The Bible is a Lamp
How the Bible is clear, and makes everything else clear
Your word is a lamp for my feet,
    a light on my path.
The unfolding of your words gives light;
it imparts understanding to the simple.
The law of the Lord is perfect,
    reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
    making wise the simple;
There is something I have never understood about flashlights. We used to keep one in our cupboard in case the power went out. But, if the power goes out, how are you going to find the flashlight? Don’t you need another flashlight to find the first one?
Light has a way of doing that. You need light before you can see. Not after.
So it is pretty astounding that the Christian Bible claims to be light.
Many people claim to tell the truth.1 How many people claim that you can’t know any truth unless you first listen to them?
By claiming to be light, the Bible asserts:
You can clearly know the Bible (just like you can see the lamp itself).
You can clearly know everything else via the Bible (just like the lamp enables you to see everything else in the room).
In other words, the Bible is clear and makes everything else clear.2
The Bible is Clear
My children love hiding from me. When I walk downstairs from my office, I often hear the pattering of feet, the rustling of cushions on the sofa, and muffled giggling.
The problem is that they’re not very good at it.
9 times out of 10, when I get to the family room, I find them on the sofa - in plain sight - desperately holding their eyes closed.3
Why doesn’t their strategy work? Or, more importantly, why do they think it would?
It’s quite natural to confuse our perception of something with its reality. It’s even more natural to think that there is nothing wrong with our perception - that we see everything just fine. If I can’t see something no one can.
So when someone says that the Bible is clear, the smart aleck at the back of the classroom says: ‘What about Exodus 23:19b?’
You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.
To which the teacher replies: ‘Which part don’t you understand? The goat and its mother’s milk? Or the fact that you are being told to not do something?’
More seriously though, if you have spent time reading the Bible, you have likely found some parts of it to be less clear than others. You might have even found some parts to be opaque.
But maybe that experience says more about us, than it does about the Bible.
In fact, if we let it speak, the Bible does have a few things to say to us on the topic:
Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but see not, who have ears, but hear not.
Instead of assuming that our perception of things is fine, the Bible assumes the opposite: that there is something deeply dysfunctional about the way we naturally see everything, including the Bible itself.4
And yet, the Bible doesn’t leave us there. Even in Jeremiah 5:21, it is commanding deaf people to ‘hear’.
In fact, it makes a promise, that God will actually remove this dysfunction:
Their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant,5 that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.
It is uncomfortable to admit that you could never do something naturally. And yet, that is precisely the claim being made here: that you cannot understand the Bible, that it will never be clear to you, unless God supernaturally removes your dysfunctional perception of it.6
Via supernatural intervention, your dysfunction is healed, and you begin to see what was clearly there all along.7
The law of the Lord is perfect,
    reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
    making wise the simple;
The unfolding of your words gives light;
it imparts understanding to the simple.
The Bible Makes Everything Else Clear
And yet, when you turn on a lamp, you don’t just see the lamp itself. You end up seeing everything else in the room. Light has a way of doing that.
In the Hebrew Bible, the entirety of life is often times depicted as a journey along a path.8
And so it is of particular importance that Psalm 119:105 talks about a path:
Your word is a lamp for my feet,
    a light on my path.
In ancient (and modern-day) Israel, paths were known for having rocks that would trip you up.9
Since having children, I have had some fun surprises walking through the house with the lights off - legos, hot wheels, wooden blocks, bits of food. All of these, thoughtful gifts left behind by my children, for me to trip over while they enjoy being sound asleep.
Sometimes, lack of clarity isn’t a big deal. I don’t know how many albums Taylor Swift has released. I don’t think I’ll ever be bothered enough about it to find out.
At other times however, lack of clarity can be deadly. Like when you are walking along a path in the dead of night, and trip over a rock that you can’t see, hitting your head on another one you can’t see.
Seeing the world clearly, especially when there are serious consequences at play, is vital.
And yet, when the Bible claims to be light, it implies that you cannot even see the world clearly without it. In a profound way, you will misjudge all of reality without knowing the Bible.
How can this be? Surely when you are researching cars to buy, you don’t need to know anything from the Bible?
Well, let’s dive into that example of purchasing a car. On one level, there are many facts about cars that are not explicitly in the Bible: number of seats, mileage, colour, reliability, model10. And yet, underlying the purchase of a car, there are many unspoken assumptions:
Why am I buying a car?
What should I use the car for?
How much effort and resources should I put into the purchase?
What attitude should I have about the car?
Does the car exist?11
These underlying assumptions have a greater, and more fundamental, impact on your purchase than any of the particular car specs involved.
