Why We Believe 2.1
This article contains class notes written by Scott Curtis on 5-12-24 for a class discussion on Faith and Christian worldviews.
Good morning to everyone and welcome. We are continuing our Study of Why we Believe. Meaning "why do Christians believe the important things we do about our faith in Jesus?"
Last week I mentioned an informal survey that pastor Jay Warner Wallace has asked his audiences he has spoken to over the last 20 years as to why Christians believe, in God, creation, Jesus, The Resurrection, and The Bible. The following 3 answers is the responses he gets from nearly every Christian audience he speaks to usually in this order: 1. I was raised that way 2. God has changed me for the better, 3. I had a personal experience with God. Surprisingly after talking to people from different worldviews, he gets the same 3 answers from Muslims, Mormons, and other religious Worldviews.
We also talked about the word faith. it simply means trust or confidence in a person or thing. We established that everyone demonstrates faith in many ways every day whether they believe in God or not. We must put our trust in people and things in order to exist and live life each day. Whether it’s our family, a doctor, an Uber driver, a pilot, a car, airplane, grocery store, etc., every human on earth shows and demonstrates faith every day. Devon made an interesting observation last week when she said that people of Jesus’ time had fewer “things” to put their faith in. We have all of these machines and toys and conveniences. And we rely on them, we put our faith and trust in them every day. Back then people’s faith were in relationships. With God and other people. We agreed that we don’t just show a little faith in these things, but literally risk our lives on the people and things we put our faith in. We then determined that the reason we do this is not based on our feelings, sympathy, a hunch, but based on evidence that we carefully consider before placing our faith, trust, and our very lives upon. We then observed that we can never know with 100% certainty that the decisions we make to place our faith in people and things are correct. Nothing in this life can be certain 100% of the time short of death and taxes. So demanding proof that we will make it to work safely every morning, or that we will not be betrayed by a family member or friend is not a possibility.
Nothing in this life is guaranteed 100% of the time. So, our only real choice is to discover the best evidence we can before making a decision to place our trust in someone or something. We determined there are two kinds of faith. The most common is a Faith based on evidence. The least common is a blind faith, that is faith without evidence. That blind faith is rarely practiced by adults, that are mentally competent.
I then told you I believe most unbelieving people in God, think a Christian’s faith in God is likely a Blind faith.
This brings us to today. The question I asked at the end of class last week was this: Why do unbelievers think that our belief in God is a blind faith do you think? A faith not based on evidence.
Why? We listed some ideas last time. Think back to the survey that J Warner Wallace takes at his meetings, those three answers that Christians give as why they believe. Could these answers contribute to the allegation that we have a blind faith? What do you think? If so, Why? Do those answers distinguish The Christian Worldview from the other worldviews? No. Now remember those answers aren’t necessarily wrong, they could very well be true for an individual person, but they are very subjective. So the question I would ask is “Are there better reasons to believe and better evidence to consider than these three common answers?” I would argue, yes. That’s the good news, and there is a mountain of it out there.
We need to be able to point to and articulate the evidence as to Why We Believe in God, Jesus, The Resurrection, and the Bible. I really believe we have an obligation to ourselves for our own faith as to why we believe first and foremost. For us. If we do this, it will strengthen our faith for every piece of evidence that we discover that supports who God is and what He has done for us. Also, I think we owe it to God to seek out, discover, and acknowledge and use this evidence that he has created to base our faith upon. He created it. He has made it available to us to discover. He expects us to use our minds. “Love God with all of your mind.” Otherwise, what is the alternative? What then do we have if we don’t know why we believe? Some might disagree with me about this, but I would argue a subjective faith at best and a blind faith at worst.
Here's a question for you. Is a subjective faith or a blind faith the type of faith the Bible promotes? Does God through the Bible expect us to have a blind faith to whatever is written without considering reason or evidence? Did Jesus expect the people 2000 years ago to have a blind faith in Him? What do you think? Yes or no? Why? Some thoughts may include:
Miracles are extra ordinary so we just "have to believe them!"
Jesus lived a sinless life and that's just not realisitc for normal people
Jesus taught with authority beyond any the capacity of any other human being, so we just have to blindly believe.
Did Jesus defend the faith that he promoted in The Father and in himself? Was Jesus an apologist himself for the faith? Check out Luke 7:18-23 - 18 John’s disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, 19 he sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
20 When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’”
21 At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. 22 So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy[a] are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. 23 Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
So to set up the context for this passage. Which John is this? Most likely it was John the Baptizer. The messenger to come before the messiah, Jesus’ cousin, He baptized Jesus, he called Jesus the Lamb of God. He publicly declared and acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah.
