St. John Studies

On the first post about Paul Little’s book Know Why You Believe [written on January 6, 2016] I asked

“Why does Paul Little have to write a book about our belief? Aren’t we all on the same page?  Don’t we all know what we believe and why we believe it?  Aren’t all our questions resolved already?”

Sadly, no…

In this last post, I want to wrap up my thoughts about his book in an effective way.

Without coming out and saying it, as a faith, Little is really implying that we don’t have the basics in place when someone questions us about our belief system.   Sadly, many everyday Christians are not known for their intellectual prowess.  Pastor Francis Chan states that Christians often adopt a posture that they want to be fed rather than wanting to feed themselves.  Let the Pastor preach to me.  Let the Sunday School teacher teach me about the Bible.  Let the Bible study teacher do all the work.  I don’t have to read anything in advance.  I am not responsible for my own growth.  I don’t have to have any mental discipline.

Really?

John Stott [my go to spiritual source] says “God expects us to use our minds.”

In worship, we are supposed to go to hear our preacher with our intellect in place. Worship should not be mindless.  Stott emphasized this in his preaching and he shares an irritated response from one of his parishioners. The man told him, “Whenever I go to church, I feel like unscrewing my head and placing it under the seat, because in a religious meeting, I never have any use for anything above my collar button.”  True worship of the Lord is when you are “fully and fruitfully engaged”.  Certainly the pastor does not want you in some semi-somnambulistic state.

Faith is another area that is misunderstood. People equate the idea of faith with blind [i.e. blind faith].  However faith is not mindless belief nor is it naïve optimism.  Faith according to our Bible is thoughtful.  The man who has mindless faith or naïve optimism is a man who finds himself buffeted by the world in times of trouble.  This person can lose control when things “go south.”  The man of faith holds onto his thoughts in difficult times and controls his thoughts despite the temptation to panic.  That’s what I call mental strength.

Holiness is an additional area where the mind is necessary. The man of Christ should be in a perpetual effort to lead a life that is worthy of God.  How do we start?  We must know God’s moral law and commandments.  This means personal knowledge of scripture.  Once we know what is expected, it is important to set our minds to it.  This means we need to practice mental discipline and self-control.  Self-control is primarily mind control.  Listen to Paul in the book of Romans and First Corinthians:  “Don’t you know that by being baptized into Christ, you were baptized into his death?  Don’t you know that you are the slaves of the one to whom you have yielded yourselves to obedience?  Don’t you know that you are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?  Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom?  Don’t you know that your bodies are members of Christ.”  I really don’t think Paul is trying to make us feel stupid by these questions.  He just wants us to be sure we KNOW who we are, what we have committed to and where we should go in our holiness quest.

Doing the will of God is the last area of our lives where the mind of the Christian is so important. I want to do His will.  I recognize that if I do His will, life will be so much easier and so much more fruitful.  But how will I discern the will of God?  I know that God’s general will for all of us is to be conformed to the image of his Son Jesus.  When it comes to particular questions we have about God’s will, we had better not base our response to His will on a hunch or an impulse.  It is best for our actions to be based on mental discipline, the mental discipline of Bible study and most especially regular prayer.

Too often the follower of God has been labelled as the person who “checks his mind at the door of the church.”

Maybe Paul Little’s book has made you think about the foundation of your faith. Maybe some of my posts have stimulated some thought on your part.

As we leave Little’s book, it is my prayer that we have moved far beyond the position of the young boy in Sunday School class [cited in Chapter 1 of Know Why You Believe].  When his teacher asked him what Christian faith is, he replied “Believing something you know isn’t true.”

How sad.

I really love it, the lines:

“A man with a fried egg over his left ear came through the door of your church. ‘Oh,’ he says glowing, ‘this egg really gives me joy, peace, purpose in life, forgiveness of sins and strength for living.’”

Really.

What would you say to him?

Hey fellow, I doubt it.

Or maybe you would say you are a nut!

Or would you just have to admit that you don’t know.

Is that how it is with the Christian experience? We just don’t know.

