Act with Knowledge

I fear there is a myth going around in Christian circles that Christians are not supposed to be intellectual. We aren’t supposed to question what we believe, because then God won’t like us, or something along those lines. We can’t be critical of the Bible, because for some things the answers are difficult. Well, besides the obvious verse 1 Pet 3:15, which says to “always be ready to give an account (a defense) for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and respect,” there are plenty of practical and biblical reasons for criticizing our own beliefs and relying on evidence and knowledge rather than simply having blind faith.

Before you do this, however, you have to ask yourself one thing: are you willing to go wherever the truth leads you, even if that means your beliefs (in this case, Christianity) is false?! Are you willing to do that? You must be willing. Besides, as Christians we are obligated to know the truth because “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).

First off I would like to come straight out and say that if you hate knowledge you are a fool and the Bible agrees with me. “Fools hate knowledge” (Prov 1:22). Anyone who hates knowledge is not on a Biblical path, so don’t let anyone tell you not to do archaeology, or study the claims of the Bible, or explore contradictions in the Bible, or dig in to the original language, or consider perhaps an atheist’s argument against the existence of God. The truth has nothing to hide! It’s a wonder we Christians seem to run away from it so often. “With his mouth the godless man (atheist) would destroy his neighbor, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered” (Prov 11:9).

In fact, I go so far as to say that those who dislike exercising their minds for God’s glory are not fearing Him: “They hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD” (Prov 1:29).

Secondly, I must clarify what I mean by the word “faith.” Some people think that it takes more faith to believe something you know little about. This definition of faith goes something like: a belief in spite of the evidence against said belief, or belief in spite of the lack of evidence for said belief. This is the wrong definition of faith. I might go so far as to say that this is the dead faith that James addresses in his epistle – a simple intellectual assent to an idea, no matter where the evidence points.

The faith I’m talking about is the kind of faith that James tries to encourage his readers to exhibit: the kind of faith that is reliance on or trust in something. For example, I have been putting faith in this chair for the last few hours to hold me up. I have no problem doing this, because I have had experience with it holding me up for such extended periods in the past. It’s not as if my faith in the chair diminishes with use. Just the opposite! My faith has been increased or, at the very least, confirmed. The same goes for God. The more we know about the reality of His existence and the more we have experienced His transforming power in our lives, the more we are certain of His actual, real presence in our lives, the more our faith increases! It’s not as if our faith in Him diminishes because we don’t need faith, we know. No, we have less trouble putting more faith in Him. It’s a beautiful thing. “…knowledge will be pleasant to your soul” (Prov 2:10).

Knowledge is actually an extremely valuable thing to the Lord. He commands us to guard it with our lips (Prov 5:2), to take it before choice gold (Prov 8:10), and if we are wise, to store lots of it (Prov 10:14). I wonder then why we have people saying things like “a god who can be proven to exist is not a god worth proving.” This is a common quote I’ve heard before, though I don’t know the original coiner. But think about it. If God can’t be proven to exist, then there is no foundation for the opening chapter of Romans which states that simply because the heavens exist, men are without excuse. Sounds like Paul thinks proving God is fairly easy to do! Yes, that means even the random aborigine tribe in the middle of a remote jungle in Africa is responsible for knowing some truth about Him, because His existence is that obvious… Of course, I by no means am saying that everyone will believe He exists. Men’s hearts are hard towards the things of God (Jer 17:9), and will often refuse to accept the obvious, logical implications of simply being alive in this amazing world that we’re in.

When we make decisions in life, they are calculated. We weigh pro’s and con’s, we examine the evidence and come to a conclusion based on a mess of inputs, yet with eternal things we are supposed to accept blindly what some book says? I think not. That is not a Christian value. That is a Mormon value. Instead, the Bible says “in everything the prudent acts with knowledge, but a fool flaunts his folly” (Prov 13:6).

I hope I have made a strong case for the importance of knowledge in the Christian life. I have some new dorm mates here at Stanford who are churchgoers who say that it’s impossible to know whether God exists or not. Forgive me, but what is the point of worshiping something you aren’t even sure exists? We don’t worship a false, dead, deaf God, but a living one. He actually exists. This isn’t just tradition. It isn’t a formality. It isn’t a matter of preference. The Christian life is about living in right relationship with God who is really here, not just an abstract concept in our heads.

Well, time to sign off. Perhaps next time I’ll post a few of the most commonly offered proofs/evidences for the existence of God. Until then, enjoy life with the Lord.

“And this is eternal life, that they may know You…” (John 17:3).

An Encouraging Witnessing Experience

Today I was reading more of Mark Cahill’s book One Thing You Can’t Do in Heaven. The great thing about this book is that it is almost hard to read even though there are so many awesome stories, because it compels you to get out there and witness to lost people right away! There is even a line in the book that says: “Go means ‘do not stay.’ It means put this book down, get up, and go bring the good news of Jesus to every person you can find in our lost and dying world” (170). Well that was convicting to say the least! So that’s what I ended up doing! Except in my typical fallen fashion I was pretty reluctant to talk to anyone.

