God’s kind of funny sometimes. Just when you think you’ve got Him figured out and under control, He pops up with some new thing that lines up outside the box you had for Him. You’re reading your Bible and you come upon some verse or story and you slam on the breaks with a “What!? That’s in the Bible?!” Or you read the history of Christianity or even the history of the Jews in the Bible and you come upon things that seem to be way out of bounds at times.

Does God change? It says in the Bible, “I am the Lord, I change not.” (Malachi 3:6) But it sure seems to me He has a pretty wide array of ways and tools at His disposal. And of course this is only good.

For example, here’s an obscure verse that’s always interested me. “The Word of God was precious in those days, there was no open vision.” (I Samuel 3:1) This is right at the end of the period of the judges and right at the beginning of when Israel went into the period of their kings. From what I get from that verse, during the period of the judges they were not having the kind of spiritual manifestations we associate with visions, dreams, prophecies and the like. And so the simple word of God was all the more precious then.

But in Samuel’s time and certainly with David and even Solomon after him, the Lord changed that. When you read I and II Samuel, as well as the Psalms, it seems they came into an abundant wealth of revealed spirituality that was a major change from the previous centuries. And you could say this went on for a good while. Even though northern Israel and southern Judah split into two kingdoms and often there were evil kings, still the Lord kept sending prophets in those times. We read about Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah and many others.

But then what happened? They stopped. For 400 years. It is said in Jewish history that Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi were all around at the same time, around 400 BC and even then it was known among the people that after them, the line of prophets would stop. That’s what it says in history, they knew back there at that time that they were the last prophets.

Why? Why did God do that? Maybe it’s like it says in the Psalms, “Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.” (Psalm 55:19) Maybe God doesn’t like it when you think you have Him figured out. Like He said to Job, “Should it be according to your mind?” (Job 34:33)

Then along came Jesus. Talk about a change! But it was change with continuity, wasn’t it? The absolute basics didn’t change, to love God and love our neighbor. But as so many of the prophets had foreseen, God was going to “put the law in their heart”, (Jeremiah 31:33) with “a new spirit within them”. (Ezekiel 11:19) And it was to be “a light to the Gentiles, that you should be salvation unto the ends of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6)

That was about the biggest thing that broke the religious old bottles of Jewish Christians back then, that the God of Abraham was no longer just for the Jews but that “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) “What!? He loves the whole world? Whosoever believes in Him?” Even John 3:16 is a really radical verse when you see it in the context of its days. So in some ways, God is a moving God. He’s in some ways constantly changing and doing new things, effecting change in every sphere of His creation.

And when I say, “God’s Many Ways”, of course I’m not meaning many ways to God. I’m still a firm believer in what Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father but by Me.” (John 14:6) There’s only one way to God, “one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” (I Timothy 2:5) But, boy, God Himself has a really huge repertoire of songs He can sing, instruments He can play, brushes in His box, and colors on His palette.

“The Venerable Bede”, northern England, 722 AD

Here’s one that nearly stumbled me so I”ll share it, just to show God’s many ways. Relics. Have you ever heard of “relics”? Years ago I read a fantastic book, written in 722 AD, called “The Ecclesiastical History of England.” Written by “the Venerable Bede”, it’s the story of the Christianization of England up till that time. But I was choking and stumbling where there were repeated testimonies of relics being the instruments of major miracles back then. I figure that this guy, “the Venerable Bede”, was either lying or telling the truth. It didn’t seem like he was lying. So, if he was telling the truth and all these things happened like he said, then why and how did the Lord allow that to happened? Why did He work that way back then?

Books and libraries have been written on this subject and I don’t have that much room here. But maybe the Lord was working with the faith that people had back then. So many had faith but they really didn’t have the knowledge of the Word that we have now. The Bible was all still in Latin or Greek and perhaps one in a thousand back then could even read. And besides, God had used this method of working at least a few times in the Bible.

II Kings 13:20 & 21 says a burial team in an emergency virtually threw a dead body onto the grave of Elisha. And when the dead man’s body touched the bones of Elisha, then he came back to life. Or in the New Testament they sent handkerchiefs from Paul to people and they got healed. So, what can you say? These things are in the Word. (Acts 19:12)

But it just shows the broadness and latitude of God at times to work in ways that we (should I say this?) don’t think He should. Ha! Lord help us. Like King David said, “Stand in awe and sin not.” (Psalm 4:4) He really is a mighty God. We don’t have Him completely figured out. We err when we limit Him and say what He can’t or won’t do. He doesn’t always fit into our religious framework. He’s downright unorthodox at times. Still, we love Him, right? Lead on, oh King Eternal.