I have been a believer for quite sometime – since I was eight. It’s a miracle, however, that I believe at all. I grew up in a Oneness Pentecostal home that was very legalistic and rigid. Since then I have changed a great deal in regard to my beliefs. I very much believe in the Trinity, justification by faith, etc. So you could say I’m pretty much orthodox now. But with all that said, I have been having a bit of trouble with my faith. I’m kinda having a hard time believing in God or praying to him because I just don’t see the point in it anymore because I feel like he doesn’t answer. In fact I feel as if it pointless because he isn’t here – right here, spatially – to speak with me. I dunno I just feel like with all that I have happening in my life a face to face relationship – a person to person to person conversation – is what I need from him. And I can’t have that. I mean it is as if God is a distant uncle to whom I send letters (prayers), and he sends a postcard. Is it enough to just say that God has spoken through his word so he doesn’t need to speak now? I don’t feel like it. Why couldn’t Jesus have just stayed here, albeit in a ubiquitous form? That way I could talk to him. I know he is the Father’s representative to man and for man so why not stay here where he can be physically accessible?

__________________________________

My friend,

Thanks so much for writing and for your honesty. Your thoughts, it might comfort you to know, are not uncommon. The problem you speak of is called the “hiddenness of God” in theological circles. Why is God so hidden? It is hard to know exactly why, but the fact of his hiddenness is something the Bible speaks to very clearly. In Acts 1 the angels say, “Why do you stare into heaven. . . He will come back just as you have seen him go.” In other words, you will not “see” him again until he comes back. Christ told his disciples in the upper room before his death that it is “better for you if I go because I will send the Comforter.” I often think “it is NOT better for you to go because I cannot see or hear the Holy Spirit.”

I believe that naked belief (i.e., without empirical experience) is what God calls on us to have right now. We do have to “limp” through this life without having seen God or Jesus, yet believe in him. I don’t have any perfectly sound theological reason why God is not more empirically evident in our lives (though I will give some thoughts below). My more charismatic friends would disagree, as you probably know. However, I have called and called to God to show himself to me. In my darkest times (and against my better theological judgement), I have groped for a sign of his presence, love, even his very existence! Angels, Jesus, a sound, or some type of miracle would be sufficient. I remember two years ago when I was going through my depression. I stayed up all night crying, sitting in my car in the garage yelling at God, asking him to just do something - anything! The silence at that time was deafening. It was painful. It hurt my feelings at a very deep level that the all-powerful God would not perform the simplest of tasks. I thought, “God, if you are so great and love me so much why are you so silent? Why now? Why when I am this depressed? Just do something!”

But I think the empirical silence of God is normative for the Christian life. Philip Yancey says that we have to work with “rumors of another world.” In fact, ironically, if God were not empirically silent, the Bible would be in error. Peter says, “And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet 1:8-9; emphasis mine). You see, Peter here assumes that those in his day – even those so close to the life and death of Christ – have not seen Christ (or God or the Holy Spirit). Peter’s point would be moot if he did not mean to include all other forms of experiencing God empirically. The fact is that when Christ ascended into heaven, that was the last we have seen or heard from him in such a way. The door to the “other side” was shut.

If Peter’s statement was not enough, the Apostle Paul also says that the Christian life is a life following after the unseen: “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). He goes on by telling us that we “live by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). Christ even told Thomas, who needed to see him before he believed, ”Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29; emphasis mine). The “those who have not seen” are us, and we are many. John could not be more clear here: “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen (1 John 4:20, emphasis mine). John does not say, “whom he has probably not seen.” He works under the assumption that everyone reading his letter has not seen God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and (if I can be so bold) the “other side.” Finally, the author of Hebrews defines faith as something hoped for which is not seen: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1; emphasis mine). The very definition of our faith is that we have conviction about truths that cannot be empirically verified. This does not mean that faith is irrational. It just means that we should not expect to have it verified through our senses.

I am not saying that I have not seen God work in my life. I certainly have. However, my thinking and interpretation of his “movements” is possessed by my belief that he is moving in my life in non-dramatic ways. I see him in everything. I see him even in this email you sent to me. I believe that it is a “God thing.” Why? Because I am convinced of the central truths of Christianity and the reliability of the Bible. I feed off of this (even though I would rather have a periodic conversation with Christ face to face). We work with what we got: trusting God knows what he is doing.

However, I do believe that the silence of God serves a definite purpose. God’s silence, ironically, may serve to keep us productive in this life. It may keep us from (and I am getting dramatic here) committing suicide. Let me illustrate (as I have done before) by referencing my favorite show Justice League! It was an episode where Flash went so fast that he actually began to die and cross over to the “other side.” The molecules in his body were completely unstable and he was stuck between this world and the next. When prodded to come back, Flash had a hard time. He said, “But it is so beautiful over here.” Watch it here:

You see, the lines were blurred between this life and the next and Flash wanted to go to the next. He could not concentrate on this world any longer due to his exposure to the next. In other words, he wanted to die due to his empirical experience on the “other side.” He needed to have an experiential breach between this life and the next in order to remain here and accomplish his mission (gettin’ them bad guys). When “rumors of another world” turns into “experience of the other world,” we lose sight of this world.

I don’t think this story is too far from reality. You and I also need an experiential (empirical) breach from the “other side.” We need not to see Jesus. We need not to talk to Jesus. We need not to hear Jesus.

Let’s look at the example of the Disciples of Christ. The Disciples, understandably, did not want Jesus to die. When he spoke of his death, they were so bold as to desire to die with him. When Thomas - doubting Thomas, of all people! – thought Jesus was going to die, he said to the other disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him” (John 11:16). I love it! A call for death in the name of the Lord! What a simple faith this expresses. Peter was no different when he said “Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death!”(Lk. 22:33). All who were with Jesus had empirical evidence of the “other side” in the person of Christ and they were not willing to let that go, even to death. In Acts 1:6, they still had hope that Christ had blurred the lines permanently: “Is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” But they had to watch as Christ was taken into the sky, never to be seen again until his second coming (Acts 1:9-11). The point is that the disciples would have gladly gone on a suicide mission with Christ if it meant a continuation of their exposure to the “other side” in the person of Christ.

You and I would do the same. Were God to show himself in the ways we so often think he should – were he to do things the way we would do them – we would probably never be able to accomplish our mission. We would continually be wanting to die in order to cross over. We would be like Flash, having empirical involvement in the world to come, but still having one foot in the current world. However, unlike Flash (who had Superman and Wonder Woman pulling him back!), we most definitely would cross over. Why wouldn’t we? The mysterious would be unmysterious. The lines between this life and the next would be so blurred that we would not hesitate to take that extra step of death, even by our own hand. At the very least, if God were to talk to us face to face, we would never get enough.

While I don’t claim to have all the answers as to why God does not allow us to experience him in such empirical ways, I suspect there is some truth to what I have said here. It is odd to say, but God’s silence may actually preserve his mission for us. The ability to be stable here in this life is actually facilitated by God’s (empirical) silence. I am not saying this is the only reason God is silent, but it does make sense.

Most importantly, while we should not expect to see God with our eyes nor hear him with our ears, God is not ignoring us. His presence is evident and he is not silent. He just moves in very unconventional ways!

Keep the faith my brother. If Christ rose from the grave, then we will one day see him face to face. Until then we must fight the good fight and run the race with our eyes set on the future.