I went to the Starbucks on Homestead and Hollenbeck, knowing that that is popular hang out spot for kids who go to Homestead High – perhaps I’d be able to talk to one of them! Well, as the Lord would have it, everyone there was Asian and speaking a different language. Not that I have anything against Asians, I just get really uncomfortable around people who are jabbering in a language I can’t understand. So I ordered a Strawberries and Crème, grabbed a newspaper, and started doing a crossword puzzle. After about 15 minutes I realized I was doing horribly and that probably even the answers I had down were mostly wrong, so I ditched that for some Sudoku. All the while I’m planning on ‘getting stuck’ somewhere and asking someone for ‘help’ in order to start a conversation with them. Everyone was so busy talking to other people or coming in and out so quickly that an opportunity never seemed to open up, though. I prayed that God would make me bold and allow me to have a conversation with someone in there; I was already feeling guilty for not starting one with anybody.

Lo and behold, a quarter of the way into my game a Mexican boy came into the shop and walked right toward me on the soft chair. He stood next to me, looked at me, and smiled. I noticed this and looked up at him.

“Hi,” I said.
“Hi!” he replied, sitting on the other soft chair adjacent to mine.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“Good, good,” he said – a typical answer, even from people I know well. He then returned the question.
“I’m fine. What’s your name?” I asked, wanting to start a more personal conversation.
“Christian,” he said.

I couldn’t believe it! Some random kid came up to me and said hello evidently because I looked like one of his friends and he wanted to borrow some money. And his name was Christian! Talk about a conversation starter! I was too afraid to start a conversation with someone, so God sent someone to start a conversation with me! It was amazing. After a few minutes of small talk, I tried to transition to eternal things by mentioning the extremely recent and sudden death of Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter. I wasn’t able to control the conversation well, however, and we got off topic. He ended up asking me, though, if he could ask a ‘personal question.’

I thought, “Are you kidding me?” I half suspected this kid would start witnessing to ME! Sadly, though, his question proved my suspicion wrong, and instead bolstered my other suspicion: he needed Christ in his life.

After the conversation came to a dead point, I said, “Now that you have asked me a personal question, may I ask you one.” He was most definitely open to talking to me at this point. I had already found out more about his life and his friend John’s life than anyone should know about another person within the first 10 minutes of meeting them. I asked him if he were to die today where he would go. The sparked the rest of our 40 minute conversation during which they accidentally missed two busses! I felt a little bad for holding them up, but I knew they needed to hear what I had to say.

During that time we talked about everything from the Ten Commandments, to how to get into heaven, to suicide, to holy water, to the reliability of Scripture, to dragons. It was a fairly good conversation, and I was glad I got to explain to them that they couldn’t be good enough for God, that they needed something else (Being a pretty good person is the most common reason people give for their justification of entering heaven). I had to explain that even committing one sin was enough to keep you out of heaven; in fact it’s like breaking all of the Law (James 2:10)! Christian was actually quite knowledgeable about the Bible, nodding whenever I quoted verses as if he recognized them and mentioning things he’d heard were said in it – even some pretty obscure things. I really enjoyed talking to him and was hopeful that he would understand and believe – he seemed close to the kingdom. He noticed my enthusiasm and asked me at one point during the conversation if I was an angel!

That would be the third time my proverbial jaw dropped during this conversation (but only in my mind). He also mentioned that there was something about me that just reflected some sort of angelic presence. “When I look at you,” he said, “I see ‘pure.’ But when I look at you,” turning to face his friend, “I see ‘death.’” Jaw-drop-session number four! You know when Jesus talked about being a light to the world, He wasn’t joking around (Matt 5:13-16). This became incredibly obvious the moment Christian said that. The kid could sense a huge difference between us simply because the stark contrast between his friend and me. His friend was into drinking and getting high; I was trying to show him I cared about the things of the Lord and his eternal soul. He noticed, and I am confident that he saw exactly what Jesus promised the world would see in us – light.

It felt like the conversation was over far too quickly, and I was tempted to beat myself up for not saying more, but I realized that God had set up their time to come into my life, and that meant he was also setting up a time for them to leave it. I thanked the Lord for the opportunity to talk to these Homestead High kids. It seemed as if the Lord had been working on Christian’s heart a little – I was able to give him the address and directions to FBLA, which he expressed an interest in attending almost as soon as we started talking! I pray that I will have the chance to see Christian again, if not both of them. If that doesn’t happen, though, I can rest in the fact that I planted a seed, and God will be faithful to provide the increase if He so desires.

I hope this story encourages you to get out there and be bold to share your faith with others, especially when God practically plops them right in your lap like He did for me today! It doesn’t take much, and the only time you’ll regret it is when you don’t do it! So get out there and evangelize the lost! They’re all waiting to hear from us.

One thing I would have done differently had I been able was to have tracts ready to hand out. Since they were asking for money, I could easily have had those money tracts and simply said something like this: “You need 25 cents? How about a million dollars and 25 cents!” and then hand them a ‘million dollar tract’ with the real quarter that they’re looking for. That is always fun. We had a few in Colorado and we’d slip them in as tips when the workers weren’t looking. Tracts are a great way to get the truth out to people when you don’t have a ton of time to start a 40-minute conversation with them like I did.
Some good tracts can be found at www.livingwaters.com. My personal favorites are the million dollar ones and the “IQ Test” ones – 100 tracts for 5 dollars. That literally means you’re giving out five-cent pieces of paper with the priceless gospel message on each of them. Everyone wants money and to prove that they’re smart, so it’s a good way to tie in biblical, eternal, salvation truth to the things that people seem to want most.