Where is John at this time? In prison under Herod. He made the mistake of criticizing Herod and how he was fraternizing with his family members. So he is in prison. Probably doesn’t have long to live at this point. Something doesn’t seem right to me here. Does anything seem off to you? Do you find this interesting, surprising, shocking maybe? What is happening here with John the Baptist do you think? It appears that John is questioning his faith. Why do you think he might question who Jesus is at this time? (I know this is reading into scripture what is not there, so just to acknowledge we are speculating what might be going on)
I’ve been volunteering at a prison for several years now. Prison is a dark place. It's full of evil, temptation, violence, mental illness, gangs, depression, drugs, rape, murder, you name it. People in prison are at the lowest point in their life. And they have a lot of time to reflect on their lives and when they do, I think that Satan takes full advantage of the situation. Many inmates have told me they are under constant spiritual attack in prison. This is my theory, nothing in the bible mentions this. But I think that Satan was attacking John The Baptist in this passage. He was in prison, at the lowest point in his life, and he probably knows there is a likelihood he would be executed.
If my theory is correct, how do you think Satan could have taken advantage of John’s situation? What could he have done to John at this time? Could he have sowed doubt in John’s mind? How could you see that happening? What kind of thoughts could Satan have promoted to have John question his faith?
1. You have been duped by this guy.
2. Why would Jesus allow you to be put in prison?
Jesus has forgotten about you, he doesn’t care about you. You have devoted your life to him and look where you are now. Could you hear Satan saying these things, “Jesus isn’t the messiah, he is just a man. I mean look, he asked you to baptize him. Why would God have you baptize him? He’s a fraud just like all of the other self-proclaimed Messiahs before him.”
When do you think Satan is most active in our lives? The Bible describes Satan as a lion looking for people to devour. That is the description of an apex predator in creation. A lion is at the top of the food chain in Africa. When do predators strike, when the prey is healthy, content, well fed? Or when they are weak, injured, depressed, and hopeless? Why do they attack the weak and injured? It increases their odds of getting the kill. I think Satan took advantage of the situation declared war on John and had him questioning his faith in Jesus and God. What do you think? Am I reading too much into this?
So to review, John sends his disciples to Jesus to ask him if he is the Messiah. I think we can reasonably deduct that John is questioning his faith? Do you agree? What is Jesus’ response? Does he say I am The Messiah, take my word, believe and obey me? Does he say, "John you acknowledged who I am at The Jordan River publicly when I had you baptize me where is your faith now?" No, he says "look at the evidence." Don’t just take my word for it, look at the evidence. He obviously knew that John was in a bad place literally and spiritually. I think he was saying I want you to have confidence and trust in me. I want you to believe in me again.
I want you to have faith in me, therefore, consider the evidence that your disciples have witnessed and consider it to believe. He wasn’t asking John or isn’t asking us to do anything more than regular people do every day, before putting their trust in another person. Jesus was defending himself as the Messiah with evidence.
Jesus was asking John the Baptist not to just take his personal word for who He is, but to look at what he has done and how he has done it in the presence of John’s own disciples. I don’t think He expects us to only read his words in the bible, even though we believe they are true, he doesn’t expect us to only consider his words, but to consider what he has done for us, and all of the evidence available to us in history that supports who He is and what he has done and is still doing for us every day.
So the name of this study is Why We Believe. How would you answer that question? The correct answer is because its true!! That is the right answer, because it's true.
The real question we must answer for ourselves and others is "Why do we believe it's true?" Is the answer because we have faith. I think we have to ask ourselves what is the object of our faith and why do we believe in it? This is not easy to do? It's not something that just rolls off of your tongue. What if someone at work or your aunt or uncle ask you why do you believe in God? Do you really believe that Jesus rose from the dead? Why? That can be scary. But it is something we need to look at, study, think about, pray about, and prepare ourselves to be able to answer that for ourselves first, and others second. I think the Global Christian Church does a good job of identifying what we should believe in as Christians based on The bible. I don’t think The Church has done a very good job of teaching, and training Christians about the evidence that supports why we should believe in the things we do.
At least not in my personal experience but I’m an old guy.
You have heard of the Culture War. We are in the middle of it. I think we/Christians are losing the current battle for Worldviews. Christian or biblical Worldview vs Secular worldview. How are the Secularists winning? They are marginalizing us, they are defining us and our beliefs.
They have taken biblical truth out of the public square, the classroom, the government, and the popular culture. So how do we respond to this? One way is to know what we believe and why we believe it. If we can't do that then we will continue to contribute to the lie of having a blind faith. We cant let the world define us and what our faith is and what it means to have faith in Christ and why we believe in Him.
If we aren’t able to define who we are and what and why we believe, then the world will continue to define us as having a blind faith. The main point I want to make is this:
Our faith in God and Jesus and the Bible and the resurrection, creation, and everything we believe is no different than the faith any person demonstrates when they step on an airplane or into a car, or visits a doctor's office and agrees to treatment. It’s a faith based on evidence.
People will not put their faith or trust in a person or thing unless they have evidence showing that the object of their faith is worthy of it. It's no different with God. Faith is Faith. Confidence or trust in someone or something. Whether it's in a hot air balloon or trust in Jesus of Nazareth. Reasonable people don’t put their faith in people or things without evidence.
Is there anyone here that I would describe as a research hound? Mike mentioned this last week. When we are considering making a big expensive purchase like a car, a computer, an appliance, or something associated with a hobby of yours? A boat or motorcycle, something pricey. What do we do? Research, get online. What are we looking for? Evidence. Why? What are we wanting to do? Are we wanting to put our trust in something? We want to put our faith in something. But we want this object to be worthy of our faith. Why?