 Similar Posts:

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• Questions I Hope No One Asks: Why Is God So Silent?
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What defines ministry success? Oh, that is an easy one: lots of people. In a church, this may mean bigger buildings. At a bible study, this translates into lots of people who don’t fall asleep during your lesson. At home, this means successful witnessing to your neighbors. In your family, this means all your children loving the Lord. On your blog, this means more readers. On Twitter, this means more followers. Here at the Credo House, it means lots of people deepening in their faith as well as planting dozens of new Credo Houses all over the world. Any or all of these are what comes to mind when we define success in ministry.

I don’t mean to minimize the importance of numbers, statistics, and, indeed, people who grow in the Lord. However, I am coming to believe more and more that these things are secondary to true success. I am beginning to think that those people who have done the most for the Lord are going to be “no-names” to us. They are going to be the school teachers, the car salesmen, the waitresses, farmers, and mayors of small towns. They are going to be the Bobs, Tammys, Jacks, and Sarahs. In other words, they are going to be those people who no one really knew much about. Not the men of fame. Not the movers and shakers in the Christian commercial industry. Not even the pastors. They are going to be everyday folk with everyday names who, were it not for the eyes of the Lord which penetrates all that we hold dear, would not be ever known.

Think about those who made it into the list in Hebrews 11. You know THE list. The list of faith. The list of the great men and women of the past. The list of those whom the Lord had his eye on. While most of us know about these people, there was really nothing too special about them from the world’s point of view. If the Bible had not told us, we probably would not have said that they were “succesful” in ministry. They certainly would not have made my list. Some of them may have made the “other” list if you know what I mean.

Abel made it in because of one sacrifice he made in faith. He was a faithful giver.

Enoch just “walked with God”. I don’t really know exactly what that means, but it was substantial to the Lord. Substantial enough for God to “take him” before death.

Noah built a boat when the Lord told him to. He did not have any converts to join him on the boat, though I know he tried. How many unsuccessful evangelism attempts did he have? Be encouraged!

Abraham simply moved to another city when God told him to. As far as we know, he wrote no books, had no evangelistic crusades, and did not even blog!

Rahab hid spies of Israel in her apartment. That is it!

Samson . . . how did he get into this chapter? Were it not for Hebrews 11, there might be some debate as to whether we will even see him in glory! The very fact that he is here let’s us know that God’s score card and ours is much different. (And it encourages me!)

But notice that these people were nobodies. Well, let me rephrase that: they were not people we would expect to make it into the “faith chapter”. They were not people who went to seminary, started churches, had big websites, or were in demand on the speaking circuit. They were just everyday people who did something extraordinary: they believed God.

What a great thing it is for me (though I am in ministry) to remind myself that success each day comes down to believing God each day. You want to do something tremendous for the Lord? Don’t quit your job just yet. Don’t start your autobiography (it might be too boring anyway). Don’t always focus on what God has you to do in the future. Indeed, he may have something for you later. But he has something earth-shaking for you to do right now: believe him.

You see, that is the common tie between Rahab, Sarah, Samson, Moses, Abraham, and all the great men and women of faith in Hebrews 11: they all believed God when he said something. How complex we can make things. How simple things really are. I love this verse which shows the substance of their faith:

Heb 11:13
All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

Are you are stranger on this earth? Do you believe you are? Do you trust God when he says that he is making all things new? If you do, you are extraordinary. You have a successful ministry beyond your imagination.

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1.  Focus only on the issues that make or break Christianity.

Realize this: People can and do easily get off course, discussing, debating, and getting depressed over issues that are not linchpin issues to Christianity. From the details of creation/evolution to the inerrancy of Scripture, some people’s faith can be quite disturbed—quite unnecessarily disturbed. For example, while I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, if one of the authors happened to get a detail wrong, this does not mean that the entire Christ story is false. In what area of life do we find the same standards? This can be called a “house of cards” theology. In other words, if one card falls, they all fall. Our faith should never be a house of cards. There are so many things that we are all going to be wrong about when we get to heaven. I have often said that theologians need to be well rehearsed in recantations in order to get prepared for heaven!

However, while the Christian faith is not a “house of cards”, there is a definite foundation. This foundation, first and foremost, is the resurrection of Christ. If Christ rose from the grave, Christianity is true. If he did not, it is false (1 Cor. 15:3-4; 1 Cor 15:17). Since this is an historic event that took place in a public arena, with dates and people involved described, from a historians standpoint, it longs to be examined. As Daniel Wallace has put it, “The fact of the incarnation demands an incarnational method of inquiry and examination” (i.e. not a merely a “spiritual” examination).

Therefore, from a purely intellectual standpoint, I would set down all other studies, including conversations with those who are representing another religion, books about atheism, or the destiny of the unevangelized. Just to focus on this central issue of Christianity. There is so much good stuff out there on this subject, but I would start here and graduate to here and here. Listen or watch to the debates with William Lane Craig about the historicity of the resurrection. Again, if Christ rose from the grave, Christianity is true, God does love you, and we just have to work out the details. If he did not raise, the journey goes on and we look elsewhere. Rarely have I found someone who is in the crucible of intellectual doubt, yet has a strong conviction about Christ’s resurrection. A conviction about the resurrection goes a long way to stabilize your faith.

2. Doubt your doubts.

There are many doubts going through your mind. However, don’t mistake a doubt with a belief. Do not give to your doubts the credence that Christianity no longer holds in your life as if they have greater right to your beliefs than what you were formerly assured of. Remember, as unassured as you may be that Christianity is true right now, give equal unassurance to its alternatives, including agnosticism.

3. Make sure that you don’t lose fellowship with other believers.

Often Christians feel as if they need to validate their faith by only hanging around those who are not of the faith. I often see this with young men who are enthusiastically engaged in apologetics (defending the faith). The idea is that if the faith is true, it can withstand any onslaught. While this is true in theory, it is not very pragmatic in any area.

One normally becomes emotionally predisposed to those of their immediate fellowship. “Following the crowed” is a very effective means of being persuaded of the most unlikely beliefs. In fact, I have often said that if I hung around the flat-earth society members too long (and there is a flat earth society!), I may begin to doubt that the world is round. This is not because the arguments or evidence is persuasive, but simply because of implicit emotional control of belief that such constant fellowship affords.

Give equal (if not more) time to fellowship with those who are strong in the Christian faith. Our faith must be allowed access to the strength that common fellowship provides.

4. Realize that the presence of other possibilities does necessarily not equate to the presence of other probabilities.

Every decision we make in life is based not on infallible certainty, but degrees of probability. Many people get their faith disturbed when they encounter other theories or explanations. No matter how unlikely these other theories are, their faith is disrupted simply because other theories exist. But the fact that there are many alternative possible options out there does not mean that these options are probable or worth your time. In other words, the possibility of an alternative should never equate to the probability of the alternative.

When it comes to the resurrection of Christ, the possibilities are endless: group hallucinations, stolen body, Christ did not really die (swoon theory), an unexplained anomaly, body eaten by dogs, mistaken identity, and a thousand others. However, when all the evidence is considered, we find that these possibilities, while possible, may not explain the evidence as well as a simple belief that Christ rose from the grave. In other words, to suspend faith due to the presence of other possibilities is actually putting unwarranted faith (i.e. blind faith) in a less likely option.

5. Don’t think you can ever be an expert in everything.

You will never be an expert on everything (and probably not even one thing). No one is. Humanity has quite a bit of self-delusion concerning how much we know. We may know a bit more than the next person, but to call anyone an “expert” in any one area is quite silly and self-inflated. Even the greatest minds that have ever lived are quit small when compared to all of reality. If your aspiration is to come to know everything before you make a solid decision, then you will be an eternal tire-kicker with regard to your faith. You will always be one step, one bit of evidence, one unexamined option away from faith.

