Patience in Seeking Truth, a Necessity

by Garreth L. Clair

John 8:32, “and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” ASV

John 17:17, “Sanctify them in the truth: thy word is truth.” ASV

II Timothy 3:16-17, “Every scripture inspired of God (is) also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness. That the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.” ASV

One of the problems with most of us is a lack of patience whenever we undertake a study of a difficult passage of Scripture. First, we ought to know that God would never give us a book that we cannot understand and then make our hope of heaven depend upon understanding it. There are many people connected to some man-made religious institution that will tell us certain parts of the Bible cannot be understood and that because of this problem, we must be charitable toward those that do not agree with us.

Perhaps we need to look at the Bible as a book edited by an absolutely perfect source, consequently, that book cannot contain errors of any kind. Whenever we undertake an examination of a preconceived ideal, if our opinions conflict with the Bible we must reexamine our conclusions --- We must never charge the Bible with error. Whenever we cannot understand the Bible in a passage in it we must seek help from others in understanding, no passage is impossible of understanding. Since no passage of the Holy Scripture is impossible of understanding we must patiently pursue a solution to the problem making sure that our conclusions do not contradict other passages of Scripture in another place.