When God gave people Free Will and a superior intellect compared to his other creations, something else came along with that: curiosity.
And curiosity is a two-edged sword, able to be both useful and damaging, all at the same time.
If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.
Now we all can figure out how curiosity is helpful; I mean, without it we would never learn beyond what we were born knowing.
The way it becomes dangerous is when we do things out of curiosity that are designed to not just understand about God, but to be able to duplicate what God does (think Frankenstein’s monster).
For example, from the very start of humanity, curiosity got us in trouble when Eve wondered what that apple would taste like. And, being encouraged by the snake saying that eating it would make her like God, she not only found out but enticed Adam to join her because he was, most likely, also curious about it.
Alfred Nobel was curious about how to make nitroglycerine safe for industrial use, and we all know how that turned out.
But this is a ministry, so I need to point out how curiosity detrimentally affects our spiritual condition.
The main way in which curiosity has been causing dissension and separation within the body of those who believe in God is trying to understand why God does what he does.
Why are some foods okay to eat and others not okay to eat?
Why is the 7th day a Shabbat and not any other day?
Why does he kill entire civilizations while telling us it is a sin to kill?
What is his real name, and how do we pronounce it?
I am sure that you can come up with many other questions about God and why he does or doesn’t do this or that, but the point is that curiosity is something that causes us to question the one thing we should never question: why God does what he does.
Now, I am not saying we should never question God. After all, I believe he is “big’ enough to handle a few questions, but the questions we ask shouldn’t have to do with him justifying his commandments or laws.
When it comes to curiosity about why God gave us those instructions for how to worship him and how to treat each other (all of which are found in the Torah), those need to be accepted and obeyed without question. Why? Because he is GOD, that’s why!
Curiosity is the main reason we have so many different religions, each one professing to worship the one God who never changes, yet each religion having different ways to worship him.
How does curiosity come into this? Simple: people want to know why God gives us certain commandments, and when we can’t answer those questions because we NEED to know, we create our own answers.
The best examples of this I can think of are the epistles Shaul (Saul) wrote to congregations he formed throughout Asia and the Middle East who were having issues with their faith and interpersonal relationship conflicts.
Much of what he wrote needs to be understood from a Jewish mindset, but he was writing mainly to Gentiles so it was hard for them to know what he meant. Even Kefa (Peter) said his letters were hard to understand (2 Peter 3:16), so what did the leaders of what was quickly becoming a new Gentile religion do?
They made up their own answers, not based on God’s Torah but on their own desires. The one thing that came out to be the most popular answer was that Shaul was telling them they did not have to follow the Torah, anymore.
God tells us what he wants us to do in the Torah, but being curious why he told us that, along with the confusion about how to follow the Torah in Shaul’s letters, led to making up an answer that was pleasing to these neophyte believers in Yeshua. And being able to ignore the laws of Kashrut (Kosher), for one, was a very acceptable answer.
Changing the Sabbath to a different day, ignoring kosher, ignoring Holy Day sacrifices which required having to travel to the temple in Jerusalem, and many other Torah laws regarding tithing, restitution for being a poor trustee, relationships within family, etc. were answered in a way that was more comfortable to Gentiles leaving a hedonistic religion.
I should state that these are my opinions, not anything I can validate with historical source documentation. I believe these represent (at least) some of the motivating factors for the creation of so many man-made religions.
Going forward, knowing that we are always curious, how do we know when to draw the line?
I can’t give you an absolute answer to this, and I am not sorry for posing questions to which I don’t have an answer, but isn’t that the beginning of knowledge?
Confessing we do not know and trying to learn the answer is how we grow, intellectually and spiritually.
I will give you one guideline, an “Acid Test” question I ask myself when curious about why something is what it is, and this is that question:
“How does this affect my salvation?”
If knowing why something is what it is, and that knowledge will help me to remain on the pathway to righteousness, then it is something I will delve into and try to resolve. If, on the other hand, it is just a nice-to-know thing, I can either let it go or (as with everything regarding God), trust in God that whatever he says to do is for our benefit, and just do it without having to know why.
For example, the biggest issue I have seen is about being kosher- Jews keep kosher and (most) Gentiles do not, and there are many reasons, from both camps, why they should and why they don’t need to anymore. Generally, they revolve around health issues.
For instance, pork carries Trichinosis and so since cooking vessels were often re-used for all the food, that parasite might be spread. On the other hand, now that we have the USDA and better cooking appliances, there is no need to worry about this parasite, so it is OK to eat pork.
As far as I am concerned, parasite or not, healthy or not, if God said don’t do it then just don’t do it!
Does knowing why God said what is clean and what is not affect my salvation? No, it doesn’t, and does eating pork or not eating pork affect my salvation, well… if we confess our sins but don’t try to stop doing them, I believe that will affect our salvation. You see, it isn’t easy to question why and determine the answer because sometimes what doesn’t affect our salvation (why pork and not beef) might lead to another aspect that does (rejecting God’s laws).
My advice is to know the Torah, and do your very best to be obedient because, whether you understand why or not, when in doubt or curious always do what God said to do and you can’t go wrong.
Remember that guy Kohelet (Ecclesiastes)? He said that trying to understand anything about God was just chasing the wind, and after a lifetime of trying to understand why God does what he does, he ended up concluding that we should just appreciate what we have and fear God (which means worshiping him as he said to do), for that is the beginning of wisdom.
So, let’s conclude with this: being curious is OK, but overall you are better off just trusting in God. Remember what Yeshua said in Mark 10:15:
Yes! I tell you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it!
Children ask a lot of questions, but they also believe what we tell them. Believe that what God says is all you need to know, and you are on the right path.
Thank you for being here and please remember to subscribe, comment and “Like” these messages, both here on YouTube and on my website, Messianicmoment.com. And share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.
That’s it for today, so L’hitraot, and Baruch HaShem!