The other day I was boarding an airplane. I began to think of all the wrong things that could go wrong. My anxiety rose as I thought about the innumerable possibilities of something bad happening. They are never-ending. I would have to become an expert in so many things in order to examine what needs to be examined to make a decision that chocked out all uncertainty. I will never be an expert in all these areas. However, this does not mean that I am making a morally responsible decision to stay off the plane. I have to confer trust in the expertise of others—even trust of my very life. But this trust is well-placed as the probability that they know what they are doing is strong. At some point there is not only a sufficiency in probability, but a moral obligation to the probability that makes indecision the greatest example of blind faith there is.

6. Be careful not to make individual emotional preference a decisive benchmark of truth.

I see so many people who set their own emotional or moral preference as the ultimate and decisive standard for truth. For example, some people say things like “I could not every believe in the God of the Old Testament. He is mean and cruel.” Fine as that may be, our personal opinions about God’s meanness or niceness do not have a vote in truth. If God is mean, so be it. That is an internal debate. Our attitude or emotional disposition has no bearing on God’s existence or authority.

I recently saw a respected Christian scholar say that if God were such and such way, I would not serve or worship him. In essence he was saying “If God does not satisfy my emotional disposition, possessing characteristics that I think he should have, he will not be my God.” As understanding as I am of this in one sense, in another sense I have to express complete bewilderment and sadness. We worship and serve God because he is God not because he is God and we like him. If God is God, he is Lord and King. We don’t petition how we think he should be. Alternatives are not suddenly valid when we don’t like him. Truths about God are not a democracy.

The first question is not whether God is mean or a “moral monster”, but whether he is God. Then we can discuss the problems with God in the Old Testament or God’s decree of election. I certainly don’t believe that God is cruel in the OT or NT. I do believe that God loves mankind because he says he does (John 3:16). He is a better authority on himself than I am.

My point is that this is not an issue that should occupy your focus and it certainly should not cause you to have doubts about God’s existence. If Christ rose from the grave, whatever conclusion one comes to about any number of peripheral issues does not have the poison of death either way.

 7. Don’t stop living out your devotion to Christ.

You are merely doubting your faith. You are not a unbeliever. Therefore, don’t live according to your doubts, but live according to the faith that you still have left. Sometimes doubt is brought about by the mere fact that we are no longer devoted to Christ as much as you once were. Sin and disobedience can produce an unhealthy doubt. Further doubt can often be an excuse for our lack of devotion. Therefore, commit yourself once again to the belief that you do have, not the one that you don’t have. If you live according to your doubt, then all you can expect is further doubt (Luke 8:18).

8. Realize that doubt is not a bad thing.

Often, doubt is the first sign of true or deep faith. It is only through doubt and an acknowledgement that we could be wrong that we come to true convictions about what we believe. God is not scared or angry about people’s doubts when they are truly searching for the truth. He challenges us over and over again in the Scriptures to be wise and stop being naive. If our faith is true, it can handle doubts and skepticism. I have been through many periods of doubt and every time my belief came out stronger. I believe that yours can to.

I pray that this is helpful for you.Similar Posts:

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Mike Licona is a New Testament historian and apologist. He has a Ph.D. in New Testament Studies (University of Pretoria), which he completed with distinction. He serves as external research collaborator at North-West University (Potchefstroom). More on Mike below.

Mike, if you were talking to someone who is having significant problems with their faith, doubting whether or not Christianity is true for whatever reason, what would you say to them if you only had one minute?

Each of us has idiosyncrasies. One of mine is I’m a second-guesser. It’s hard for me to purchase a bottle of cologne without wondering before I leave the store whether I should have bought a different one.

I seem to question just about everything. I don’t want to make a bad decision, even in some very insignificant matters. So, it just makes sense that I often have doubts pertaining to decisions in significant matters. It’s not an intentional exercise. In fact, it’s downright frustrating to me. But it’s the way I’m wired.

What about my Christian faith? Have I ever experienced doubts? Many times. Have I been brain-washed? Do I hold my beliefs because I was brought up to believe them? What if I’m wrong? And it doesn’t help that our culture is growing increasingly hostile toward the Christian worldview.

Thankfully, when I began having these questions in the 1980s, a philosophy professor understood where I was because he had also struggled with doubts. I didn’t have professor Gary Habermas for a class at Liberty University since he taught in the philosophy department while my graduate work there was in the field of New Testament studies. But Habermas helped me tremendously in understanding doubt and dealing with it.

Habermas is a specialist when it comes to the historical case for Jesus’ resurrection. In fact, he’s probably the foremost expert on the subject. Habermas explained that I wasn’t alone and that many seminary students had expressed their personal doubts to him in confidence. After all, they were devoting their lives to the ministry. So, it only made sense to reassure themselves that Christianity is true before devoting their lives to full-time ministry, a life that often involves sacrifice.

I had the inward peace Paul describes as being the inward confirmation of God’s Spirit that I belonged to Him (Romans 8:16). But Mormons also claim to have a confirming peace from God as do followers of other religions. Certainly, we all couldn’t be right since many religions contradict themselves. So, how can I know whether my peace is really from God? That’s a tough question. And to be honest, I still don’t have the answer to that one. But when it came to the evidence, Habermas pointed me to Jesus’ resurrection. If Jesus rose from the dead, Christianity is true. Game—set—match! “But,” I thought, “that’s reported in the Bible. How can I know if the Bible’s true? Must I just accept it purely on faith?” That didn’t work for me … a second-guesser.

Habermas gave me a brief tour of the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. I was comforted to know there was evidence. But there were loopholes, too. The case wasn’t airtight. The evidence didn’t give me 100 percent certainty. This didn’t faze Habermas. Science can’t provide that degree of certainty, either. Scientific and historical investigation can only take us so far. We must look for the best explanation given our current data and settle for reasonable or adequate certainty as we do with other major life decisions. The rest is faith, whether you embrace the Christian worldview or atheist worldview or any other worldview.

Habermas has since become one of my dearest friends. He saved my faith! Like him, I’ve since devoted my life to studying the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, having written a few books on the subject, including a doctoral dissertation of more than 700 pages: “The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach” (IVP Academic, 2011). Moreover, I’ve spoken on Jesus’ resurrection on more than 50 college campuses and engaged in a dozen or so public debates with some of the brightest skeptical minds in North America. The more I see the lengths to which skeptics must go in order to question the evidence, the firmer the case for Jesus’ resurrection becomes. And that’s comforting to a second-guesser like me: to see that my faith is confirmed by strong historical evidence.

If you’re interested in learning some of the evidence, the North American Mission Board has created a five-part video series with discussion questions for groups or even individual study. It’s available for free download at http://www.4truth.net/risen. For additional help on doubt, you may find Gary Habermas’ free online book helpful: “The Thomas Factor.”

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Mike Licona has written many works, spoken on dozens of college campuses, and participated in many debates. His latest contribution is his work on the resurrection of Christ, The Resurrection of Jesus. You can find out more about Mike at www.risenjesus.com

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Stuggling with your faith? Visit our sister site Dealing with Doubt: www.dealingwithdoubt.org. Similar Posts:

• Paul Copan on Christian Doubt
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It is no secret that our culture today has been/is undergoing a massive paradigm shift with regards to the way people come to know truth. The atmosphere of the intellectual landscape has changed. For many, confidence, certainty, and dogmatism have been replaced with doubt, skepticism, and agnosticism. All truth claims are held in high suspicion. Those still working under the old paradigm of absolute truth and absolute knowledge are thought by this new generation of thinkers to be naive at best and power mongering manipulators at worst.