So would you agree that we are on a search for Truth about this object? Once we find the truth and if we determine the product is worthy, what do we do before we buy it? We believe, we are now willing to put our trust and confidence in it. We are all in. Before we buy something we have to believe first. Before we decide to take our hard-earned money and exchange it for this object that we now have placed our faith in. Does that sound familiar? This process that we go through to decide time and again on significant purchases? So don’t we have a similar obligation to ourselves and others to research God? To look at the scriptures, the eyewitness testimonies of the apostles who knew and lived with Jesus? To determine if the Bible is a reliable document to be trusted? To research and consider the evidence for Jesus’ historical life, death, and resurrection? To look at creation and its possible explanations.
Here is a question to consider. If there was no evidence for our faith, would we still believe? I would like to hope not. If we did, we would be no better than the fans of a last-placed NFL team thinking they were going to the Super Bowl. That would be a blind faith. I know I spent a lot of time on this but I think it's important for us to understand that the World out there thinks our faith is Blind. That there is no reason or evidence behind it. And you want to know a dirty little secret. I think there are a lot of Christians that do little to make the world think differently. Some may even consider their faith in God a blind faith. Why? I don’t know they would.
Some think that the purest form of faith in God is a blind faith. Think about it. If we cant explain why we believe in God or Jesus, then what or whom are we believing in? I think I told this story last week but I will repeat it in case we have any new people this week. J. Warner Wallace tells an interesting story when he was working as a detective in California and was an atheist at the time. But he worked closely with other detectives who said they were Christians. So He asked them one day why do you believe that stuff anyway? The Miracles, resurrection, and everything else. They had no answer. He said he was dumbfounded. He had worked with these guys every day for years. He knew they were good detectives who knew how to gather and present evidence to convict someone of a crime, and yet they had not done the same with their own faith. He said at that point in his life it confirmed to him that there was nothing to Christianity. That It was a blind faith. So, That’s what we are saying to the world if we can't give reasons and evidence for our faith. The world thinks that there is no evidence for a personal God of the Bible, and the events of Jesus’ life. They’re wrong.
I think it's our job to know what we believe and Why we believe it. It serves two great purposes. 1. It gives us evidence that supports and strengthens our own faith in God. 2. If we are asked by someone, as Jay Warner Wallace did, it allows us to show our faith is a reasonable faith based on evidence, not blindness.
1 Peter 3:15
But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,
That last part is important. Gentleness and respect. Not condescending, not with a raised voice. But just have a conversation. Ask them what they believe and why. Then tell them what you believe and why. And make a friend in the process whether they agree with you or not.
Notice here Peters writes to give the reason for your hope. Not your opinion, not your feelings, not a hunch, but a reason. What does reason mean? Back to my Handy Webster's College Dictionary. Reason: “A basis or cause as for some belief, action, fact, or event.” The reason for your faith. God expects us to understand that our faith is reasonable. Anything may be possible, but what we need to know is what is reasonable. That’s how juries are directed in court. What is reasonable given the evidence? People need to know that we have reasons to believe what we do, and we need to understand those reasons and to be able to articulate them. Peter is telling us to be prepared to give a basis or cause for our faith. He is not saying "be an evangelist." He is saying "be ready, God may put you in a situation that could help someone to believe."
In modern terms, he is saying be prepared to give evidence for why you believe.
To show people our faith is not blind. Back to the original responses that we talked about. Personal experiences that people have can be true of course, but they don’t play well in our post-modern culture. Meaning, oh that’s great you had an experience with God. But that’s your experience, not mine. We can't expect people to just take our word for it, but we are expected to make a case if we are asked.
People are searching for Truth. Can you blame them? We used to be able to trust what we heard on the radio or TV or read in the newspaper to be true. Can we now today? It's definitely getting more difficult. But we can provide them with The Truth. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Look at Paul, throughout the New Testament letters. What would he do when he would enter a new town? If they had a Synagogues he would go there. He would quote the Old Testament, and how the Israelite's own prophets point to Jesus as the Messiah, he would give his personal testimony of his encounter with Jesus. He told how he used to persecute Jesus’ followers. What was he doing by this testimony before them? Anyone? He was making a case. Paul was basically a lawyer. He was educated in the Law of God and was being a defense attorney providing evidence for the identity of Jesus as The Messiah. He was telling them why he believes and follows Jesus. He was providing them with evidence to consider from their own scriptures.
Yes, he was an evangelist trying to convert people, but that’s not what we're talking about right now, although you could use this information to do that. We are just seeking the evidence to support our own faith as Christians and for others if we are asked.
I just want to say that this is not a class on Evangelism. This class is for us. For us to learn and discuss the evidence behind our faith. To acknowledge that our faith is based on evidence much like the faith we show and demonstrate every day in our lives. Faith is Faith. The object of our faith can differ but the basis for faith stays the same. And what is the basis of why we believe in anything? Class? The word of the day. EVIDENCE. This evidence is what we will talk about next week.