“there is a grimness and grubbiness to a lot of Scripture”

“There’s a grimness and grubbiness to a lot of Scripture because there’s a grimness and grubbiness to a lot of life.”  Steve Hays

“Devotional Bible Reading” by Steve Hays

Because we ordinarily limit our Bible reading to the most overtly spiritual sections, we tend to have a somewhat unrealistic picture of what all is in the Bible. If we read the entire Bible, we are amazed at how much non-religious content there is–bodily ailments and hygiene in the Pentateuch, military history in the chronicles and court history in those same books, and detailed pictures of social life in the OT prophetic books…The Bible covers pretty much all of life, not only specifically spiritual experiences like prayer and forgiveness of sin and good and evil but also national history, harvest, sunrise, and losing an axe in a body of water… L. Ryken, A Christian Guide to the Classics (Crossway 2015), 68.

On the one hand, some readers are offended by the “unedifying” passages of Scripture. On the other hand, when some Christians only read the edifying passages, it leaves them unprepared for the contrast between their selective reading of Scripture and the world they must confront. There’s a grimness and grubbiness to a lot of Scripture because there’s a grimness and grubbiness to a lot of life. It’s spiritually perilous when our real-life experience fails to matchup with Scripture because we only read the inspirational sections. But the Christian pilgrimage isn’t all hymn singing and 1 Corinthians 13. “

Steve Hays of Triablogue

My bolding and emphasis. 

This is wise to remember when seeking to read through the Old Testament especially, when we come across chapters of issues dealing with hygiene and getting rid of human excrement out of the camp in the desert,  and dealing with mold, and dead bodies, and some of the death penalty punishments and details of the building of the tabernacle and genealogies.

This gives us perspective when we go to our first funeral and see a dead body, or see your beloved family member get Alzheimer’s disease, or have to help your elderly father deal with his bathroom issues, and change his diaper like he was a baby again. Or having to deal with a suicide of someone you love . . .

There are mysteries to this life.  God is sovereign and does not answer all our questions. Many things are answered for us by God in Scripture, but some things remain hidden and are mysterious.

Ecclesiastes 11:5 ESV –

“As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.”

NASB –

“Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things.”