Within the philosophical and theological communities, this new generation goes by many names: Post-fundamentalism, Post-Christian, Post-Evangelical, Post-Liberal, “emerging”, and the most common postmodern. While these names may not be sufficient to completely convey the ethos of this generation, they all have one important element in common—they are all post something. They are all emerging out of something. The culture is moving beyond where it was before. And this is not necessarily a bad thing.

How do you know who to trust?

Before Google, before the internet, before twenty-four-hour world news, before community run encyclopedias such as Wikipedia, before Facebook, before blogs became the premier source for truth, before the introduction of our globalized culture where alternative truth claims are literally at ones fingertips, people could be much more confident that the truth claims to which they adhere were an accurate representation of reality. Why? Because we did not have so many alternatives to confuse the issues. The naivety that this intellectual isolation provided, while quite comforting, is no longer a luxury that we can afford to entertain and expect to have an audience in the real world with the Great Commission. Truth is no longer simply a matter of going to the local parish on the corner and inquiring of the pastor. It is much more complex and confusing. Today, people are looking for answers, and bewilderment is the most common result. Doubt, depression, and disillusionment are often the result as people pan-handle for truth. Thousands of alternatives present themselves at your front door at every turn. After a while you just don’t want to answer the door anymore. The question “What is truth?” or, better, “Where is truth?” is the great ambient question that saturates the thinking of our culture whether we know it or not.

People are suspicious

Suspicion. This is a good, rich, and sad word that is only needed because of humanity’s moral downfall. To be suspicious means that you are in a “state of uncertainty or doubt.” Or better, “Suspicion is the positive tendency to doubt the trustworthiness of appearances and therefore to believe that one has detected possibilities of something unreliable, unfavorable, menacing, or the like.” Synonyms for suspicion are doubt, mistrust, or misgiving. Our culture is in a perpetual state of uncertainty about truth; our culture is suspicious—suspicious of you and suspicious of me. Heck, I am even suspicious of you! Why? Because Christians claim to have the truth about the most important questions in life. Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the truth. We have presented ourselves at the front door, and our message of exclusivity is, more often than not, falling on deaf ears.

While the problem is no secret, the solution is harder to come by. It would be easy to say “sin” is the problem. While this would be the answer that fits within the Christian worldview, it is a bit simplistic. Yes, sin is the problem. Its my problem as a knower of truth and my problem as a seeker or truth. I can’t know perfectly and neither can you. I can’t seek perfectly and I often don’t where to go. Because of these epistemological (“how we know”) difficulties, the focal point for theology is no longer Bibliology as it once was, but prolegomena. Prolegomena is the theological discipline that focuses on issues that need to be covered before truth claims can be asserted and debated. Prolegomena deals with the “first things” of theology. Methodology, theological systems, epistemology, and sources for truth are all issues of prolegomena. Because the world does not work with the same assumptions that it used to, I believe we must create common ground before we can reach our culture. This common ground must first and foremost deal with the issue of suspicion. The distrust that people have for you when you approach their door with a Bible opened to your favorite verse is real and needs to be answered. Trust needs to be gained.

Not only this, but this disarming of suspicion must have a subjective component to it as well. You and I are not speaking from a megaphone from our isolated island of naivety (at least we shouldn’t be). We are affected by the change as well. I have seen just as much confusion, suspicion, doubt, and discouragement among believers in recent years as I have among unbelievers. People are leaving organized religion in droves, and the denominations are depleting in numbers. As I said before, I myself find it hard to know who to trust.

What I want to propose is a method of theological inquiry that goes a long way in disarming both the skeptic out there and the skeptic within. It is called “irenic theology” or the “irenic method” of doing theology. The word “irenic” is taken from the Greek irene which means “peace.” Irenic theology is learning about truth in a peaceful manner, accurately representing the opposing belief even when you disagree strongly. In many ways it is the opposite of a dogmatic methodology which seeks to tell people the truth by positioning itself as the only true option.

Requirements of the Irenic Method

Willingness to learn, adapt, and change: The Reformers brought theology out of the dogmatic slumber of the dark ages. They challenged the unfounded traditions and abuses of the past, giving the church a bright light of hope as the Gospel was rediscovered. They also sought to prevent the church from ever revisiting the difficulties proclaiming the principle of Semper Reformanda which means “always reforming.” The Reformers knew that truth must always be tested and ready to be reformed. This understanding presents our search for truth as a journey that will not end until Christ comes for the church (1 Cor. 13:12). We will always see in a mirror dimly. The greatest reform or each of us, in both mind and body, will come when Christ comes. Today, we must be willing continue to carry this banner and reform as well. The irenic method demands that we approach our study ready to alleviate ourselves of any sacred cows that might have crept in without warrant. We must be willing to reform our theology if the evidence makes such a demand. This is easier said than done, but it is necessary nonetheless.

Willingness to take a risk: When you present all views accurately, the best arguments from all positions are presented so that people have the chance to make up their own minds, knowing both the strengths and weaknesses of all relevant positions. In short, learning and teaching theology in an irenic way gives people the chance not to believe so that they might truly believe. There is risk involved in irenic theology, especially for teachers. Those being taught may or may not identify with or be convinced of your particular persuasions. But it does not fare well before the Lord for us to sweep the other options under the rug in fear of the possibility of desertion. People will find out the other options in a Googling generation. Once they do, you will have lost their trust and will not have an audience with them any longer. They will see you as manipulative, naive, or, at best, misinformed and incompetent. Irenic theology demands that the risk be taken.

A broad knowledge base: No longer can people study in isolation, seeking to confirm their prejudice with what they read or whom they listen to. We must be willing to challenge ourselves and expand our thinking. If you are a Calvinist (as am I), you must be able and willing to represent the Arminian position (or any alternatives) accurately. Irenic theology demands that you allow for no straw men arguments or any hint of belligerence. In other words, you should know enough to present their case so well and respectfully that if the strongest apologist for their position were to be in your audience, he or she would give you a thumbs up, affirming the accuracy of your information and appreciating your peaceful tone.

There is an old folk tale that has been spread more times than I can count about counterfeits currency. Some would say that just as those who investigate counterfeits only study real currency in order to identify counterfeits, so should Christians only study the truth in order to identify untruth. This is a very modernistic illustration which is not only untrue, but will hardly serve as a justified model for discovery in a suspicious world. The first fallacy is that the illustration is simply untrue. Counterfeit investigators do study every type of counterfeit that is known. Second, this illustration arrogantly assumes that they are already in possession of the truth against which to measure the false. It necessarily requires that you do not examine the options. Therefore, it seeks to keep you in isolation. This is fine and good if you actually do have the truth, but who is to say that you do? Here is the key: Any number of rival truth claims can use this illustration to keep their people in naive ignorance. Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, or any other religion can use this illustration to keep their own at bay. It will not deepen beliefs but it will confirm prejudice. For many who follow this methodology, they are in for a rude awakening. We must be willing to study broadly and consider deeply the alternatives if we expect to have and produce intellectual honesty. Without it, how do we expect to stand before God with integrity?

Benefits of Irenic Method

Your beliefs will be more real: No longer will you believe something simply out of a subjective emotional conviction that can be shared by all people of all world religions, but because of an honest wrestling with the issues. God gave us our minds and He expects us to use them. He has no favor for the naive (read the Proverbs). His desire is for us to see the truth and be convinced of it.

You will have degrees of conviction: Without an irenic method, all beliefs carry the same degree of conviction. They are black and white. You either believe them or you don’t. There is no in-between. While the irenic method will give you greater conviction on many things, it will also demand less assurance with other things. And this is par for the course of human inquiry and understanding. None of us can have perfect conviction to the degree God does.

