What do you believe? (John 5:30-47) 260207
Yesterday, I had dinner with an ex-colleague and she invited another of her friend to join us after dinner. Her friend was a Catholic who renounced his faith completely. In his view, religion is only a tool used by politcians to achieve their political goals. He has read quite substantially but his bias towards religions is quite slant and I think that his so call evidence and sources of his knowledge about religions is also very bias and not very reliable. Well, as usual, I did not engage into any heated arguement or debate, because that is not my natural. But I am disturbed about what I read in John this morning.
Jesus was clearly pointing Himself as the true source to salvation (v34). But people simply rejected Him. The Jews of that time knew that God will send them a Messiah, but just didn’t know who. They were ‘diligent’ in searching through the Scripture to find salvation, but they missed the One who the Scripture was refering to (v39). Just like my ex-colleague’s friend, he read widely to find his so called meaning about life, but he missed the One who is the Author and Creator of life.
Sometimes we are the same too. I have been reading a lot ever since I entered into Bible College. More than all I have ever read the entire life before. I struggle with many of the materials and some facts of the Bible, church history and theology. These have great impact to my intellect mind (though not very big), I began to question, Can we really trust the Bible? Can we be sure of our salvation? Can we believe in Jesus? To be honest, logically and intectually, I have not confident to prove that we can. But because of all these uncertainties and tensions, my faith increases. I know that my LORD God, Jesus is real and authentic beyond and above the understanding and comprehension of my intellect mind.
Jesus made it plain in this passage that all that our mind can grasp and know about God is in the Scripture. We have to first believe and trust in the Scripture, if not, we cannot really know and put our trust and faith in Jesus (v46,47).
Do you believe what you have learn and read about in the Bible? I am sure that you have tonnes of questions, doubts, skepticisms and uncertainties about what you ahve read in the Bible. How can the world be created in only six days? (God can) How can the wall of Jerico collapsed just because the Israelites marched around it for a few days? (God can) How can a shepherd boy defeat a giant Philistine with a sling and stone? (God can) How can a virgin be pregnant and give birth to the Savior? (God can) How can someone who die on the Cross and came back to life three days later? (God can)
I know it can be tough for some of us to swallow these unusual events in the Bible which go against all natural and physical laws, but we can if we have a faith in the Author of the Bible. What do you really believe? Do you believe in the Bible? Do you believe in the Author of the Bible? You have to believe in the Bible in order to understand the Author and you have to believe (or have faith) in the Author in order to understand and make sense out of the Bible. What do you believe?
