Sometimes we want to know things that God hasn’t told us specifically in His Word. Sometimes that’s good, like wanting to know a specific direction or plan God has for our lives at the moment. But sometimes it doesn’t matter, like what Jesus was writing in the dirt in the beginning of John 8. If it were important for us to know, God would have told us. He would have moved someone to record it and we’d know about it.
While it is sometimes interesting to talk about and speculate over unknown details in the Bible, we do need to realize that they aren’t important. Or as some might simply put it, “It don’t matter.” Would I love more details on just how it looked, sounded, and felt when God created the universe? Yes. Would I love to know just how much time He took to do each thing by our standard time measurements? Yes. Would I like to know if amphibians were made on the fifth or the sixth day? Also yes. But do those things matter? No. It doesn’t matter how it was done, what matters is that God is the one who did it.
There are things like that sprinkled throughout the Bible. Some things are mentioned but not detailed, and while it might help me to better understand a situation if I did some study on it, it won’t change the lesson I’m supposed to learn. We shouldn’t go building doctrines or beliefs on things that God has not told us. While Jesus might have been drawing or writing something cool in the dirt in John 8, it could be just as likely that He was just doodling for the sake of doodling. Again, if it was important God would have told us, so clearly, “It don’t matter.”
Am I saying that we shouldn’t talk about these things at all? No, I am saying that we should be careful about how we talk about some of them and the conclusions that we come to. For example, is it wrong for me to wonder just how much of a Sasquatch that Esau was for goat skin to be the disguise of choice when his brother wanted to impersonate him? (Genesis 27:11-16) No, and whether or not I know the answer doesn’t change anything doctrinally and doesn’t change the point of the account. It’s a neat little question, but ultimately it don’t matter.
A little more on things that don’t matter:
A Few Doctrinally Unimportant Questions