In Christianity, there are many non-essential doctrines about which sincere believers disagree. Often, due to the strengths of the arguments for alternative positions, the evidence demands that we be very timid about setting them up as tests for orthodoxy or holding to some things too strongly. If God’s revelation is clear, then we speak with the same clarity. If God’s revelation is not so clear, we represent it as such. Being Christian does not mean that we know it all or have a secret decoder ring when it comes to difficult issues. We have to look to the evidence and take a stand, even if that stand says “I’m not sure” or “I don’t know.”

You will have a hierarchy of beliefs: As Roger Olson put it in Mosaic of Christian Belief: “Beliefs matter, but not all beliefs matter equally.” The irenic method demands that we see that some beliefs are more important than others. In other words, all doctrines are not worth dying for on a hill. Once we begin to see this, we will have gained an audience because Christians will all be speaking the same language. While disagreements will definitely still exist, people will see that there is a center of peaceful unity upon which we all agree. The list on Google for “What is a Christian” suddenly gets much, much smaller. The person and work of Christ is the center of our theology and must be spoken of by all Christians with unity and conviction.

You will have disarmed all skeptics: No longer will people see us in the likeness of a used car salesman or a determined lawyer, but as those who truly care about the truth. People will see that we have entrusted them with the ability and confidence to make their own decisions. All talk of knowledge being manipulative will necessarily cease for it will find no basis in reality.

Our world is confused. They feel betrayed and manipulated. There is information overload and people don’t know where to turn. But this does not mean that many are not seeking for answers. We have the only thing that matters: Jesus Christ. Though we believe that the power of the Spirit is the only reason people turn to Him, this does not mean we are for throw tact, understanding, and empathy out the door. God will use these things to bring people to him.

In conclusion: Don’t underestimate people’s ability to spot a fake. Ask yourself continually if you are a fake. Don’t be afraid to learn. Christ has not given us such a faith that demands blind adherence. Pursue truth will all your being. Trust that God is not afraid of questions and doubt. He is pretty big. I think He handles honest doubt better than naive commitment.Similar Posts:

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• All the Right Beliefs for all the Wrong Reasons

Dear friends,

This is written to those of you who I know and are without Christ. By that I mean you have never fallen on your face before Christ and asked for forgiveness. Many of you are friends—close friends—whom I have talked to about Christ, but you are unconvinced. I would love to be able to push a button, write a check, or perform a task that would make you believe as I do. However, the stark reality that I have to deal with is that many of you whom I love very dearly will die in this state. And, according to my deep convictions, you will not be in the presence of the Lord but in a place of terrible judgement.

Now, I know what you are thinking. Don’t quit reading though. Hear me out. I am not necessarily trying to evangelize you or make you love Jesus. I am trying to tell you how to prepare for hell. Just give me some slack here. Though what I am offering to you is still as far from heaven as the east is from the west, it may do some good. Though you do not believe in heaven or hell, you have to admit: you could be wrong. Yes, I admit, I could be wrong too. But if I am wrong, what awaits me? Eternal darkness? Nothingness? Fine and good. However, if you are wrong, something terrible is coming. I can’t prepare for nothingness. You can prepare for Hell. This is a “just in case you are wrong” letter.

You see, I believe that when we die, we will all present ourselves to God. Let’s put it this way for illustrative purposes. When life as we know it comes to a close, there will be two lines in heaven and two sets of book. One line will stand before Christ, one line will stand behind him. Christ will have two books: one which has the name of those who stand behind him written in it called “the Book of Life”. The other book is for those who stand in front of him called “the Book of Judgement”.  In this book of judgement is written all the wrong things that those who have not trusted in him have done. Every selfish act, every sexual sin, every cutting word, and every time you failed to love your children. In short, every sin that you have ever left your fingerprint on will be represented. Your disbelief in God will find a prominent place as it is the reason the ink will have dried on the pages of this book.

If I am right, I will be in a line behind the judge, Jesus. I will have eraser residue all over me. You see, my name used to be written in the same book of judgement. My issues were just as bad as yours (if not much worse). I had many pages reserved in that book. However, there is an invitation given to everyone in the line of judgement. It says that God loves us and does not desire that we should stand in this line and be judged. It says that Christ took the judgement upon himself for all those who will accept it. It says that who ever wants to leave this line and stand behind Christ can do so. I got in the line behind Christ many years ago. Because of this, Christ took a blood stained eraser, turned to my pages in the book of judgement, and erased it all. He then wrote my name in the book of life with permanent ink. Look at me. I have more eraser pieces on me than anyone. But the point is, because of what Christ did and because I trusted in him, my sins are no longer in that book. Because you failed to believe that Christ is God’s eternal Son who died on a wooden cross for your sins, your sin remains in that terrible book. I elected to have Christ take my penalty; you elected to stay in the line of judgement and stand on your own. I elected to have Christ be judged in my place; you have said, “If it is true, I will make my case before the Lord and stand on my own.” Therefore, we are in different lines. While these lines become permanent upon death (i.e. the Bible does not present an after death chance to change lines), in some sense, we are in these lines right now.

However, since you are determined to remain in the line of judgement (which breaks the Lord’s heart and mine), I am trying to think of what I can do for you. I am scrambling here with tears in my eyes as your future is so bleak. Of course, if you reject Christ, there is nothing you can do to avoid the ultimate fate that awaits you: eternity away from God’s love, eternity in torment, eternity in hell. Hell is your decision; it is not the decision of God who loves you. However, I do believe that while hell will be unimaginably terrible for everyone, it will be less unimaginably terrible for some than for others.

In the Bible, Christ says as much. Comparing hell to being whipped, he said that some will receive ”many lashes” and some will receive “few” (Luke 12:47-48). Hell will always be eternal. Hell will always be outside of the grace and love of God. But for some it will be worse than for others. I would that you would just trust in the God who loves you and sent his Son to erase your part in the book. I would that your name was written in the “Book of Life” not the “Book of Death and Judgement”, but, again, I have to deal with the reality that you may never change your heart toward God.

For this reason, I want to give you some advice about how to make, what I believe to be, your terrible future, less terrible. Here is how to prepare for Hell:

1. First and foremost, whenever the Bible is being taught, run.

I know that this sounds kind of odd (especially coming from me), but it is true. If you are determined to remain an unbeliever until death, don’t go to church where the Bible is taught, don’t listen to the Bible on your iPod, don’t even pick up a Bible and thumb through it. Stay far away from that book.

Let me illustrate. The other day, I yelled from the living room to my daughter Katelynn to get to bed. Fifteen minutes later, she was still up. I became upset with her. I thought it was a deliberate act of disobedience. However, when I talked to her about it, she said that she did not hear me. Once I believed her, my anger went away. Why? Because she did not actually know that I told her to go to bed. Now, she was still in a little bit of trouble because she already knew what her bedtime was. But her trouble would have been more severe had she not only known what her bedtime was but heard what I said and still disobeyed. The point is the more you hear what I believe to be God’s word and disobey, the greater the offense.

Listen to what Christ says about this:

Luke 12:48
“From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”

2. Don’t try to persuade others, especially children, of your unbelief

Christ said some terrifying word to those who are evangelists of unbelief:

Mark 9:42
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea.”

3. Whatever causes you to sin, get rid of it

I think that this one will be the hardest of the three so far, but if you can do it, it is sound advice. If your television causes you to neglect your family, get rid of it. If your iPad is distracting you from productivity, throw it away. And (and this is going to sound crazy), if your eyes are causing you to lust (i.e. pornography?), cut them out. It is that serious.

Mark 9:43-48
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48 where ” ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’

This does not mean that if you do these things, your deeds will cover all the other things written in that book, but it does mean that you will have fewer pages in that book than you would otherwise.