I can testify to my own experience with God. I think I have changed for the better over the years.  But truthfully, it is the people who are around me all the time who really can testify.  They have observed me over a long period of time.  However is my own experience all that I have to prove the Christian experience to a non-believer?

First of all, we have others and their testimonies. I am not the only one who has experienced an improved life due to Jesus.  Many others can add their personal testimony to my story.  Observers of believers can testify to the changes, because the external behavioral change is where the real proof of change exists.

Secondly, the Christian bases change on a real “change agent” who existed in human history, Jesus Christ. He came to live on earth, He showed all of us a better way to live, He preached His worldview to a few, He converted a few key people, performed miracles, died and rose from the dead.  As Paul Little says, our “personal subjective experience is based on objective historical fact.”

John 8:12 “Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”  What happens to a believer?  They have a new purpose.  They exist to glorify the Kingdom of God if they really believe.  A non-Christian has temporary purposes “such as family, career and money that give limited satisfaction.  But these, at best, are transient and may fail with a change in circumstances” [Little, 134].  God’s purpose in our lives is eternal.

When one experiences Jesus, there is something that happens that is unexpected—joy. Some call it contentment and some call it “spiritual refreshment.”  This is what allows a person to rejoice in the midst of difficult circumstances.  This joy is very real and it is observable.  People who have God in their hearts have the capability of appreciating what they have even if it is insignificant in worldly terms.  They take what God has given them and they do a lot with it.

Peace is another factor that is real for the Christian. People today are in a chase for the next big thing, a peace they think they can find in drugs, alcohol or sex but that is not the real source of peace.  The deep longing we have in our lives today is really for the idea of lasting peace.  We cannot find peace by chasing the desires of this world.  Peace comes from a lasting relationship with God.

Life is about choices and today it seems that people are struggling with making moral choices. Many times, the Christian may opt for going with the crowd instead of obeying God.  We need power to withstand the many temptations that we face in everyday life.  Jesus Christ said, “I have come that they may have life, and they might have it more abundantly” [John 10:10].  What is Jesus giving us?  He is giving us His power, power to make better moral choices.

Now before we go too far, how many of you have exercised that power? How many have failed?  I have failed and I know why.  I am human.  When I fail, I need to understand why. When I became a disciple of Christ, I knew that my humanity would let me down from time to time.  This is when I need forgiveness.  None of us is in this life alone.  We all fall short of the glory of God and it is not the end of life when we do.  Jesus is there to pick us up.  God extends His grace.

Last but not least is the personality change that happens to a person who begins to know God. When we become children of God, we have a change that is noticeable.  Spirit and mind begin to work and slowly the body begins to follow.  We have habits and they are slow to change.  That’s ok, but over time; our bodily habits will catch up with our mind and spirit and we will present a better person to the world.

Some who do not know Jesus get very hesitant when they are asked to make the commitment to become a Christian.  They are not prepared to pay the price.  Maybe instead of focusing on paying the price, the focus should be on receiving the reward.

Focus on the values of the Christian experience.

You have more than a fried egg over your left ear.

You have a valid Christian experience.

Valid: having a sound basis in logic or fact; reasonable or cogent.

Is the Christian experience valid? This is the final chapter of our book, the topic for this final week.

When I first read Paul Little’s last chapter, I thought he did a poor job of concluding his book. Then I thought the idea of the valid Christian experience does seem to summarize his book.  I then turned to other sources to see what others have written about the validity of Christianity, and I saw all the topics he had discussed in his book, all topics that Christians have to deal with when someone questions the validity of the Christian experience.

You find arguments for the existence of God, arguments for Christ rising from the dead, arguments for the Bible being the word of God abound and also skeptical questions like how does God allow evil in the world and isn’t Christianity just a crutch?

It all boils down to one thing: KNOW WHY YOU BELIEVE.

Yes, folks it is the whole purpose of the book, the title; we need to know why we believe.

What are the foundations of our belief?

How do you feel about the Bible?  For me it is the inspired word of God.  God spoke to man and man wrote down his experiences with God and God’s words.  The Bible is a source of truth for all of us.

