Monday, November 11, 2019
678 - Reasonable Faith
Spirituality Column #678
November 12, 2019
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Reasonable Faith
By Bob Walters
“Always be prepared to
give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that
you have.” – 1 Peter 3:15
I had a zillion Bible and theological
questions when I became a serious, baptized, born-again Christian back in 2001.
At age 47 I
was a blank slate when it came to Jesus.
Thankfully, God put some great people close to me early on – Russ
Blowers, Dave Faust, George Bebawi, John Samples – who could field any
question. I needed answers and
definitions and in that season of my life, for better or worse, I was blessed
with time to read the Bible.
And I mean, I read all of it. Genesis to Revelation. I cheated just a bit skimming some of the
repetitive sections in Deuteronomy and Chronicles, and I didn’t always read
absolutely every name or place in every chapter. I discovered that reading Psalms – in order, en masse – was counterproductive. Better to take them one-at-a-time; better to
pray over them, better to let them soak in, better
to pray them to God as you go. Slowly.
Anyhow, Russ – who died 12 years
ago this past weekend, Nov. 10, 2007 – loved people and taught me to see chaos
in the world not as punishment but as evidence of a fallen world, hence the
need for Christ, hence the hope of eternal joy.
Dave, the church pastor who
baptized me, taught my first “Bible study” and suddenly this “old book” (that’s
what I used to call it) that made no sense to me earlier in life came vibrantly
alive. I met God and Jesus on its
pages. The Spirit turned out to be no
joke. Life’s moment-by-moment “reality”
shifted to solid reliance on eternal truth.
George – good grief, where would I
be without George Bebawi? – laughed when I asked him early on, “Why was evil
allowed to enter the Garden of Eden?” “Bob,
it is a story” he answered in jovial
assuredness. That response threw me at
the time but when we realize, unquestionably, that God communicates in stories,
it was a perfect answer. I learned to focus less on Satan, sin, and the snake and
more on the truth of the story: that God is righteous but gives His created
beings freedom to love Him or not.
Why? God is good and God is love, but love cannot
be coerced. Neither can it be defined. When we define love, we lose it because we
have given it limits. Neither God nor
love has limits. I wrote recently
that love is never a list but that truly divine and sacrificial love allows us
to join God’s grace, obedience, and example that we see in Christ. Jesus is the model for God’s perfection of
humanity. Our joy is chasing it.
John Samples – pastor, friend, counselor,
and encourager – has trusted me with teaching his Bible study class and standing
in a small pulpit for him, preaching Christ.
All this is to say that, more than
what we will ever “know,” it is our relationships that magnify a walk with
Christ, just as they illuminate the eternal community within the Holy Trinity –
Father, Son, Spirit. In our relationships
we taste, briefly, the obedience, grace, love, and glory of Kingdom life. It is real,
though I cannot – and have learned that I do not need to – define it beyond
the great peace and hope of knowing Jesus.
Yes, learn about the Bible, the
Church, history, tradition, and 2,000 years of human intellectual and spiritual
investment that tells us when we know Jesus, we know truth exists. But I’ve learned that the reason for my faith
is not what I know.
The reason for my faith resides in
the relationships my faith has created.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that 1 Peter 3:15 (above), says to
give an answer for “your” faith; not the faith of others around you … that’s
the Spirit’s job.
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