15:3 "For I
delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for
our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and
that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and
that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. 6 After that He was seen
by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the
present, but some have fallen asleep. 7 After that He was seen by
James, then by all the apostles. 8 Then last of all He was seen by me
also, as by one born out of due time."
For the last few weeks we have been meeting with a guy who is
an agnostic. He met someone who was a Christian and he couldn't figure out how
she could be so intelligent and believe in God. That cognitive dissonance lead
to him coming to church and then wanting to explore the possibility of God
being more than a fictitious character dreamed up by weak minded people in need
of a crutch.
The first hurdle we had to cross (and we're still crossing
it) was this idea he had that believing in God required blind faith and the
complete surrender or setting aside of reason. It's been amazing to see him
start to realize that he can keep his reason, ask hard questions, keep his
analytical mindset, all while discovering he has been living by faith to a
great degree all along.
God said to the prophet Isaiah "Come let us reason
together...".
Here in 1 Corinthians Paul says everything that happened in
Jesus' life was foretold in advance in the Scriptures. In fact the Bible says God
doesn't do anything without first making it known through His servants the
prophets to demonstrate tangibly to us that He does know the end from the
beginning. It does require faith to believe in God but it's not blind faith. It
is rooted in reason and evidence. Paul continues after the claim that Jesus
rose from the dead with the fact that there were witnesses, hundreds of them
who saw Him alive after His crucifixion.
It requires faith to function in this world. Faith that my
car will turn when I turn the steering wheel. Faith that the other cars will
stop when their light is red and mine is green. Faith that the guy who
installed the elevator did it right. Faith the pharmacist made the pills right
and faith the doctor prescribed the right one. Faith is just trust. Trust is
given to those who reasonably demonstrate they can be trusted. That's why God
says "Taste and see that the Lord is good."
My son is not one to try new food. His first declaration is
always "I don't like that" even though he has never tried it. It's
not true, fair, or intellectually honest to make such a declaration if you
haven't tasted...
On Wednesday I met a guy who shared with me his life story.
He grew up in a "Christian" home. The abuse and hypocrisy etc... that
he experienced there made him hate God. The problem was he wasn't hating the
True God. He was hating a false god modeled by parents who had never tasted
God. Their picture of Him was all messed up and as a result they messed up
their son. Thankfully God found him anyway and gave Him a second chance and now
he spends his life reaching out to the outcasts of society so they can get a
taste of the true God.
Paul gave to the church in Corinth what he had received
himself - a revelation of the One True God. Taste and see that not only is He
worthy of your trust but that trusting Him is entirely reasonable.
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