How do you feel about God?  For me He is the Creator of the universe.  He is God, He sent His Son Jesus Christ to earth.  A bit of His divinity resides within me in the form of the Holy Spirit.  That is my personal God connection.

How do you feel about Jesus Christ?  For me He is the only begotten Son of God, the mediator between God and humankind.  He was sent to earth to instruct us about how to live a better life and He was sent to earth to forgive our sins and die for our sins.

How do you feel about the resurrection?  For me, Jesus died on the cross, was buried and rose from the dead.  After forty days He ascended into heaven where He is at the right hand of God His Father.  He had to go through that; it was prophesized in the Old Testament.  It was painful.  He was in human form when he went through all he had to endure and he endured it for you and me.

How do you feel about man and sin?  God created man in His image, to do His work to glorify Him.  However, due to original sin, man falls short of the perfect standard set by God.  We have a chance at eternal life due to Jesus Christ.

How do you feel about salvation?  For me, I am saved from my sin through my belief in Jesus Christ.  I can’t earn salvation.  It is God’s gracious gift to me.  Once I began to believe that God saved me by the grace, I secured my salvation.

How do you feel about the Holy Spirit?  For me I recognize I have certain spiritual gifts that God has given to me.  It is my job to use those spiritual gifts to bear spiritual fruit for His glory.  Jesus said “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

How do you feel about the spirit world?  For me, God is at war with evil in this world.  Some Christians believe that God has messengers called angels and Satan has messengers called demons.  I believe the world is full of good and evil but in the end, good will triumph [Revelation 20:10].

How do you feel about the church?  Well the church is the universal body of Christ, comprised of believers everywhere.  The church exists so we can worship God, serve one another and share our faith.

How do you feel about the future?  For me, the world will come to an end and God will create a new heaven and a new earth.  Christ will come again.  When He does, judgement and eternal life in hell await the unbeliever.

Before you can be a strong Christian, these basics need to be ironed out. How do we get them straight?  Dedicate yourself to be a growing, learning Christian.  If there are some areas of your faith that are shaky, study and get them solid in your mind.  Go see your pastor, go to church, attend Sunday School.  Read the Bible.  No better yet, study the Bible.

I have seen too many Christians dodge the basics of their faith and it worries me. The answers should be in place and you should have them ready when you are asked.

Unless you are able to express yourself on these basics, maybe your faith is not as valid for you as it should be.

You know down inside if you are shaky or not.

Remember as we finish our final week on Paul Little’s book, KNOW WHY YOU BELIEVE.

Have you ever been around a “live” Christian?

That sounds silly but here is what I mean. Have you ever been around a Christian who is alive with the love of Jesus?

They have something special. They have an aura about them.  They have a calm, peaceful nature and yet when something needs to be done, they do it and they do it well.  They are always looking out for others and meeting other’s needs.

I was with such a person just the other day. This person inspires me.  They go to my church, St. John United Methodist and they have a characteristic that I would call selfless.  This person has problems, serious health problems but let me tell you, you would never know it.  I was with them the other day, the day before they were to go in to the doctor for  treatment and they spent almost 99% of their time talking about someone they care for who is going through a tough time.  “Tougher than what I am going through” they said.

As we wrap up our study of Know Why You Believe, I want to springboard off of this person into what happens to a person when Christ comes into their heart.

1.support…you begin to realize that you are not alone.   You have friends who believe in Jesus and they love you; they support you when you are going through difficult times.  You are not alone anymore.  You have caring friends who will drop what they are doing to help you.  I have seen my fellow Christians give to others when they did not have much to give.  I have seen my fellow Christians spend time with suffering brothers and sisters when they were very busy with their own lives.  I have seen my fellow Christians work hard to make things easier for others when others could not do for themselves.

