"What's the deal with faith?" That question is bothering me. I don't know what to make of faith. The Bible is pretty clear that faith makes us righteous (Romans 3:22), heals us (Luke 18:42; Luke 17:19; Numbers 21:9; more), saves us (Luke 7:50), frees us (Ephesians 3:12), etc. Faith is a huge deal, to be sure.
And how does that type of faith look? In all of those examples, it seems that type of faith is "achieved," I guess, by looking to God, namely to who God is, something the pastor of my local church highlights often. He points out that our faith should focus on who Jesus is, rather than on what Jesus can do to better our situations and make us more satisfied with our circumstances. Awesome point. Biblical point.
So then, in faith of that nature, the attitude would approach the mindset of, "God, You are bigger and stronger than this junk happening in my life. I trust You, and I will follow you, even when it hurts." Sounds really cool. I want faith like that. God, please increase my faith in You!
As I approach some semblance of a point, that kind of faith naturally lends itself to a literal interpretation of the Word, doesn't it? Surely, if God is omniscient, He will say what needs to be said and say it the way He means to say it. Most people I know would nod at the surface value of that assumption. But when it comes to what the Bible says, for example, on matters of history, science, morality, society, and more, so many of those same people are less than excited to jump aboard the figurative train to Literal-ville.
. . . .
Switching topics for a moment, imagine a romantic relationship in which you bring to the table a profession of love and devotion, all the while believing in your heart (or out loud, should someone ask) that the one you love is really awesome, loving, faithful, compassionate, strong, nurturing, attentive, beautiful, and poetic, but ultimately full of crap a lot of the time. Would that be healthy?
. . . .
The small group that my wife and I attend is in a state of flux right now. Normal activities for kids at the church on Wednesdays are suspended for the summer, so we've been filling the time with service projects, family outings, and relaxation whenever possible. With little ones, it's a disaster trying to dive into a study, but we have talked a little about ideas for Fall 2012. One idea was a marriage study. Others were in-depth looks at specific books of the Bible. We also discussed in brief the idea of a doctrinal study, a sort of discipleship course. Similarly enough, the pastor of my local church mentioned a desire on the part of leadership there to engage the church body in a discipleship course in the coming months. Only God knows how all of this will work together, but it is interesting to me that, on both large and small scale, many members of my church feel a need to develop a more mature relationship with our Creator, instead of just wanting to be fans and wear the t-shirt.
Our leaders have said that membership in the church is increasing, while giving is diminishing, and that this speaks [paraphrasing now] to an immature understanding of the role of the local church and the duties of its membership. Agreed. That immaturity has a lot of other consequences too. Marriage break-ups, business failures, unchecked addictions, pride and bitterness, and more. My church is seeing all of this happening right now. Does a discipleship course fix all of this? Maybe. It's worth trying, right?
. . . .
Many of my childhood friends no longer believe in God. Kids who, in youth group terms, were "on fire for God" no longer think there is even room for His existence. Why is that the case? Maybe they never really heard about God's love for us and the mercy He shows us. No, that's not it. Perhaps the lessons they learned, the songs they sang, the camps they attended fell flat because they never experienced God's love in the lives of the people around them. Well, that doesn't describe the deal with my friends, either. In reality, they knew all about God's love and mercy. And they did see God's love in our church body, in their families and friends. All the time, in fact.
Something I hear a lot is that we, as Christians, need to love people to Jesus. All right, great. Love them to Jesus. Then what? Tell them to love others to Jesus? Deal. Then what? Keep loving? Sure. Absolutely.
It all seems great, and this is what I have known my whole life, and what my friends knew, too. It's worked for me, I suppose. I still believe in God, but I'm the outlier of the group. Why? What if the immaturity that my church is experiencing right now happens, and has happened, in all sorts of churches? Like the one my friends and I attended.
But the question still stands, regarding the reason why so many of my generation have fallen away. Is it a lack of knowledge of Bible verses and doctrines that ultimately catches up with them? No. It's absolutely not that. Here's what I think it is: proof. They need proof, and they never meet someone who is willing to prove anything, other the Lee Strobel, I guess. Whenever there is something in the Bible that these kids struggle to grasp, they find no easy answers in the Church. Meanwhile, the secular world shovels "answers" at them all day long. I can't count the number of times I have heard, "I don't know, but the Bible says it. It's gotta be true in one way or another," but I know exactly how many of my friends now think Christians are delusional.
. . . .
At William Jewell College, I took a class called "Intro. to the Bible." To me it seemed like a great way to start my college life in a fresh manner, walking through the Bible as would someone who was hearing it for the first time. I assumed this class would give new perspectives on Scriptures that had become common to me.
But it turned out this class was titled improperly. In truth the class was a step-by-step journey through the professor's own book, co-authored with another professor at the school. Named "Rereading the Bible: An Introduction to the Biblical Story," this book focused on individual pieces of text from both the Old and New Testaments, showing that those texts were inaccurate and, thus, proving the hypothesis of the book, that the Bible as we know it consists of a series of re-interpretations of manuscripts adapted from other manuscripts that no longer exist, which then means that the Bible may find its meaning from ANY interpretation, so long as it is meaningful to the interpreter.
I kept the book after the course was finished and even have "re-read" it since that time. You know what I think about it? I think that these two professors are either fools or liars, but they are so much more bold about what they think the Bible says than most church leaders I have ever met. And being a pastor's kid, that's a lot of church leaders.
You know what happens when someone interprets the Bible literally and goes about proving it? People within the Church criticize the effort as inflammatory, unloving, insensitive, etc. But why is proof a problem? I'm sure the argument will turn to Thomas, who refused to believe that his murdered friend was alive again until he had proof. After all, Jesus said, "Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Those who believe without seeing are blessed."
I would argue, though, that Jesus never said that Thomas was stubborn, or a fool. Jesus didn't say, "If you need some facts, after all you've seen these last few years, I refuse to satiate you. You're dead to me [gives Thomas the "brick wall" hand gesture]." Instead, Jesus materialized and, without any prompt, He walked over and offered Thomas the exact proof that he needed. Thomas then believed, and we criticize his weak faith. But is there any indication that Jesus punished him for it in any way? As a reader, it looks like Jesus merely pointed out that those who do not need proof in order to surrender doubt are blessed. Wait, is He saying those people get a blessing because they believe freely, or is He suggesting that type of faith is an uncommon blessing? I don't know. Maybe the Aramaic or Greek or Hebrew or Latin or whatever paints a full picture, but I wonder if Jesus might just be letting Thomas know that many are in the boat and that only a blessed few -- maybe one in twelve or so, have the guts to leap out of it without reservation.
. . . .
This is the faith issue that is bugging me. What if faith really is as important as the Bible says it is? And what if our perception of faith is wrong?
Could it be that my friends who have given up on faith did so because they were in a church that wanted everyone to be in the "blessed" category, nothing like that Thomas guy? What if many or most of us are, by nature, not of the jumping variety? I wonder where they would be today if we'd faced the doubt, approached it, and, with love, destroyed any shadow of it.
My generation couldn't hide from the answers of the world, and most succumbed. What if we had been equipped with the proof necessary to stand firm? Would our faith have been weak, since we relied on concepts of how God related to things we could see?
. . . .
I don't know the answers to anything written above this sentence. But "since what can be known about God is evident . . . . because God has shown it. . ." (Romans 1:19) to us, maybe the character of this Creator God really is made plain in things we can see. Still, just before that verse, Paul reminds us that "the righteous will live by faith." (Romans 1:17)
So God, here I am, writing a blog post to myself, to You, to extremely random web searches. Please increase my faith. Whatever that is. I want the real thing.
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