One night a wife found her husband standing over their baby’s crib. Silently she watched him. As he stood looking down at the sleeping infant, she saw on his face a mixture of emotions: disbelief, doubt, scepticism. Touched by this unusual display and the deep emotions it aroused, with eyes glistening she slipped her arm around her husband. “A penny for your thoughts,” she said.
“It’s amazing!” He replied. “I just can’t see how anybody can make a crib like that for only $46.50.”
It just goes to show there is a little sceptic in all of us!
According to dictionary.com, one definition of a sceptic is, “a person who doubts the truth of a religion, esp. Christianity, or of important elements of it.”
From cover to cover the Bible abounds with sceptics, whether it be Eve who doubted what God said about eating the forbidden fruit, Moses who questioned God over leading Israel out of Egypt, or Felix who was almost persuaded by Paul to become a believer. The Bible is a book about faith—and scepticism.
In reality all of us are sceptics to some degree or another. I know I am. I’m like the disciples who said to Jesus, “Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief.” I say I’m a sceptic because I don’t believe all the truths of the bible as fully as I should. If I did, there would be no room for my faith to grow. As it is, growth in faith is a lifelong adventure. Just when I think I fully believe God’s Word, along comes a situation or circumstance to test my faith, and I doubt and waffle.
I view faith in God as a journey, a continuum. The walk of faith begins with believing that He exists, and proceeds, as most journeys do, step by step. It moves, imperceptibly at times, from total unbelief to total devotion. We move along as we are confronted by truth and decide to believe or disbelieve. Where belief is the choice, the steps continue to the next point of truth to accept or reject.
Everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike, is somewhere on this faith continuum. And Christians, even though we struggle along our own faith journey, have the privilege of working with God to help others, believers and non-believers alike, take the next step in their journey.
That means that the way I approach people to talk about Jesus needs to be sensitive to where they are in their journey. With the avowed atheist, I need to talk about the proofs for existence of God. For the person who believes God exists but doesn’t trust Him, I need to share the relevance of the God’s Word to that person’s life. To the individual who has made a commitment and “crossed the line” having embraced Christ as their Saviour I need to talk about what they need to know, believe, and do to take the next step to become a more fully devoted follower of Jesus.
I said that we are privileged to work with God to bring people along in their journey of faith. He works through upbringing, people, and events. There is always some point of contact, some starting point to look for where truth has penetrated and can be built on. To put it another way, everybody believes something! When it comes to others’ faith journeys, you and I are links in the chain, travelling companions, though perhaps only for a short time.
I must make an important distinction: scepticism about truth doesn’t have to keep one from trusting. We can still trust even though we only have partial knowledge.
A person may be sceptical because he doesn’t understand or comprehend something. He thinks, “When I understand, then I will believe.” But Augustine said, “Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.” Christian faith is also about the will—the act of choosing to believe and trust regardless of having full knowledge. And that is the key to taking the next step in an individual’s journey of faith.
A sceptic can still believe and trust. The person of faith chooses to believe regardless of not knowing and understanding everything. They can trust in God, rest in His redemptive plan, and entrust themselves to Him.
Every person has scepticism and doubt. Regardless, at every point you and I are called to help others trust and take the next step. And besides all the big, important steps of faith in life maybe we can even help some believe that a crib can be made for only $46.50.