2.purpose…you have joined a group of folks who are furthering the Kingdom of God and that is now your new purpose. You have work to do now.  You see the church member go into the nursing home; you have someone to visit.  You see the church member miss church; you have someone to call.  You see a church member go through a divorce; you have a new person to listen to and several cups of coffee to drink.  Work for God is everywhere, no matter your age, no matter your health limitations…you can pray, pick up the phone, you can address a card.  Show love for your fellow man.

3.wisdom…we never know it all. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we know little.  We are baby Christians.  God does not want us to be babies forever.  He wants us to grow and handle adult problems and tackle adult projects in His name.  He wants us to read His word and study about Him.  He wants us to learn over time who He is.  He wants us to experience spiritual maturity.  When trouble comes, He wants us to be able to handle that trouble.

4.resilience…when trouble comes, it puts us flat on our backs [sometimes]. God does not want us to stay there.  He wants us to have the ability to get back up and stand for Him.  He wants His strength to be infused within us so we can inspire others by our ability to fight our problems with peace and wisdom.  Philippians 4:13 “ I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” is not just a popular piece of scripture. It is a way of life for the rock solid Christian.  Whatever life throws at you, the mature Christian can handle it because the mature Christian knows where their strength comes from and they can draw upon it.

5.peace…This is the person I spent time with the other day. This person exhibited peace on the eve of their storm.  Like Jesus in Matthew: “And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being covered with the waves; but Jesus Himself was asleep”, the mature Christian knows that the storm is not that bad and it will pass.  The mature Christian knows things that are bad will not be bad forever.  The mature Christian has a peace that passes all understanding.

Spend some time around “alive” Christians. They are the best promotions for Christianity in the world.  You watch them and say to yourself, “ I want what they have.”  You watch them and wish you had their composure.   You watch them and realize you don’t have it and you want it badly…

Courage.

Years ago, when my son was a teenager, I was beginning my serious relationship with God. That happened to me when he was in his teen years.  I began to learn what it meant to be a Christian.

For my son, this was not the case. He was a “typical” teen, a “know-it-all” and he did things just to get a reaction out of his parents.  At times, we were not happy with some of his life choices.  Very typical teen-ager.

One night in a weak moment he and a bunch of his friends took me up on an offer to go to a local Nazarene Church to attend an Easter presentation called “Heaven’s Gate and Hell’s Flames.” I wanted to go so I invited them.

Scott and his rowdy buddies sat on the pew with me as the presentation began. For some of you who have seen this play, it is designed to make the point that you need to get “right” with God right now before it is too late.  That’s the whole point.  No one knows when their own personal end time will come and when it does, your dedication to God is very, very important.

The play was hard-hitting on that point. Over and over characters had to account for their actions and they went to heaven or to hell depending on how they lived their lives.  I could tell “my crew” was getting the point.  Visible squirming was going on.  I could see one young fellow sweating.  Several times the guys would cut their eyes toward me.

Finally, the play was over but then the pastor took to the stage.

He had a message, a message of redemption. Here was the catch.  He wanted an instant response.  He wanted people to get saved right then.

I remember that he asked if anyone was ready to confess their sins and find the instant peace of God. “Please raise your hand!”

I felt stirring beside me on the pew. I looked over there and all of “my crew” had a hand up.  SCOTT HAD HIS HAND UP!  I was excited.

Then the pastor said “If you are ready to make a commitment to your Lord and Savior, stand up!”

Again, as I looked at my guys; they all got to their feet.

I could not believe it. These “hardened criminals” were making a commitment here!

Then the altar call: “Come on down to the altar and kneel and we will minister to your needs!”

Every one of these guys went to the altar and I was elated. I really could not believe this and I went down there with them.

The pastor asked each of them to confess their sins and make a commitment. Each of them did and I was overjoyed because my unruly teen did repent of his sins and he asked for Jesus to come into his heart.

I will never forget the next morning when I went to his room and got him up to go to school.

The old rebellious teenager reappeared. I asked if he was ready to join the church and he said “No, why would I want to do that?”  I asked if what had happened last night was forgotten.  He said “no but there was no reason to change.  Why should I want to join the church.”   I pointed out that this was the usual next step.

“Not for me!”

That was the end of the story.

