Powers of Observation
When I come home from visiting, my wife will ask me questions about colors or items I noticed. I don’t notice much of anything. However, I am able to notice details in Scripture text after years of practice.
In the television show “Elementary” from about ten years ago, Sherlock has powers of observation different than the ones above. He notices small things that most people would not notice. So does God. God’s Word does not describe God’s notice as the same as mine or my wife’s, or Sherlock’s. But God’s powers of observation are noted in several places. I’ve traced some it by searching out “small things.”
God notices the smallest of details in His Word, the Scriptures. It is common today as people wanting to preach the “gist” of Scripture without attention to the specifics. I think it allows them to shave the “rough” edges from God’s Word, though I would argue that it is the “rough” edges with which we need to struggle. The”Word-as-received” addresses hidden offenses more effectively. Here is what Jesus says: Matt. 5:18 “until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”
God’s judgment is also impartial, so much so that, as it says in Deut. 1:17 ‘You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike.” God instructs His people to judge in this way because He judges in this way. He is not bound by our estimation of what is a “big” sin or a “significant” sin or an an especially “bad” sin. All sin is an affront to God’s holiness.
The entrance to God’s salvation is small: Matt. 7:14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” The path to God is exclusive. Jesus famously said, John 14:6 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” It would be fair to translate this verse “I am the only way.” It is narrow as opposed to the broad way that accepts every notion of man’s mind that imagines what God ought to accept. But man’s open-minded opinion contradicts the statement above about the small gate and the narrow way.
But also, God accepts all kinds of people for salvation. God’s powers of observation, demonstrated by Jesus, notice the poor and the blind, the rejected and the outcasts. Remember how Jesus noticed with His divine powers of observation the woman at the well and the woman with the issue of blood. He noticed the small child and the criminal on the adjacent cross. He noticed the one man in the tree that everyone else wanted to ignore: Luke 19:3 Zaccheus was trying to see who Jesus was, and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way. 5 When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.”
God sees things that others do not see. He sees you and the things that you wish other people would notice and the things that you wish other people wouldn’t. But He sees, and His regard for you and your concerns is not governed by the false notion of “bigger is better” that has captivated our culture. Oh, God is indeed great, but He notices that which is not.