4. Take care of your family

Don’t neglect to work hard and provide for them. Whether it is your parents, wife, husband, or children, take care of them with all your might. Love them dearly. Let me get real practical here. Some of you men are divorced and are failing to pay for the support of your wife and children. Don’t do that. Some of you have parents who are elderly and you are more concerned about the advancement of your career than caring for them. These type of things are written in bold in the book of judgement.

Listen to what Paul tells Timothy:

1Tim. 5:8
“If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

5. Don’t give yourself too much credit

If you were in the same line as me, I would simply say “Give credit to God for every good thing”. But I cannot say that to you since you do not follow or believe in God. However (and I am doing the best I can here), you have to do whatever you can to remain humble. Pride will create a full chapter in most people’s section in the book of judgement. It causes your heart to be darkened in so many ways and leads to the sins of vanity, selfishness, and the devaluing of others. Even in your worldview without God, you can understand that you are not essentially better than anyone else can’t you? If you are an atheist, you are the way you are due to fate, not your own ingenuity or efforts. I would that you would give credit to God for all things, but I will have to settle for second—a far distant second—best: just don’t pat yourself on your back too much.

Paul sees the wrath of God as centered on people’s lack of thanksgiving to him.

Rom. 1:21
“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

Again, you cannot thank God, but you can keep from thanking yourself.

I have more to say . . . much more. But I fear that you may become overwhelmed. I may write more someday.

However, although I said that this was not written primarily to evangelize you, I must pass this invitation from God over to you once again. You do not have to stay in that line. As long as you are still breathing, you can join me over here behind Christ. You don’t have to pay anything, give anything, or do anything to join me. Just  have to turn to Christ and ask him to erase your pages in that book. God is beckoning you to come.

Listen to this from John 3:18: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

One more thing. The line illustration is not really original with me. John uses a similar theme in a book in the Bible called “Revelation”:

Rev 20:12
“And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.”

I would that your name was written in the book of life.Similar Posts:

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There is no special nobility for believing in God. Most people at their best, using their common sense, believe in God. In fact, conservatively speaking, ninety-percent of all societies and peoples have all believed in a God of some sort. In our Christian dominated society, I rarely come across a true atheist. It is quite a novelty. It is about like coming across someone who does not believe that the earth is round or that we actually landed someone on the moon. They are very rare.

However, it would seem that many people believe that their is some sort of special pass or dispensation for simply believing in God. The same is true about believing “in” Christ. Many people have some sort of belief that Christ was who he said he was—God incarnate—, died on the cross for their sins, and rose bodily from the grave. After all, at least here in America, this still comes standard with every new model.

However, God is not calling on people to do something as minimal as believing in him. Belief in him is indeed required. As well, we can always believe in him more today than we did yesterday. However, God is calling on us to do something radical. God is calling on us to do something that far exceeds a mere belief in his existence or even his works. Because he exists, because he has done what he has done, he is calling on all people everywhere to believe him. You see, God has introduced himself to us as the sovereign of the universe. He as told us that he knows more than we do. He has presented himself as one who is not only bigger and stronger than we are, but one who is infinitely wiser than we are. Because of this, he wants us to believe him.

While in Chicago two weeks ago, I got into a very pleasant conversation with my taxi driver. He believed in God. In fact, he got very excited when I talked to him about God. He was very willing to engage in spiritual conversation. But the conversation was not so easy for me as I attempted to distinguish between his belief in God and a life lived believing God. Belief in God can evidence nothing more than mere intellectual assent. This assent often issues forth in no real or substantial change of life, thought, or action. Sure, it affects some things here and there, but God is more of an accessory to living than anything else. Believing God effects everything. When we believe God, we are saying that he is right about everything and it is of paramount importance for us to harmonize our lives with his reality. When our reality—feelings, emotions, experiences, and rationalizations—come in conflict with his revealed will, his revealed will trumps anything we have to offer.

Think of life like a car. Most people I know have God in one of four places in their car:

1. Trunk: In this sense, God is the “go-to” God when we are in trouble. Like with the spare tire, the tool kit, or the flashlight, we only call upon him when we are in desperate need. Other than that, he has no part to play in our daily living. We believe in him, but we don’t believe him enough to let him out of the trunk.

2. Back seat: This represents a heightened conviction about the need for God in our lives, but we don’t really want him bothering us. He is like a back seat driver who is constantly whining about what direction we are going, telling us to turn here rather than there. We would like him to just be quite, but we are willing to put up with his disruptions in order to feel better about our conviction that we need him in our lives.

3. Passenger seat: This person is very convicted about their need for God so they allow him to be right beside them. In fact, this person likes God quite a bit. They enjoy the conversation and even ask for suggestions about where to turn and how fast to go. We are so proud about this level of involvement that we create bumper stickers to let others know that “God is my co-pilot”.

However, God is not calling us to any of these first three. I am not saying that if you find God in your passenger seat, back seat, or, even, trunk you are not a Christian. That is not the issue. I am talking about what it means to believe God.

4. Driver’s seat: This is where God wants to be. This is where we graduate from believing in God to believing God. This is where we hand control of everything to him. This is where he is no longer just a god in our lives, but our God. He says to us, “Give me the driver’s seat of your life. I want nothing less. Believe me; I know much more than you do. I want control of your passions, your plans, your family, where you are going, and where you have been. My way is the best. I know you better than you know yourself. I know you believe in me, but will you believe me. You sit there in the passenger seat and I will take care of the rest. And please…no back seat driving.”

I am afraid that there will be quite a long line of people in heaven who are waiting to be judged according to their works and will have nothing more to present to God than that they believed in him. God may respond to these: “Yes, but why didn’t you ever really believe me. I said to pray about everything (Luke 18:1). Why didn’t you? I said that all things work together for good (Romans 8:28). Did you think I was mistaken? I said that giving is better than receiving (Acts 20:35). Why did you take this as back seat nagging? I said that I was coming to bring justice (Luke 18:7). Why did your heart grow cold? Why did you always believe yourself more than me? Why did you put me on the judgment seat of your life requiring me to account for myself? Why didn’t you believe me?”

Again, God knows how many times I have put him in the passenger seat. God knows how many times I have put him in the trunk! God knows how many times I have hijacked his car and, in my unbelief, made many wrong turns. God knows how many times I have believed in him without believing him. But at my best I know that God is calling on me to do much more than the-common-90%-believing-in-him-type-belief. He is calling on me to do something radical. He is calling on my to believe him about everything.Similar Posts:

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This morning, at 5:12am, after a ride on my stationary bike, I was taking a walk through my neighborhood. As often as I do this, I look up to the heavens and speak to God. This morning started out as any regular ol’ morning. There was no reason to think I was going to meet God differently than before. No special prompting to prayer. No sudden wake up in the middle of the night. Just a routine day . . . so I thought.

As I walked up the final hill before coming in view of my house, continuing to pray, something odd happened. I ran through my normal list of things to bring before God. Nothing special happened then. However, I began to pray about something that has been heavy on my heart recently. Without getting into specifics, it was a prayer for a certain person to change. Now, in truth, I do not know whether this person really needs to change. In other words, I am not sure of the Lord’s will with regard to this particular issue. My prayer was basically this: “Lord, please change this person if they are making the wrong decisions.” You see, I happen to believe more than not that this person’s decisions and chosen life path are wrong and potentially destructive on many levels. But it is one of those things. Yes, it could be wrong and destructive, but it could also be an incredible blessing sought out by one who was just trusting the Lord and following his convictions (as the person of whom I speak believes them to be). Anyway, I prayed to the Lord for this person to change and something happened.

