It just struck me this morning as I was reading the Bible. In the years I’ve been a Christian, I’ve heard some interesting things from “members” of the church. One of the doozies would be “the Bible is just written by men,” of course meaning to imply that “some things they got right, and other things they got wrong.”
Or another that I heard recently from a person I know goes to a church – “What went into the Bible was decided by a bunch of guys three hundred years after Jesus,” which came up in the wake of another interesting claim – “there are lots of books and gospels out there, who’s to say which ones are true?”
What more can you ask someone who claims to be Christian but who believes these kinds of things but “why are you even here?”
You’re sitting there in your pew, listening to a man teaching you from a book that you claim is man-made, unreliable, and incomplete. Why do you put up with that? Do you know something we don’t? Because I tell you what: if the source documents of my very system of belief are unreliable – some of them right, some of them wrong (and oh, by the way, I guess we all get to determine where that line is drawn) – I wouldn’t waste my time. I’ve got plenty of other things I could be doing to stroke my conscience and make me feel good (or bad) about myself.
Are you going to tell me that you’ll just rely on God to work it out? Well of course he will. But what God? And where on earth are you getting the idea that the God you believe in can “work it out”? And what about sin? Salvation? Heaven and the hope that you or your loved ones can go there? Think about it. You’ve just told me you can’t trust the very documents from which you draw any knowledge of those things. Are you just going to sit there and take that? Are you just going to regurgitate words that discredit the foundation of what you believe and not question your own faith? Can you not at least see the contradiction in that view and are you not curious enough to find out if what you’re saying is really reliable enough to sabotage the very faith you’re claiming to profess?
Baffling.
Christians should know that there are two ways God reveals himself to us. One is through general revelation – that is, we know there is a God because of what we see around us. In the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans, he says it pretty clearly – “19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
The second way God reveals himself to us is through special revelation – that is, in the direct writings by which we learn the specifics of who he is, what he is about, and what he’s doing. In short, the Bible. So while you don’t get anything about heaven, Jesus, salvation, or some of the attributes of God from general revelation, you do know about them through special revelation.
So I hope you can see the problem we encounter here. Because if the words of the Bible may or may not be correct – or maybe shouldn’t even be there – you’ve tossed the whole thing out the window. Even if you do get the sense that there is some kind of god or special force out there that got the ball rolling (general revelation), you’re left wondering just who or what it is. Your guess is as good as mine. Your opinion is as good as mine.
So I’ve got to ask again, “why are you even here?”