My guess is that commonality, whether common or uncommon, is not a subject that is sending great waves of expectation coursing through your body. It’s also probably reasonable to assume that the idea of reading something about commonality doesn’t even register on your excitement Richter scale. Admittedly, commonality doesn’t sound very exciting, BUT …

Commonality is a very important principle of Biblical understanding.

 Therefore, I urge you to continue reading.

Hidden In Plain Sight

Have you ever noticed how the things you see all of the time get the least of your attention? My first instruction to this principle came when I was eleven years old. I attended an art school every Saturday morning. The teacher, either knowingly or unknowingly, had the commonality concept in mind when he began each session with an assignment to quickly draw an ordinary object from memory … something we saw all the time … like a common bird or a rose. We quickly learned how much our power of observation was lacking. Recalling the general appearance of the items we were assigned to draw was not a problem, it was the details that eluded us. Objects like those selected for these assignments were just too common … we saw them so frequently we didn’t give them much consideration. From this we can understand how large groups of similar items can have a similar effect. Just as it is difficult to recall details of very familiar objects, it can be near to impossible to pick out a particular item which is part of a large group of similar objects.

For example, a single person is easily lost in a sports stadium full of people. And it is difficult to pick out one tulip in a large field of seemingly identical flowers. Not only that, you tend to not pay attention to a single tulip’s details when your eyes are taking in thousands of blooms in one glance. So here’s an interesting question, if you wanted to hide a tulip, would it be hidden best on the mantle above your fireplace or amidst a field of tulips? Of course, the answer must be in the tulip field.

This is the idea behind the witness protection program. The best place to hide a person, or a family, is among a lot people … right out in the open … so they are hidden in plain sight. When a person is placed in the witness protection program, they are given new names and identities, then they’re taken to a new location … not to hide in an out-of-the-way motel … but to live normal lives. They get jobs, attend school, go to movies and restaurants, buy houses … they do all of the common activities normal people do. The object is not to stand out, but to blend in, become a tulip in a tulip filed.

Treasure Maps

Treasure maps are an important part of stories and movies such as the Indiana Jones series. In such movies, the good guys and the bad guys often search for a map, because it shows the location of a treasure. The maps are often hidden in a clay pot or behind a painting hanging on a wall. These are O.K. hiding places if you want the map to be found, as is the case in a movie. However, the witness protection method of hiding people teaches that a better hiding place for a secret map would be to hide the map with a lot of other treasure maps, in say a book of treasure maps. Of course, only one map would lead to the true treasure, the others are merely camouflage.

Maps might be a great way to hide directions to a treasure if you’re making a movie. A better way might be to write out the directions to the treasure in a carefully crafted story. The story would then be included them in a big book of stories about a traveling family. The book would contain many other directions to a lot of other places. Such a book might be one that many people would want to own and read, if only because of the interesting experiences the family encounters on their journey. Directions to the real treasure would, in this way, be effectively hidden among a myriad of the other directions to scores of other destinations. Like a person in the witness protection program, the way to the real treasure would be hidden in plain sight … camouflaged by directions to a host of other locations. As the book becomes more and more popular, many copies come into circulation. The more popular the book, the better the hiding place for the directions to the special location. If a large number of the books are sold each year all over the world, the book itself becomes very common. The directions to the treasure are then very well hidden in the commonness of the book as well as all of the directions to different locations included in the book. Only someone who knew that the directions to the treasure were hidden in the book would know to look in the book to find the way to the hidden treasure. And the people who would actually find the treasure are the ones who discover how to distinguish between the true and false directions.

The Hidden Book

The book I’ve just described, in the above loosely woven analogy, is the Bible. Hidden in the million or so words of the English Bible are directions to a treasure trove of jewels, precious stones, gold and silver. Valuable nuggets of truth. Each one a jewel of great worth. The story is that of the family of Israel. Included with accounts of their journeys are their successes and failures along the way. In addition, there are stories of wars and their victories and defeats over their 4,000 year history. Hidden among the stories is an avalanche of directions to the greatest treasures you could ever hope to find. Concealed in the accounts of common, ordinary people are to be found such uncommon valuables as hope and joy, mercy and forgiveness, courage and strength, freedom from bondage and eternal life. There are also depictions of sin and evil of every kind, as well as recipes for staying out of the snare of the enemy. Of course, the greatest treasure of all to be found in the Bible is the directions to the greatest destination of all, the kingdom of heaven.

Treasures For Every Age

The secrets of the universe are hidden in the Bible’s pages, but even school children can understand it. At one and the same time it is general enough to appeal to every person in every age, yet specific enough that individuals believe it was written just for them. The Bible has treasures of immense value hidden to be found by those who have been blessed with the gift to unlock the way to the all of the treasures. Treasures that are securely hidden among approximately one million words (in an English Bible) in accordance to the principle of commonality.

One of the most common things in the world around us was discussed in the previous article on duality. In it, we saw that dualities are all around us since  everything has a flip side called a counterpart. Dualities and counterparts are so prolific in our world we barely notice them, and when we do, we generally attach little importance to them. What a great place to hide valuable treasures.

Biblical Covenant Is Hidden In Commonality

One of the most important themes in the Bible, that of blood covenant, is well hidden in the Bible because of commonality.

Covenant is common to life. Even when evidence of covenant is limited to human relationships, covenants abound. Not only are there a vast number of covenants in existence, the number of them is rapidly growing all the time. The commonality principle tells us the best hiding place for something is among many similar objects.

According to the most general definition for a covenant, a relationship is a covenant and vice versa. Now consider that there are approximately seven billion people populating the earth. That’s a staggering number. Even more stunning is that the population of the world is constantly growing with no end in sight. Now consider that since each person has numerous relationships the number of covenant relationships. The number of covenants that exist between the world’s seven billion people has to be in the tens if not hundreds of billions. In fact, the number of covenant relationships that exist in the world may well be too large to count.

The primary focus of the Revealed Truth study is blood covenant as it is presented in the Bible. Blood covenant relationships made between individuals are the most sacred of all relationships. They are also the most enduring, lasting beyond the deaths of the covenant makers and extending to their descendants. It is difficult for us to fathom how much more sacred and binding a blood covenant between God and a man is. And trying to comprehend the majesty of such a covenant between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is nearly impossible for us humans. Yet, this is the relationship that exists between them. They are one, the three in one, completely united through covenant in every possible way. There never has been, is not now and never will be even the slightest hint of a possible division among them. You will learn much about covenant as you go through this Bible study such as how you can attain entry into the very covenant between the three persons of the triune God.

But for now, let me just say that covenant relationships are extremely important to God, and as you should expect, they are beautifully hidden. He has hidden them first in the Bible which is hidden among many millions of Bibles; then He has hidden them among the billions of covenant relationships among the people of the world. Biblical covenant must truly be exceptionally valuable if God has gone to such extensive measures to hide them from those who would trample them under their feet. Covenant relationships are so common, we hardly ever pay any attention to them. Finding those that are important to God requires they be sought with great sincerity and diligence.

The Bible is largely built on the principles of duality and commonality. This is why we have spent so much time on these principles. It is absolutely essential to recognize this if you want to be in a position of gaining true understanding from your time studying the Bible.

May you be blessed with God’s grace to be able to unlock the secrets of covenant in the Bible,

Peter Giardina