--Mike Noble
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