The Part That Was Given To Us

There are two shelves in Yonatan's study and he can tell you exactly what is on each of them and he is not proud of the ratio.

The top shelf is the argument. Nine years of it. Commentaries that disagree, three of which he ordered from abroad. A folder of printed threads. Two notebooks that are entirely his own working, in which he has attempted, twice, to set out the whole of the disagreement fairly, and both attempts run out about two thirds of the way through, in the same place, at the same objection.

The lower shelf is smaller. It has four books on it about what people actually did, historically, with the ordinary parts of this. Two of them he has not opened.

His friend Ilana comes on a Thursday and they argue about everything and it is the best evening of his week.

She was looking at the shelves in the spring, not for any reason, and she said: "Which of these have you done anything about?"

He said that was not what books were for.

She said: "No, I am asking. Which of the things on these shelves have you ever actually gone and done?"

And he stood in his own study and could not name one.

Nine years. He can state the objection that stops both of his notebooks. He can tell you which of the three foreign commentaries handles it best and where even that one is weak. He has, on the subject of beginning something ordinary with God, not begun anything ordinary with God.

He said, to Ilana, and she has never let him forget it: "I have been working on the wrong shelf."

You may have shelves as well. Not necessarily books. Years of attention, given to the part of this that nobody has ever settled, while the part that was handed over plainly has sat there unopened. And nobody has pointed out that Scripture itself draws a line between those two things, and says whose each side is.

The Line Is Drawn And The Sides Are Named

There is a sentence near the end of Deuteronomy that does something almost nothing else in Scripture does. It draws a line straight through a subject and assigns each side of it to somebody.

"The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law."Deuteronomy 29:29

Two categories, both named, both assigned.

The secret things belong to God. That is not a warning and it is not a rebuke; it is an allocation. Some of it is His, and it is His in the sense that a thing on somebody else's desk is theirs.

The revealed things belong to us. Also an allocation. And then the purpose clause at the end, which is the part Yonatan had never given four seconds to: that we may do.

You have been given a side of the line and it was handed over in order to be done. Deuteronomy 29 assigns both categories explicitly and attaches a doing verb to the one that is ours, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes that and stands it in front of two shelves in a warm study.

And it is worth saying what that sentence is not doing. It is not calling the secret things unimportant, and it is not telling anybody to stop thinking. Deuteronomy is a book of enormous care about detail and this is not a verse against study.

It is a verse about ownership. And a man can spend nine years on somebody else's desk with the best of motives and the finest of tools.

You were handed a portion that is plain enough to act on today. That is what the written word does with the difference between what is settled and what is not, and it is the Spirit of God who makes an allocation land in somebody standing in front of his own shelves.

This Page Is Not Against Study And Has No Verdict

Now be exact, because a page like this could easily be misread as a swipe at people who think hard, and that would be a poor return for a man with three foreign commentaries.

Nothing here says the argument is a waste. It says it is not settled, which is different, and there are people whose calling is to work at exactly that and this article is not aimed at them.

And this site does not rule on it. It does not lean, it is not withholding a view, and it does not consider either of the positions in your notebooks to be obviously right.

Your top shelf can stay exactly as it is. Nothing here is asking you to burn a single book.

You can act today on the plain side while the other side stays open. It is written that the revealed things belong unto us, that we may do, and the doing does not wait on the secret side being opened, and His Spirit is the one who has been in that study for all nine years.

And say the guard, because this whole site runs on it. Nothing here asks you for anything. No figure, no proportion, no percentage, no practice, no position, no side, and nothing routed to any person, cause, church or work anywhere at all. You are as fully His with the top shelf untouched, that is the written shape of it, and the Holy Spirit is the one keeping this page from becoming a tenth notebook.