Often times we treat faith and doubt as if they are completely opposite and there is no room for doubt in manners of faith. When we create this dichotomy, following Jesus becomes like a package deal where if you accept one part of a certain kind (whether it be denomination, branch, certain leaders, etc.), you have to accept the whole thing. And if you reject one part of it, you reject the whole entire package as well. We’re in the midst of a series at Real Life called “Is God Fake News?” and we’re tackling challenging topics like this. I want to challenge that this is kind of faith is “fake news.”
We’ve all heard the stories, known people, or perhaps this is even your own story, of the person who went to college, a professor challenged that the Bible is not accurate in a few places, and then said person completely loses their faith and rejects the entirety of Christianity because it is now “false.” When put this way, doesn’t that sound a bit shady? Does faith really have to be this all or nothing scheme?
What if I told you that when you have questions regarding Scripture, Jesus, or God, that this is actually healthy to your faith? How can this be so? Well, I’m glad you asked! You see, when we ask questions, we’re looking to grow in our knowledge, experience, and overall outlook of our faith perspective. What we have to realize is that not all matters of faith are equally necessary. Now, all matters of faith may be important, but that does not mean they are necessary to faith itself.
Around Real Life Church we have what we call the “concentric circles” of faith. In the circles, there are things toward the center that we find necessary to following Jesus such as Jesus is divine, resurrected from the dead, that type of thing. However, there are also many things we find important on the outside circles but may disagree about. These are peripheral circles that aren’t necessary to following Jesus or not. Many times, well-meaning followers of Jesus can get these circles mixed up and blurred with one another, to the point if you don’t have all the right circles, you don’t fit in. We’re not that kind of place. We should not make the small circles of our faith the same as the larger ones.
The person of Jesus is obviously in the middle. So, in the midst of all these questions you are asking, no matter what conclusions you come to, if you’re striving for that center circle, you’re on the right track in some form or another. Jesus simply commanded people to follow him. There wasn’t any fine print involved. Now, Jesus certainly had a lot of teachings, but when the thief on the cross next to him asked to be with him in paradise, Jesus said, “done” (Luke 23:39-43). No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it. That’s faith my friends. And such faith is anything but “fake news.” If that’s attractive to you, we invite you to join us at Real Life Church for the remainder of this series running in January. You may be surprised at what you find. And if you’d like to find out more about this Jesus and some of his core teachings, check out the new book I have coming out entitled “Better Together” and pre-order it HERE if you’re interested. Because, yes, even the questions we bring to matters of faith are answered better in a community of people. And that’s what Jesus is all about.