What had happened? My son was the victim of the emotional response to religion.

Paul Little says that this is a common problem with the Christian experience. Too often it is subjective and not objective.  The heart is involved so much that the head just “checks out”.

Little says that some pastors seem to brainwash people into coming to Jesus.

Critics of Christianity say we use our Father God as a needed father figure, a crutch to lean on in a time trouble.

What happened to my son? When it came time for him to make a commitment to Christ, it took too much for him to get up in front of church and say the words that would make him a member.  His heart drew up a contract at the play that he could not honor, the very next day.

After he had time to think, he could not do what he knew he needed to do.

What should the Christian experience be?

Well, the valid Christian experience should be a combination of heart and head. It is important to think about our Lord and Savior, not just feel Him.  When we have intellect and heart combined, the result is a lasting relationship.

Paul Little quotes Dr. Orville S. Walters, a Christian psychiatrist, who said “the will is like a cart pulled by two horses, the emotions and the intellect. With some people, the will is reached more quickly through the emotions.  With others, it is reached through the mind.  But in every case, there is no genuine conversion unless the will has been involved.”

Isaiah 51:16 “I who set the heavens in place, who laid the foundations of the earth, and who says to Zion, ‘You are my people.'”

Paul Little writes “Isn’t the God whom we worship the God of the Old Testament, which we accept? Surely, we can get together on this!”

All week long I have been commenting on different religions and how Christianity differs from them. Aren’t we close to the Jewish people?

In some ways we seem to be; in others not so much.

The Jewish people do not accept the idea that their God was the Father of Jesus Christ. Sadly, many Christians focus on the fact that some of the Jewish people of Jesus’ day demanded that he be killed.  Of course they got their way.  Animosity toward the Jewish people resurfaced in 2004 when Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was released.

Let’s step back and look at the central beliefs of the Jewish people: there is one God who created and who rules all things, time is linear. It has a beginning, and it will have an ending, history gradually moves toward an ultimate purpose, human beings are made in God’s image and likeness, God has given us the Torah to make us a witness to all nations, God has called out the Jewish people to demonstrate His love and His sovereignty through a special arrangement called “covenant” [Dan Scott, Faith to Faith].

Surely you recognize some “spillover” to Christianity, the idea of covenant, the idea of one God, the idea of human beings made in God’s image.

We have already mentioned two major differences in paragraph 5 but what are others? One is the fact that Jews are called to live their lives in the sovereignty of their Creator.  They can question God, they can feel frustrated with God’s actions or lack of action but they cannot disobey God.  God is the originator of their faith and they are all related to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as family members.  This sense of family relationship is at the core of their faith.

If you have read the Old Testament or heard it preached, you have heard the important word covenant.   For the Jewish people, covenant is the acceptance of their holy obligation.  The Jew is a trustee who carries life forward on behalf of their ancestors and they realize that they are a people “set apart” by God.  When a Jewish person has a child, the child is a channel through which God’s covenant to Abraham will flow from one age to another.  In essence, the child is Abraham’s child.  Of course male children are circumcised which sets them apart even more.

Other signs of the covenantal connection are Sabbath observance and of course the well-known dietary restrictions. Why is all this done?  To remind the Jewish people that God is always number one.  Dan Scott cites Dr. Aronson in his book Faith to Faith.  Dr. Aronson explains the priority of God for the Jew: “There is one God.  The state is not God. Man is not God. Money is not God. Race is not God.  Language is not God.  Only God is God.  Human beings must bow down to no one and nothing but Him.  This belief infers the equality of human beings as well as the sovereignty of God.”

I found an interesting explanation about why the Christian is so closely connected to Judaism and cannot refute this faith: “When a Christian refutes Judaism, he is like a man who works on the third floor but decides to blow up the first story of the same building because he doesn’t like the people who work down there” [Scott, 158].

The New Testament is full of passages that God has removed the wall between Jew and Gentile: Galatians 3: 28-29, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.”

The Jewish people can try to ignore our relationship with them and we can try to do the same but it is there and it is real.