You must understand something: I love to pray outside. Though everything in my theology says otherwise, I simply feel as if God is closer when I look into the sky. Perception can go a long way in prayer, as many of you know. When the sky is clear and the moon and stars are shinning bright, I perceive myself to be more in the presence of God than at any other time. My prayers feel like they are more productive. I feel as if I have a red phone hotline to my Father. Simply put, it is hard for me to feel forsaken when I pray outside. And this morning was no different.

However, as I came up the hill and began to pray for the Lord to change the mind of this certain person, suddenly the sky went dark. No, not literally. But had the sky actually gone dark, it would have had the same effect on the way I felt at this moment. It was as if my phone call to the Lord suddenly got disconnected. I thought nothing of it at first, but as I continued to pray this same prayer, the perception remained. It was as if God was not listening to this particular prayer. So I began to pray about the prayer itself. “Lord, are you trying to tell me something? You know I am trying to be more open to this type of communication – this prophecy stuff.” Interestingly enough, when I prayed this prayer, the heavens opened back up. The dropped call was instantly reestablished. So I tried the previous prayer again, “Lord, please change the heart of this person.” Once again, the call was immediately dropped. The heavens, as C.S. Lewis would put it, were brass.

Was the Lord telling me something through this prayer? Was he telling me that I needed to let this one go? Better yet, was the Lord telling me this person was on the right path and my own opinion, that he was wrong, was in error? It certainly could be interpreted in such a way.

However, as many of you know, for better or for worse, it is not like me to think this way. In fact, I believe over-interpreting experiences such as this one is very dangerous and, ironically, as destructive as that which I was praying about (what the man was involved in). Therefore, I followed the path of Gideon. You know: the guy in Judges 6 who was called by God to deliver Israel? It’s an interesting story. When he was called to this path of deliverance he timidly asked the Lord for an evident sign (just in case he was misunderstanding things). He told the Lord to make a fleece wet with dew overnight, while the grass surrounding it stayed dry. When this happened, he asked the Lord, even more timidly and with more requests for forgiveness, to give him one more sign. This time he asked for the overnight dew to fall on the grass and not the fleece. The Lord obliged, and Gideon moved forward with God’s plan.

My feelings of a disconnected call were not enough for me to change my thinking about this very important issue. It would be crazy for me to interpret life and truth with nothing more than a “feeling” of the Lord’s disapproval. So I said to the Lord, “Forgive me. But your word and truth are too precious to me to let this one experience change my thinking. There is nothing in the Bible to give me definite guidence here. Therefore, if you have indeed come down from heaven and intervened in my emotional well-being during this prayer in a miraculous way, so as to make the heavens close, may I ask you to do something else for me?” My iPad was on my stationary bike in my garage. As I searched for my own “fleece,” my thoughts went directly to it. I don’t know why, but I was compelled to ask the Lord to do something miraculous with it. I had been reading my “through the Bible” reading plan this morning before my walk and prayer. I was not sure if I had closed the Bible program out or not. So I asked the Lord to do something I could not deny. “Lord, if you are truly attempting to communicate to me about this issue the way this feeling can be interpreted, please see that I am protecting your name in my life by asking for a more direct and evident sign. Therefore, when I come back into my garage, let my iPad be open (not locked as it usually is when idle).” I know, I know . . . that is easy. Just hang with me. There is more to the prayer. “Let my iPad be open to the book Saving Darwin.“Why did I choose that book? I don’t know. It was the first thing that came to my mind. I had not read it in a long time so it seemed enough to be a valid sign. But there is still more, “Lord, let it not only be open, but let it be open to page 134.” Why 134? Again, I don’t know. That is just what came out.

I got to my garage and with great anticipation looked at my iPad. And you know what? The screen was dark. It was not open as I had requested. However, I thought that perhaps the Lord did not understand me about making it “unlocked” (after all, is the Lord up on such technology?). So I opened it to see if the requested book on Kindle was open. Guess what? . . . It wasn’t.

Not what you expected? I am sorry for the letdown. But I think there is an important lesson here.

I had a feeling this morning. I could have let it stand on its own. I could have based something that I believe upon such a feeling, something very important that the Bible was not clear on. However, this would have been very irresponsible. The volatility of emotions and feelings is, well . . . volatile. They come and go. They are easily and frequently misinterpreted. I can’t just believe, adjust, and change my views on things simply because I feel like the heavens closed during my prayer. Who am I to feel my way to truth? Am I not fallen? Is my heart not desperately wicked? Are my ways (feelings) always to be interpreted as the Lord’s ways (feelings)?

I have nothing against feelings. I have nothing against emotions. I believe the Lord often uses these in our lives. But when we let feelings rule our lives, no matter how profound they might be in the moment, destruction and misery are soon to follow. Soon we will be making pivotal decisions based upon feelings alone (“I just don’t feel like the Lord wants us to stay married”). Soon we will be adjusting our theology, with feelings being in the driver’s seat (“I don’t feel forgiven by God” or “I don’t feel like the Lord would allow people to go to hell for eternity”). Soon we will be making unwarranted accusations due to these feelings (“I have a deep down feeling that you are having an affair”). Soon feelings will sit control just about everything. Soon, we who think we are following the Lord due to these feelings, will be far away from him because we are not more jealous for the word of the Lord than we are for our feelings. The Lord is not going to come down upon you for asking for a more substantial sign than a feeling. When I read the account of Gideon, I get no sense that the Lord was displeased with him for asking for two evident signs.

Judges 6:36-39
Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised— 37 look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” 38 And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water. 39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” 40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.

Notice: Gideon was already promised something from the Lord. Yet he needed more. All this talk about “doubting Thomas”, how does Gideon get a pass? But he needed more than whatever he already had and the Lord provided. Why? Because God is that big. He can do some amazing stuff.

Feelings are wonderful. Emotions are persuasive. Therefore, we need to keep them in check, harnessing them into subjection to reality. The Lord is not going to reprimand you for not bowing to your emotions every time the sky goes dark. In fact, he is more likely to reprimand you for doing just that.

Did the “darkness” mean anything? I don’t know. But I have not adjusted my thinking about this issue with my friend. I still am not sure whether his decisions are right or wrong, though I lean toward the wrong. The experience of not having an experience did not definitely condemn him! Nor should it. I will continue to pray the way I prayed before about the situation.

Please note: I have included this post in the category of “doubt”, “depression”, and ”losing faith” because this is where these type of things inevitably lead.Similar Posts:

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As many of you know, Billy Graham and Charles Templeton were evangelists who rose to fame in the 40s (Graham, of course, is still an evangelist). Early in their careers they were friends – close friends. Many have said Templeton was the one that everyone thought was going to overturn the world with the Gospel. However, Templeton ended up leaving the Christian faith, eventually becoming an atheist.  In 1982, though still an atheist, he said of Billy Graham, “There is no feigning in him: he believes what he believes with an invincible innocence. He is the only mass evangelist I would trust” (Anecdotal Memoir). Templeton died in 2001 at the age of 86, shortly after he wrote what I consider to be one of the most heart-breaking books ever published: Farewell to God.

Here is an excerpt from that book, about a pivotal conversation he had with Billy Graham as he was leaving the faith. The context is his desire to go to Princeton to study the Christian faith more critically. He wanted Graham to come with him. Please keep in mind, this is his account of the conversation:

“All our differences came to a head in a discussion which, better than anything I know, explains Billy Graham and his phenomenal success as an evangelist.

In the course of our conversation I said, ‘But, Billy, it’s simply not possible any longer to believe, for instance, the biblical account of creation. The world was not created over a period of days a few thousand years ago; it has evolved over millions of years. It’s not a matter of speculation; it’s a demonstrable fact.’

