The Secret is… there is no secret.   Many Christians throughout history have doubted this, however.

• Starting in the first two centuries of the church, the Gnostic sects taught that they had special, secret, knowledge that people needed to have access to God. Irenaeus argued against the Gnostics that God’s revelation is found in Holy Scripture, the words of the initial apostles, and the words of those who were trained by the apostles. In other words, God is not into secrets… at least not secrets we need for abundant living. God’s revelation was given Holy Scripture and it was meant to be available to all… not to the few. Then if Christ did indeed have secrets, who would He have shared it with— His disciples who were to share them to all people, or to some individuals who kept secrets for a select few?  That tactic has popped up on occasion in recent centuries as well. Perhaps this was most famously done with “United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing” (Shakers) with Ann Lee being considered the female counterpart to Christ, or of Mormonism’s teaching of a 2nd (and secret) revelation of Christ.
• Over centuries groups claimed to have a certain special secret. Sometimes it was a new revelation, second blessing, modern innovation, or restoration of some ancient practice (like embracing superficial Jewish practices, or primitive church alleged practices). Of course, traditionalists sometimes react by saying that their traditions are “the secret.’

I have been to a few trainings in my time. The more aggressive ones tend to be built around some sort of “core secret.” In one, the “secret” is FASTING. You want to twist God’s arm to do what you want Him to do rather than what He wants to do? You just need to fast. <Considering how ambivalent the Bible is regarding fasting, it would certainly be a pretty big secret if this was true.> I also recall going to a training which was a pretty mundane form of discipleship training. The one innovation that was supposed to turn it from mundane to awesome was the secret of “generational bondage.” In that, If you are a Christian but have an ancestor who committed some sort of sin, then God either gives you a curse or allows a curse to be placed upon you (not sure which, really). He doesn’t tell you this, and doesn’t really forgive it unless you say a prayer worded in a specific way. This seems based on nothing more than a passage in the Torah that is open to a wide variety of interpretations, and completely ignores a chapter in Ezekiel that appears to completely undermine the logic.

This desire for secrets in our faith perhaps says something very real about our spirituality, something a wee bit negative about ourselves, and something quite negative about our view of God.

Very Real About our Spirituality. We often feel like our lives are not embracing that “Abundant Life” that Jesus spoke of. We feel unsatisfied and so we look for secrets or “spiritual life hacks.” I would argue, however, that we spend more time avoiding the guidance of Christ than we do actually obeying Him. It is like the quote from Chesterton, ” The Christian Ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it’s been found difficult and left untried.” Our quest for secrets ultimately comes out of our own spiritual laziness.

A Wee Bit Negative About Ourselves. Let’s be honest, we like to know secrets… but a secret is not really a secret if it is freely available to everyone. We like to know secrets and know that others don’t know them. We want to go to seminars where the Secrets of __________ are revealed. We open Clickbait webpages with titles that utilize tactics that draw on this ugly part of ourselves.

Something Really Negative About Our View of God. Think about it for a moment. Consider the Generational Bondage example above. For it to be true, God would have to have a curse on us for something we did not do, and perhaps did not even know about. He would have to make sure that we have a miserable life without telling us why for something we did not do. He would also not remove that misery until we say a specific incantation that has no really support in God’s public revelation to us.

Is that a god we really want to worship? Taking it further, do we really want to worship a God whose revelation is only truly available to the cogniscenti… scholars? Do we want God’s revelation that can bridge languages and cultures, or do we want it to only be understood by scholars of 6th century BC Hebrew, 1st Century Koine Greek, 4th century AD Latin, 16th century English, or (perhaps) 7th century Arabic. Is that the God we really want? Do we want a God who tells one story publically to witnesses who feel compelled to share freely to all, but then tells certain critical “facts” to a few specially selected people who are good at keeping these facts from the majority?

In Clickbait articles, there is often the backstory that there is a secret that a select group has and is now being revealed to the consternation of those special ones. Some articles claim there is a great cancer cure that medical doctors don’t want us to know.  Or there is a secret way to wealth that millionares or billionares know, and that they desperately don’t want us to get because then we would join their elite group. I suppose it is okay that we have such hateful attitudes about doctors, or dentists, or stock traders, or the rich (or others). Sometimes it may even be true.

But why would we want to apply such thinking in our opinion of God… that God has special secrets that He doesn’t really want us to know… but would be hugely valuable for us to know. Sure, we don’t know exactly when Christ is returning (despite groups that claim to have such secret knowlege). But why would we think we would benefit from that knowledge? The faithful servant in Jesus’ parable was rewarded in being ready every day for his master’s return. The foolish servant apparently thought he could figure out the time of his master’s return and thus could be lazy and abusive. Presumably, if God doesn’t tell us something, we probably benefit from that ignorance. It seems to me that in Christ, we have God who shared freely with His disciples and told them to share freely with everyone, “even to the ends of hte world.”

The secret is that there is no secret. We should be thankful to God that there is no secret.