I will have to admit that I am one of those people who enjoy having Facebook friends that post viewpoints that are contrary to what I currently believe. There are many “friends” who are Democrat, Republican, pro-gun, gun control, same sex marriage, anti same sex marriage, and so on down the line of our most advertised current events.

I am often amused by the posts and comments that I scan on a regular basis from my computer or my smart phone. I love the sense of keeping in touch with my friends wanderings and the updates that my kids send about the grandchildren’s activities.

During the many years that I have been a Facebook member, I have only stopped following a few people who, more often than not, had gone off on the deep end about one thing or another. I have, like many of you reading this, found that commenting on Facebook can often lead to more misunderstanding than a comment will ever warrant. As long as you stay somewhat surfacy all is well in that digital world—but real conversations are best left for coffee shops and over a glass of wine.

Lately, I have noticed a particular poster has delved into what I would call “disputable” matters as Paul writes about in Romans 14:1. His belief that the King James translation is the only true Bible has perplexed me more so than I like to admit in public.

I have also come to the place that man’s attempt to categorize the Bible’s plan for mankind is not only disquieting to me, but is so intellectual as to be almost not understandable.

I mean, who can really get what the Calvinists are saying about “election” or what the Arminians believe about free will. And then there is the Preterist view of the end times and perhaps several hundred other doctrines that endeavor to explain what is being said in the Bible. To me, most fall short of giving me a true picture of God’s plan for my life.

And this coming from a person who tends to approach things from an intellectual standpoint. You would think that I would love to wade in this fountain of unlimited information and thought processes.

I firmly believe that these attempts to sum up in a neat package the 66 books of the Bible and all that lies between its covers, is not only obscuring God’s intents and purposes but in the extreme are far more dangerous than we give them credit for.

I am reminded of a paragraph or two from a little book I read several years ago which says to me that you don’t have to be a brilliant intellectual in order to understand the Bible. In the book “Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ” Jeanne Guyon says about those who would like to know God that: “I especially address those of you who are very simple and you who are uneducated, even you who cannot read and write. You may think you are the one person most incapable of this abiding experience of Christ, this prayer of simplicity. You may think yourself the one farthest from a deep experience with the Lord; but, in fact, the Lord has especially chosen you! You are the one most suited to know Him well.”

Don’t get me wrong—I am not saying that we don’t need to look at the Bible’s teachings with an intent to understand them and with that done put them into practice in our daily lives. What I am saying is that, once again, men have complicated something that was really meant to be much more easily understood and practiced.

In other words, I am at that point in my life where I will readily admit, there are many more questions than there are answers. The concept of a creator/God is so big that I can’t really, readily, wrap my arms around it—I am fooling myself to say that I ever was.

In one telling Bible story, Christ’s disciples asked Him to show them the Father. His response to them was, if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.

It doesn’t get any simpler than that, does it!