Don’t Go Beyond What Is Written – The Silence Of God

It can be dangerous and presumptuous to try to read into the scriptures by the absence of what is written.  Many years ago Dan Brown wrote a book called, “The DaVinci Code” in it he  states that since the Bible doesn’t give all the details of Jesus life it is safe to  postulate or assume that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that from that union they had a child.  However, 1 Cor. 4:6 states that we “don’t go beyond what is written”, stating that in some way we are to honour the silence of the scriptures, as much as its declarations.  There is a caution concerning the times of God’s silence.

In our own lives there can be times when God will seem silent, and these can be challenging times, perhaps even times when we think we desperately need to hear from God.  It is true that God may appear silent and it may be because of our own fault:

• Perhaps we are not taking time to listen.
• We may be too busy or focused on the wrong things.
• Our motive for hearing may be incorrect.
• We may have outright rebellion in our hearts (If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me.)
• I might be anticipating that God will speak in one particular way and yet He is speaking in another way.

Looking into the scriptures we see that God is always talking to His people.  Though perhaps not in the areas that the people want Him to talk.  He talks of His love, His mercy, His forgiveness.  He challenges His people to be bold, not to be fearful, or to forsake sin.  Even when people were rebellious and hiding from God, He still spoke.

Though it may not seem like God is speaking we need to be careful that we don’t read into the apparent silence the thought that God is not there, that He doesn’t care about us, that He never speaks, that we are unimportant or of less valuable compared to others who might be claiming to hear from God.

We can be certain that the same God Who shares in the scriptures all that is necessary for us to have life with Him, and leaves out what is not necessary, will also continue to reveal to us all that is necessary for us.