“All faiths are the same and we are worshipping the same God anyhow” applies to Judaism and Christianity.

Let’s not blow up the first floor. Let’s learn to appreciate each other.  “Judaism remains our schoolmaster, our older brother whose approval we crave.  At the same time, the stumbling block remains—the simple carpenter who is David’s son but who claimed to be David’s Lord.  Christians see Him as the Torah who became flesh and dwelt among us….How can we hope that our estranged elder Hebrew brother will ever believe these things until we acknowledge his continual role in our family?” [Scott, 2008].

Maybe as Dan Scott says, we need [as Christians] to acknowledge we are children of two covenants, an ancient people who were the first to hear the voice of God and a graft onto an ancient vine.

“For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.”

When I was much younger and in college, away from home, parents and church, I was fascinated with world religions. Like a lot of other young people, I was very open to lots of ideas, enjoying my freedom away from everything that I knew to be true.

Paul Little writes of the Christian concept of the similarity of world faith: “Many Christians naively assume that other religions are basically the same, making the same claims and essentially doing what Christianity does, but in slightly different terms.”

That sentence describes me in college. I emphasize the word “naively.”

I had an English teacher that I admired and he was fascinated with Buddhism and Hinduism and he made my class read the book Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, a German mystical writer.  The book was the telling of a young man’s spiritual journey toward a higher spiritual enlightenment.  For a while, I was a big fan of Buddhism and Hinduism.

Until I followed it to the logical end and I saw that it was very different from Christianity.

I am not putting other religions down but to say that they are all the same as Christianity is incorrect.

Siddhartha [the main character of Hesse’s book] was in search of a purpose for his life. He wanted to experience all that life had to offer on his road to his purpose.  I remember that he was a successful young man as he spent time pursuing his desire for pleasure.  Eventually pleasure led him to perform acts that were selfish and hurtful to others.  I remember that he was a successful young man as he spent time pursuing his desire for spiritual growth.  He was very successful because he felt he was getting much closer to god.  I remember his ultimate success as a seeker came as he combined the pleasure and spirit and found that this was the true peace that he was after all along.  He had a vision of a river which flowed constantly and the river had elements of pleasure mixed with spirit.

But that was all.

I could not find any more inspiration than that.

Knowledgeable people would condemn my shallow portrayal of these profound faiths but I found them lacking.

What can a person do to pursue a higher purpose in life? Jesus says that we are to “do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”  The concept of doing good unto others as you would have them do to you is in most religions, but Christianity admits the hard, cold truth:  we want to do the right thing but we find we can’t all the time.  In other faiths, that reality is not dealt with.  Jesus Christ gives us the power to try to live better as we follow our Holy Spirit.  I saw none of that in my foray into Buddhism and Hinduism.

As Siddhartha experienced his life and tried to learn, he was concerned about finding a higher spirituality but I saw no assurance that he was going to his heavenly reward for his efforts.   It just seemed to be hard work, deep thought and denial of human tendencies.  When was he going to be good enough?  For the Christian, we know we won’t ever be “good enough” to go to heaven; however, heaven will be our destination because God “assures” us that we are saved due to the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  He took our sins on His shoulders, knowing we would never be able to be totally sin free.

Siddhartha worked hard to achieve a higher consciousness and that was admirable but a lot of his activity was centered on his own self-knowledge. He did not work to help others in their time of need.  That is a distinct difference in Christianity.  We want to help “our neighbors” as the Holy Spirit changes our heart to help us see the needs of those around us.  Sometimes some Christians think that service is a way to work our way to our eternal reward but that is a mistake.  We can’t do enough work to achieve that reward.  Overemphasis on salvation by works can cause a Christian to ignore the beautiful gift that Jesus gave us…salvation through His grace.

I have barely scratched the surface of these faiths. Buddhism is a faith that spans 2,500 years and has three hundred million followers.  Hinduism is 5,000 years old and has one billion followers.

Apologies to these followers for my naïve explanation.

Apologies to my church for my naïve dalliance in this faith, a faith that was not really reflective of who I am…