Good Friday morning, my friends.
I have been reading a series of devotionals this week on the apostle Thomas, so-called "Doubting Thomas". If you remember from your Sunday School classes, Thomas refused to believe Jesus had risen until he could "see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side" (John 20:25).
I believe Thomas gets a bad rap here. It was easy for all the others to believe - they had already seen Jesus alive! How many of those would also have been "doubters" had they not seen the risen Christ for themselves?? But I digress. In today's devotional I read:
I know many Christians who would benefit from being more like Thomas. They need to engage in their own search for truth and not be like so many Christians who live their entire lives through the faith experiences of other people without ever owning their belief for themselves.
We need more men and women like Thomas in the church. We need people who own their faith and whose trust in God is based on their own conviction.
Whose faith are you living? Your parents? Your friends in the church? Or have you put your own hands in the wounds of Christ and declared "My Lord and my God!" (John 25:28)?
"Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith."—PAUL TILLICH (theologian, philosopher)
Grace and peace be yours in abundance,
Bruce
Give me confidence in the depths of danger.
Give me hope when I am surrounded by fear.Still my worries, calm the anxieties pressing in on me from the world I live in.Lord Jesus, give me Your peace.Reassure me that You are with me when I seem alone.
Ease my doubting, as You did Thomas's.Lord Jesus, give me Your peace.Guide my searching for peace,
so that I may not seek it where it is not to be found,but I may seek it in You.Lord Jesus, live in me and give me Your peace. Amen.
 | Bruce MacPherson |
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Now here's something to consider: after Thomas' revelation (there's a typo; it was chapter 20, not 25), Jesus says, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed". John 20 doesn't tell us whether the disciples believed Mary Magdalene's word -- that she had seen the Lord -- or whether they, too, determined they'd believe it when they saw it.
ReplyDeleteThis leads to an interesting point. Mary Magdalene believed and obeyed immediately -- unlike Eve, whose zeal to please God (she embellished His commandment about the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil) left her wide-open to disobey. So in a sense, the disobedience of the first, "perfect" woman led to our Fall, and it was the obedience of a fallen woman that figures in our restoration.
That idea might be half-baked, there, but it's worth considering.
As for doubt, Jesus Himself says, "if you have faith and do not doubt ..."; but I see where Paul Tillich is coming from: doubt is the 250lb weight we keep lifting in order to strengthen our faith. My God is big enough to withstand criticism, doubt, even petulant anger from His people. You gotta figure, whatever we say in our darkest moments, there's probably someone, somewhere, some time, who's said worse.