Untangling the Gospel 9: You'd Better Believe It!
We all know that scripture tells us it is important to "believe" in Jesus, right? But what does that mean?
Really. Think about it for a minute.
The standard evangelical formula for this has been something like this: "To believe in Jesus means to accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior."
Okay. That sounds good. But it still doesn't answer my question.
Consider:
- Someone is playing blackjack. He decides to stand with a count of 12. He knows that - statistically speaking - the odds are that the next card will have a value of 9 or less. But what does he believe the next card will be?
- Someone else is standing at the edge of a bridge, tied to a bungee cord. She knows that 500 people have jumped off the same place, using the same cord, tied the same ways - and none of them have been hurt. But she hesitates. Does she believe it is safe to jump?
- You probably get in your car and drive down a busy road every day. Traffic moving at tremendous speeds comes in your direction in the opposite lane. If someone blows a tire or is inattentive, they could swerve into your lane and hit you head on. It happens to someone every day. But what do you believe the oncoming traffic will do?
- The guy next door to your office has read all of the statistics about how smoking will shorten his life. But he smokes every day. Does he believe cigarette smoking is killing him? (Or does he, perhaps, believe that he will quit tomorrow, or next week, and ultimately avoid the grim reaper?)
- Someone in the pew next to you raised his hand last year when a preacher asked if he accepted Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior. Today, he still sits in that same pew every Sunday, but he is not trying to love his enemies or find ways to give more of what he has to others less fortunate than he is. Does he believe in Jesus?
Believing is not necessarily about knowing things. Modern ways of thinking are constantly tempting me to equate the two, but they aren't really the same thing. Sometimes people believe things even though they cannot be known - or even inferred rationally. People can even believe things that, based on the information that is available, is irrational. If "accepting" Jesus simply means that one has acquired some specific type of knowledge about him and about his role in the universe, it isn't belief.
Belief also isn't stating that something is true. "What does your church believe?" was a common question I heard during my youth. "Do you believe in unconditional grace?" "Do you believe in the Old Testament?" "Do you believe in the view of predestination which states that...?" Doctrinal statements and denominational creeds and other public declarations about theological ideas aren't "beliefs" - at least, not in the sense that scripture typically uses that term. Likewise, to declare that Jesus is your Lord and Savior isn't necessarily to believe that he is.
Here is what I think.
You believe something when you stake your life on it. You only know a person believes when they jump off the bridge. Or when they get out into the traffic. Or when they throw away the cigarettes.
To believe in Jesus means to stake your life on who he is. It means to trust that the crazy, upside-down way he said to live is the way you should live. And then to live that way. If I don't trust him enough to do what he says, I don't really believe he is who he says he is. Its that simple.
I want to separate "belief" and "action", but - in truth - real belief is the thing that makes action possible.
The sad thing, for modern Christians, is that this truth has been under our noses all along in places like this. We've just been too blind to understand what scripture has been saying to us.
It is a struggle - and I mean a daily struggle - for me to get this through my thick skull. I am constantly wanting to muddle belief/trust into intellectual acknowledgements of spiritual realities that I can then state in simple terms. I want to think that salvation comes through the acknowledgement of truths and the words that I use to express that acknowledgement.
But that is the broad path. It is on the narrow path where salvation - real, rich, true salvation - is found. That path is a hard one. It is a path that may even appear to be the least likely to lead anywhere.
Really. Think about it for a minute.
The standard evangelical formula for this has been something like this: "To believe in Jesus means to accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior."
Okay. That sounds good. But it still doesn't answer my question.
Consider:
- Someone is playing blackjack. He decides to stand with a count of 12. He knows that - statistically speaking - the odds are that the next card will have a value of 9 or less. But what does he believe the next card will be?
- Someone else is standing at the edge of a bridge, tied to a bungee cord. She knows that 500 people have jumped off the same place, using the same cord, tied the same ways - and none of them have been hurt. But she hesitates. Does she believe it is safe to jump?
- You probably get in your car and drive down a busy road every day. Traffic moving at tremendous speeds comes in your direction in the opposite lane. If someone blows a tire or is inattentive, they could swerve into your lane and hit you head on. It happens to someone every day. But what do you believe the oncoming traffic will do?
- The guy next door to your office has read all of the statistics about how smoking will shorten his life. But he smokes every day. Does he believe cigarette smoking is killing him? (Or does he, perhaps, believe that he will quit tomorrow, or next week, and ultimately avoid the grim reaper?)
- Someone in the pew next to you raised his hand last year when a preacher asked if he accepted Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior. Today, he still sits in that same pew every Sunday, but he is not trying to love his enemies or find ways to give more of what he has to others less fortunate than he is. Does he believe in Jesus?
Believing is not necessarily about knowing things. Modern ways of thinking are constantly tempting me to equate the two, but they aren't really the same thing. Sometimes people believe things even though they cannot be known - or even inferred rationally. People can even believe things that, based on the information that is available, is irrational. If "accepting" Jesus simply means that one has acquired some specific type of knowledge about him and about his role in the universe, it isn't belief.
Belief also isn't stating that something is true. "What does your church believe?" was a common question I heard during my youth. "Do you believe in unconditional grace?" "Do you believe in the Old Testament?" "Do you believe in the view of predestination which states that...?" Doctrinal statements and denominational creeds and other public declarations about theological ideas aren't "beliefs" - at least, not in the sense that scripture typically uses that term. Likewise, to declare that Jesus is your Lord and Savior isn't necessarily to believe that he is.
Here is what I think.
You believe something when you stake your life on it. You only know a person believes when they jump off the bridge. Or when they get out into the traffic. Or when they throw away the cigarettes.
To believe in Jesus means to stake your life on who he is. It means to trust that the crazy, upside-down way he said to live is the way you should live. And then to live that way. If I don't trust him enough to do what he says, I don't really believe he is who he says he is. Its that simple.
I want to separate "belief" and "action", but - in truth - real belief is the thing that makes action possible.
The sad thing, for modern Christians, is that this truth has been under our noses all along in places like this. We've just been too blind to understand what scripture has been saying to us.
It is a struggle - and I mean a daily struggle - for me to get this through my thick skull. I am constantly wanting to muddle belief/trust into intellectual acknowledgements of spiritual realities that I can then state in simple terms. I want to think that salvation comes through the acknowledgement of truths and the words that I use to express that acknowledgement.
But that is the broad path. It is on the narrow path where salvation - real, rich, true salvation - is found. That path is a hard one. It is a path that may even appear to be the least likely to lead anywhere.
Jesus offers a way of living life to the fullest, not a long list of ideas that I am supposed to agree with. And the question is: am I going to be satisfied with shallow, feeble acknowlegements of things I don't really know that much about anyway, or am I going to believe that the narrow path will take me to the places God promises?
posted by Matt at Friday, September 02, 2005
1 Comments:
As usual, excellent stuff. I've really enjoyed your Untangling the Gospel series of posts.
I think this is something I struggled with early on that took me off the path of the doctrinally focused church -- and the point that drove it home for me came from Rufus (Chris Rock) in the movie Dogma. Odd place to find clarity, but hey...
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