I read Supernatural: What the Bible Teaches Us About the Unseen World and Why it Matters as part of a small group assignment. For the first two chapters, I felt angry and hated this book in so many ways. I questioned why anyone would pick this book for our group. I thought the beliefs laid out in the book were maddening. I didn’t think I would be able to finish it.
Then I began to question myself – why was I feeling so angry about what I was reading? I was raised in an environment that taught me that if something varied from my beliefs, it was to be feared. But at this point in my life, there’s almost no belief that I hold to so steadfastly that it would scare me if someone disagreed.
So why was I angry? I realized it was because I’d never even heard of these concepts or had a chance to process them, so I was caught off guard. I decided to read on and found it very interesting once I wasn’t responding so emotionally.
The book poses the idea that there are a lot of gods and that the Bible even talks about them. Our God, the most powerful, had a counsel of gods to rule over the different parts of the world. At Babel, those gods decided to oppose God like Satan had.
If this were my foundational point- that there were multiple real gods, if that was the filter I read the Bible through, I could make it work without breaking the Bible. Why would a main commandment be “put no other gods before me” if there are no other gods? I thought the book was interesting and presented a viewpoint I’d never considered before. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not – it doesn’t matter, Jesus is the only thing that matters.
Here are some quotes I highlighted:
- Do you really believe what the Bible says?
- No act of kindness will fail to be used by the Spirit to direct someone’s heart.
- We can turn Christlikeness into a task we must perform lest God be angry with us, but that’s bad theology. It turns grace into duty. Or we can be grateful that one day we will be what God is thrilled to make us – what he predestined us to be.
- Our purpose in God’s plan is to restore his kingdom on earth.
- While we are already in the kingdom… already but not yet.