There is a world of difference between the sports car enthusiast who wants to show off, and the homeschooling mom who wants to fit everyone into a single vehicle.
A popular term used to describe these underlying assumptions about reality is someone’s worldview.12 In Christian contexts, the term presuppostions is used.13
And so, what is offered by the Bible is not just a particular set of facts about the world,14 but an entire perspective of reality based on those facts.
As a sample of such far-reaching knowledge, consider the following:
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.
The least significant yet sad event in this world only happens via the personal knowledge and control of a God who calls himself Father. Such a view instantly infuses every aspect of life with a deep and profound meaning. Nothing is random. Everything is on purpose. Even the seemingly insignificant things. Even the sad things.
Without such light being shed on our everyday situations, the Bible claims we will profoundly misunderstand them. And the consequences will be grave.15
What if everything were well and truly random? What if nothing had any real significance? What if it just didn’t matter? If you follow that perspective to its logical conclusion, it becomes very difficult to get up in the morning. It becomes very hard to believe that doing the right thing is worth it, especially when doing the wrong thing is easier.
Conclusion
There is one thing I have yet to mention: the Bible is not actually unique in claiming to be light.
As the analysis of worldview above shows, all of our core beliefs play this role. Our assumed perspective on the world is not only ‘obvious’ (clear) to us, but it makes sense of (clarifies) the rest of the world for us.
We can’t see unless we put on a light.
And so, when someone approaches the Bible, you cannot simply say that they either see the light of the Bible or not. You must also ask: do they have another light, by which they are trying to see the Bible?16
When I was at university, I remember hearing a curious argument, which went something like this:
Every miracle recorded in the life of Jesus only appeared to break the laws of physics. In reality, no physical laws that we know of were broken.
In particular, I remember an alternative explanation of Jesus walking on the Lake of Galilee17, whereby he had found stepping stones, just underneath the surface of the water, so it only looked like he was walking on water.18
What I like about this argument is how it clearly shows the presence of another light: namely, the laws of physics.
In this argument, the unspoken assumption behind Jesus walking on stepping stones is the unquestioned belief that the laws of physics,19 as we know them, govern all of physical reality without exception.
And so instead of the Bible shedding light on the way the physical world works, this perspective used an assumption about how the physical world works to shed light on the Bible.
We need a light. It’s inevitable.
And so, the question is, which one will we have?
Thoughtful Orthodox
Note that the Bible also claims to be true. See for example John 17:17.
Interestingly, the word clear itself has connotations of light. It comes from the Latin clarus which means ‘clear, bright’ (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/clarus#Latin).
It doesn’t help that my wife encourages them by simply closing her eyes to ‘hide’ too.
See, for example, Romans 1:18-23 which explores both the universality of the condition and its root cause.
The ‘old covenant’ here refers to the agreement that God made with Israel through Moses, which was written down in the first 5 books of the Bible.
It would be remiss of me to not mention the starting point for someone in this process: namely that ‘when one turns to the Lord’, the dysfunction is healed. So repentance is the first step towards understanding.
Note that, according to the following verse, gaining understanding of the Bible is a process that takes place over time. It doesn’t happen in an instant, but rather: ‘And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.’ (2 Corinthians 3:18) It is also important to note that this process will look different based on someone’s age and mental faculties (see for example Proverbs 4:1-5).
See for example Psalm 1:1-2.
See for example Psalm 91:12.
OK, this last one might seem out of left field, but it is a legitimate question. Most members of a Western society assume that things in the physical world actually exist. But that is not an assumption shared across all cultures and times (see for example the ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides who believed that everything we experience with our senses, The Way of Opinion, is an illusion).
See for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presuppositional_apologetics
Although there are plenty of those. Check out the genealogy in 1 Chronicles 1.
A natural question might arise at this point: How does the worldview in the Bible translate to specific understanding and decisions in everyday life? I can only sketch an answer here, but there are two parts to it: 1.) The Bible does actually contain many specific commands (such as, ‘Do not steal’) and specific knowledge (such as ‘Jesus rose from the dead’). 2.) The Bible talks often about gaining wisdom whereby the Christian begins to intuitively think like God, which leads him to naturally make decisions in accordance with God’s perfect will (see for example Romans 12:2).
See the counterfeit miracles, knowledge (deception) and worship referred to in Revelation 13:4.
See Matthew 14:22-33.
Poor Peter. He must have not seen where those stepping stones were.
You could rightly ask: Which laws of physics? Over time, the laws of physics recognised by the scientific community change. Quantum theory in particular has introduced the idea that completely random events (like water turning into wine) could happen, without any physical law being broken. The caveat is that such events, according to quantum theory, are very, very rare.