‘I don’t accept that’ Billy said. ‘And there are reputable scholars who don’t.’

‘Who are these scholars?’ I said. ‘Men in conservative Christian colleges[?]‘

‘Most of them, yes,’ he said. ‘But that is not the point. I believe the Genesis account of creation because it’s in the Bible. I’ve discovered something in my ministry: When I take the Bible literally, when I proclaim it as the word of God, my preaching has power. When I stand on the platform and say, ‘God says,’ or ‘The Bible says,’ the Holy Spirit uses me. There are results. Wiser men than you or I have been arguing questions like this for centuries. I don’t have the time or the intellect to examine all sides of the theological dispute, so I’ve decided once for all to stop questioning and accept the Bible as God’s word.’

‘But Billy,’ I protested, ‘You cannot do that. You don’t dare stop thinking about the most important question in life. Do it and you begin to die. It’s intellectual suicide.’”

‘I don’t know about anybody else,’ he said, ‘but I’ve decided that that’s the path for me.’”

(Farewell to God, 7-8)

For me, this represents one of the saddest encounters two people have ever had. It recounts a decisive breach in the friendship between two men as one left Christ, never to come back, and the other went on to, in my opinion, change the world.

As I said, I don’t know if Graham’s words are the words he actually said, but I have no reason to doubt that they are. You see, there does come a time in our life when we “decide” to believe. It is not as if our intellect is no longer in the game, it is simply that there is a sufficient amount of evidence to make a commitment. Graham had enough. He is right, there is no way faith can wait until every stone is overturned. None of us will ever get to a place where our intellect has no objections whatsoever. This is the modernistic ideal of indubitability, which is impossible in any area of life. At some point in our journey, we decide that God is real, the Bible is trustworthy, and Christ is who he said he was.

Templeton, as his own story makes plain (p. 3), never truly reached a point where he was intellectually convicted of the truthfulness of Christianity (what the reformers called assensus). Assensus represents the conviction we have in our minds. Assent of the mind is vital to our faith. Graham, according to this testimony, had enough assensus to make a decision. He was not going to be an eternal “tire-kicker” with regard to Christianity. Sure, he could have waited, like Templeton, until every possible objection to the faith was answered, but this would amount to a failure of modernistic irrationality. We can never have all our questions answered. At some point there must be a sufficiency in probability.

There is a time when we, like Billy Graham, must stop the type of questioning that comes prior to faith, and make a decision. This does not mean we stop using our minds, as Templeton unfortunately assumed. In Christianity, we call this fides quaenes intellectum, “faith seeking understanding.” We believe in order to understand. We have faith and seek understanding.

May God give us all the ability to be like Billy Graham and make a decision to trust God and the Bible. May he help us to believe what we believe with an invincible innocence. Though doubts may still exist, they do not mean that our faith is not real.Similar Posts:

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Wait . . . first let me get something out on the table. I believe in Satan. No, not as an impersonal force of evil. No, not as the sin which exists within all of us. And certainly not as God’s equal on the ying/yang opposite side of good. I believe Satan is an intelligent creature who seeks to upset God’s plan at every turn. I believe Satan was created good and turned bad. I believe he is on a leash – often to my bewilderment, a very long leash.

Okay, now that that is out of the way. . .

One of the most perplexing things I struggle with concerning Satan is this: Does he actually think he can win?

I don’t know. Maybe he is so deluded he thinks the impossible to be possible (ala Origen’s view). Certainly he does not have insider intel that pushes his odds of success up a bit. His odds of success are perpetually set at 0. His odds of success, relatively speaking, are about the same as mine would be should I attempt a coup to make all of God’s plans backfire. However, God does give him freedom and uses him in ways that are very strange to me.

I mean, he has read Revelation, hasn’t he? You know the end? The fire and brimstone stuff? (Rev. 20:10) Even (at least some of) the demons seem to recognize their eventual defeat (Luke 8:31). Therefore, I don’t suppose he thinks he is going to win, though I am not totally dismmissive of the idea that his mind is so messed up that he may have hope.

But knowing that Satan cannot really win, I ask a second question: What is his goal?

Come on. Isn’t he a Calvinist? Doesn’t he know he cannot thwart the purpose of God?

I am not sure we can speak of his goal in the singular unless we go very general and say that his goal is just to dethrone God. But that can be understood in many ways. Certainly he is not attempting to take his place as Creator God, for Satan, like us, cannot create anything! Certainly he is not trying to take God’s place as the Unmoved Mover, for Satan is time-bound and … well … moving.

It seems this simple: like us, Satan is infected with sin and acts irrationally, desiring to elevate himself to be the center of the universe. How does he do this? By attempting to silence the worship of God.

With people, I am sure we might say that he simply wants to keep us from believing in God. I think this is illustrated well with the Parable of the Soils, where the first soil falls on the path and Satan immediately takes it, so that no belief is ever birthed (Matt. 13:19). He does not want people to believe God. That is what he does with you and me. He seeks to steal our belief in whatever way he can.

With Christians, however, I don’t believe this is possible. Nothing can snatch us out of the Father’s hand (John 10:29). Surely he knows this. However, I don’t think he has a clue as to who the true believers are and who are representatives of the second and third seed in the Parable of the Soils. You know, the seeds that gain root, but don’t last? He does not know whether your belief is from God, or if it is something that can wither and die.

Either way, his goal is simple: the destruction of belief in God.

However, I don’t think we should conceive of this as outright atheism. This is especially the case when it comes to believers. All he has to do is handicap our faith so that it becomes ineffective or counterproductive. As you know, there are not many outright atheists in the world. There never have been. I doubt there ever will be. But this does not mean that campaigns for atheism are ineffective in the mind of Satan or that he is not cheering them on. Why? Because he knows that these campaigns, while not creating many atheists, are shaking foundations nonetheless.

While Satan’s aspirations may not be to create atheists, he does want people to believe less deeply and less accurately today than they did yesterday.

Remember the first confrontation humanity had with this creature in Eden? Remember what he said to Eve? He did not say, “God is not real. Don’t believe in him. You have never seen him. He does not really exist. We can explain existence through natural processes.” No, he just twisted God’s word ever so slightly. He affirmed God’s existence, but began to chop down God’s integrity. “God has not said . . . he just does not want you to be like him, knowing good and evil.” The result was not that Eve became and atheist or an outright unbeliever, she just doubted God’s truthfulness.

Whatever doubts he can bring about in your life, he will use. Maybe it is God’s existence. Maybe you are not on the verge of becoming an atheist, but you are believing less today than yesterday. From Satan’s standpoint, this is why he clocks in every day. Maybe you are doubting  God’s integrity, goodness, love, or plan. “Has God really said…?” is Satan’s message to you as he attempts to have you place God on whatever judgment stand he can. He hates God and he hates you.

It is not insignificant that when Christ taught the disciples to pray, he said about deliverance from Satan, “Deliver us from the Evil One” (Matt. 6: 13). I count six things Christ tells us to pray for. Six. That is it. Not one thousand. Not three hundred. Not even sixty-six. But six. Of these six, our battle against Satan is the subject of one of them. I think this is pretty significant.

There is a reason why the Bible begins by telling us about our confrontation with this odd creature. There is a reason why the end tells of his ultimate destruction. And there is a reason why the short Lord’s prayer tells us to recognize and pray about our battle with him. God has, for some reason, allowed him to roam. He is on a leash, but has been given permission. He wants to test your faith today. His goal right now is to make you believe less than you did before.Similar Posts:

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