When The Bible Doesn't Speak Plainly
Finding presence, not platitudes, in the Word made flesh
As a young Christian, I was led to believe that the Bible speaks plainly and that it has all the answers to life's questions. You know, it's the B.I.B.L.E-- Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. For much of my life, I approached the Bible that way. I thought its power came from how clearly it could answer questions. How quickly it could make the world make sense. I treated the Bible like a rulebook, a theology manual, or a holy search engine. But it rarely worked like that. Because the deeper I went, the more I found that Scripture doesn’t hand out plain answers. Not to the things that matter most.
In John 10, Jesus is walking into the temple during Hanukkah. It’s winter. He’s surrounded by religious leaders who press him with a question: “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” They want clarity. Simplicity. A theological bottom line.
But Jesus doesn’t give them what they want.
“I have told you,” he says, “and you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me.”
Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon’s porch. Then the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him, “How long do You keep us in doubt? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.
John 10:22-28
He doesn’t answer with a definition. He answers with presence. With the evidence of lives changed around him. And then, like a good shepherd, he says, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me… No one will snatch them out of my hand.”
That’s not the kind of answer they were looking for. And to be honest, it’s not always the kind I want either.
I read a quote this week that said, "Plain reading of Scripture = My reading of Scripture." It’s a short sentence, but it hits hard. Because if we’re honest, that’s what we often mean when we demand a plain reading of Scripture. We don’t really want it plain. We want it to be predictable. We want it to affirm what we already believe. We want it to say what we would say if we were God.
And if I’m honest, I wanted my faith to work the same way. I wanted clarity. Consistency. I wanted my beliefs to always land cleanly, my prayers to come with receipts, my theology to have airtight logic. But that’s not how real life, or real faith, works.
And yet, even in the absence of plain answers, I still find images in the Bible that sustain me and provide clarity. Not because they explain, but because they accompany. One of the most enduring is the image of God as a shepherd. Some of the earliest Christian art found in the Roman catacombs doesn’t depict Jesus on a cross or a throne—it shows him as a shepherd, carrying a sheep. That’s the image the early church clung to: not a conquering king, but a gentle guide who stays close in the dark. Some passages name it directly. Others echo it through the experience of being held, guided, or raised up in the dark. Together, they offer a theology of presence—not from above, but alongside us—in pain, grief, suffering, and even death.
Psalm 23, obviously, is the quintessential example. "The Lord is my shepherd." We know it by heart. But what it offers is more than comfort—it’s a story of perseverance. David takes us from the pasture through the valley of the shadow of death, into the enemy's camp, and finally to the house of the Lord. His life, flawed and complex, becomes a witness to the faithfulness of a God who sticks with him.
Even in the closing visions of the Bible we are reminded that God is a present shepherd. In Revelation 7:17, we see a multitude who have suffered, those who came out of great tribulation. "For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." Their robes, once stained, are now white. And the Lamb—who was slain—has become their shepherd. He leads them to springs of living water. The image shifts: the victim becomes the guide. The slain becomes the shepherd.
So he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Revelation 7:14-17, NKJV
These scriptures are meant to be comforting. They show us that God is present, even when life isn't so clear. But make no mistake, these aren't platitudes. It is more than words to the suffering that "God will see you through it." They might ask, "Where is he then?" Using the Bible in this way is shallow, short-sighted, and returns to our desire for everything to be clear and answerable.
Maybe it’s because we’ve been shaped by a culture that assumes every problem has a solution. Maybe we’re addicted to certainty. We want truth we can bullet-point. We want theology that fits on a bumper sticker.
John Piper once wrote an entire book critiquing N.T. Wright’s theology of justification, not because he thought Wright was entirely wrong, but because he thought Wright was too complex. Piper argued that the church needs simple, plain answers. That kind of thinking—shaped by Enlightenment ideals—reduces the Bible to something tidy, controllable, and immediately applicable. And so we flatten the stories. We reduce them to lessons. And we forget that the deepest things of God are not always plain, but they can still be known.
Jesus didn’t always make things simple. He didn’t answer plainly. He invited people to experience him, which is far more complex and uncomfortable, especially for the modern human.
If we are all honest in life, most lessons in life aren't learned from a book or in a classroom. They came through hard times. They came through grief. Through heartbreak. Through silence. Through being held by God in moments that didn’t make sense. That kind of knowing can’t be explained. It has to be lived.
We’re often told that the valley is something to get through. That on the other side, there will be a mountaintop. But what if the valley is the mountain? What if it’s not the place we pass through, but the place where we are changed?
That’s what it means to know the Good Shepherd. To not just believe he is with us, but to feel him beside us when everything else is falling apart. To trust that we are still in his hand, even when it doesn’t feel like it.
To me, this is why I find Jesus as the Word of God (John 1) more helpful—and more meaningful—than the idea of the written text being the Word of God. The Bible may fail to give us the answers we want, but Jesus will never fail to give us the presence we need.
Jesus didn’t always offer the kind of clarity we keep reaching for. He didn’t define himself into a formula. He pointed to his life, to the people around him, to the works done in his Father’s name. He said, “My sheep hear my voice.” Not “My sheep have all the answers.”
That’s not always the answer I want. But it’s the one I’ve come to trust.
Because somehow, even when I can’t explain it, I know this:
The Shepherd still speaks.
The Shepherd still stays.
And even in the dark, even in the valley, even in suffering, we are still known.