The Secret Things Belong To God

Deut 29:29 reads “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.”Not only does this passage tell us we don’t know things pertaining to the true God’s religion that are not revealed by His word, but it sort of tells us to leave any such ideas alone. I am not sure how to put it into words, but the text says the “secret things belong unto the Lord our God,” as if we should not teach on those concepts; they belong to God.Perhaps I could illustrate with a silly analogy. I am confident God could choose to look ahead and see the winner of next year’s Alabama-Auburn game if he wanted to, but he certainly hasn’t revealed the outcome to us if he has. So we might could say in a teasing sort of way that that future outcome of that game is a secret thing. Now is it wrong to speculate about who might win? I don’t think so; but if we were to teach who the winner is going to be as part of our gospel message/presentation, then that would not be letting the secret things belong to God.But now let’s be serious. There is much speculation about what Paul’s “thorn … in the flesh” (II Cor 12:7) might have been, but unless I am mistaken, the Bible never reveals what the exact problem was. I don’t suppose it is wrong to speculate about what it might have been, but when we make our guess part of preaching the gospel, then it seems we are not letting the “secret things belong unto … God.”The same thing is true about who the human pen was for the books of the Bible where such is not revealed. For example, I have seen almost whole Bible class periods spent on discussing who the author of Hebrews is. Again, wouldn’t that be not letting the “secret things belong unto … God”? Since the inspired text does not say, we ought to just say God is the author and leave it at that.The same is true about the date of the books of the Bible. For example, the Bible does not tell us the year (or even a range of years) for when the book of Revelation was written. To teach the “date of the book of Revelation” as part of the gospel is ignoring the fact that the date is unrevealed and as such is unknown. It would be similar to the date of Jesus’ return (unrevealed Mark 13:32), so we recognize that we don’t know and shouldn’t teach a when.Rev 1:10 mentions the “Lord’s Day.” Many Christians assume John means the first day of the week by that / others assume it refers to the Sabbath, but there is no scriptural proof for either. We don’t even know that it was a once a week thing; the Bible just not reveal any details about it. As such, it is a secret thing that we ought to let belong to God. We should just say we don’t know when the Lord’s Day was/is; it doesn't matter anyway.