Episode Transcript
Young males benefit from rough and tumble play. The research is clear.
Apparently, I was more of a tumble-only kind of kid because when I was nine years old, I had the opportunity to pursue that all too common, prepubescent dream of many young boys: achieving gymnastic glory. And not to brag, but I was pretty good. A "natural," I'm sure someone might have said. My specialties were diving into the foam pit and spinning from the rings. But I was also proficient in crossbar dangling, springboard jumping and aimless trampoline bouncing.
So, it came as a surprise when my instructor said that I was falling behind due to lack of focus and effort. Personally, I think he was just jealous of the carefree style and avant-garde approach that I brought to a rigid, outdated sport. He was the Reverend Moore to my Ren McCormack. But either way, I knew I had to prove that I belonged with my fellow elites at Leading Edge Gymnastics. And the annual Cartwheelathon gave me just that opportunity.
The Cartwheelathon was the competition that pitted athlete against athlete in both fundraising and gymnastics. Those who raised the most money won.
Sure, it was more Hungry Hungry Hippos than Hunger Games, but like my World War II veteran grandfather always said, if you have something to prove, you do it with cartwheels.
So, I set out to do just that. But first I needed to raise money. So, I hit the streets.
Sarah McLachlan's Angel played softly on repeat from my cassette player as I solicited pledges and donations from the grownups in my parents Rolodex. And it appeared to pay off. McLachlan's lyrics, along with my best puppy mill dog eyes, proved lucrative, especially when it came to per cartwheel pledges. Those who donated a flat rate had my appreciation, but those who pledged to donate per cartwheel had my respect.
Unlike donations, pledges are outcome dependent. No cartwheel, no money.
Those who pledged weren't just giving out of obligation or compulsion. They were in effect telling me that if I wanted the money, I'd have to work for it as hard as they did. And apparently, they all placed a high value on hard work.
Twenty cents a cartwheel here, 25 cents a cartwheel there. By the end of my week-long solicitation, I had a sheet full of names, numbers and promises I knew would help solidify my place among the select. And even though the pledges seemed oddly generous for supporting a kid who's merely performing baseline acrobatics, I didn't pay much attention to the outrageous potential payouts. After all, at that time of my life, it was a well-known fact that I ran on a steady diet of Tang and Pixy Stix. My excess energy was matched only by my attention deficit. In short, I believed them. But more importantly, they believed in me. Or so I thought. I had one hour to complete 500 cartwheels.
Which I didn't do.
No, that'd be ridiculous. I completed 500 cartwheels in 45 minutes. Take that, Simone Biles. But the pride in my athletic accomplishment paled in comparison to the pride in my fundraising accomplishment, which in turn paled in comparison to my disappointment when my per cartwheel pledge people failed to pay.
Apparently, our mutual belief in each other was sorely misguided. But like my World War II veteran grandfather always said, there are no real winners in war and gymnastics.
Repetition is like a highlighter when it comes to spoken words. It grabs our attention and compels us to give the words a second look, much like one would give a second look to a kid hopped up on processed sugar doing 500 cartwheels without taking a break.
In the Book of John, four times in three verses, Jesus uses a variation of the word "believe," almost like he's trying to tell us something.
John 3:16-18 reads,
“'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.'"
Now this matches up nicely with Romans 10:9 which reads,
"because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
Sure enough, he was and is trying to tell us something. Author and theologian J.C. Ryle states that belief and faith are synonymous in this passage. Ryle writes,
"Three times our Lord repeats this glorious truth to Nicodemus. Twice He proclaims that 'whosoever believeth shall not perish.' Once He says, 'He that believeth on the Son of God is not condemned.'"
In short, faith is the necessary companion of grace when it comes to salvation. No faith, no salvation. But faith isn't easy for some. Evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, states,
“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is the belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”
Now, in terms of research, I can see his point. Conclusions such as "I don't know" or "just because" doesn't mesh well with the scientific method. And yet, even in research, a certain amount of faith is necessary.
Philosopher and priest Thomas Aquinas stated it well,
"We can't have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing; then afterwards we may be led on to master the evidence for ourselves."
Hypothesis is merely faith with beakers. Because if not for faith, something believed in with conviction, what would be the driving force to know the unknown? If we didn't believe something to be true or causal, why test it? But we're not talking about behavioral analysis or liquids in test tubes. No, we're talking about Almighty God. The Great I AM. The one who spoke mountains and oceans into existence by the sound of his voice. The corrector of chaos. Pure, holy, all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful God.
Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel put it well,
"God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light."
Or as the apostle Paul wrote,
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 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. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things."
As my World War II veteran grandfather would say, a penny pledged is a penny earned. Too bad Grandpa didn't have a Rolodex of friends who felt likewise. After the disappointing Cartwheelathon a wiry kid learned that belief comes with a certain amount of risk.
But risk is not without reward. As Jesus said,
"'Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.'"
And again, as Paul writes,
God's "'invisible attributes...have been clearly perceived...in the things that have been made.'"
Seeing God's fingerprints in nature is an invitation to place our belief in him whose promises and pledges are true.
J.R.R. Tolkien once said, "Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens."
So, when the light fades and the path grows dim, let us not consider ourselves too highly as to believe our human reason is enough to bridge the gap between that which we know and that which we don't. Instead, let us bridge the gap with faith as we believe.
Well, welcome back to The Defined Podcast w/ Dr. Jon et al., a Bible study in which panelists from a variety of backgrounds, including coaching, education, management, ministry, and psychology, seek hope and truth in what some would call austere times.
My name is Chris, your host. We're joined once again, of course, with Dr. Jon and also Mandy Michaels and Rogelio Navarro and Robyn Nelson. Welcome, everybody.
Hi, Chris.
Hello.
Today we're looking more closely at the word "believe" as found in the book of John, chapter 3 and verse 16.
Opening thoughts around the table. Dr. Jon, you had an opening blog on the topic, so we'll go ahead with opening thoughts and come back around.
Yeah, so when I was kind of rereading the blog and kind of going through what I might want to take out from it again, I was going back to what J.C. Ryle said and how he compared, and he basically said that in this passage, belief and faith can be used kind of synonymously. And so, I started to think, well, there's a lot of people that tend to, when they're on the fence with Christianity and whether or not they believe in God, it's like, well, one of the things that I have a real problem with is if I can't, if I can't see God, if I can't have a personal, like a visual, it's kind of tough for me to have belief or have faith. And so, I started to think, well, what, I think that we actually live a lot by faith, but we take it for granted. I think that there's a lot of things that we believe will happen, and we don't really even realize that we have massive amounts of faith every single day. So, I started to kind of think, well, just going through a kind of a semi typical day, these are the things that we have faith or we believe will happen. The alarm clock will wake you up at the time you set. The light will turn on when we flip the switch on. The shower will dispense water when turned on. Your coffee maker will work. Your vehicle will start when you turn the key. The bus will arrive as scheduled. Your Uber driver will be on time. Cars will stop at stop signs and stop lights. The Internet connection at your office will be available and reliable. Your lunch will be in the fridge when you're ready to eat. The hallway floors will hold your weight. Your gym will be open. The grocery store will have what you want on your way home. Netflix will work. When you go to sleep, you believe that you will wake up in the morning. And so, there's so many. I mean, I think there's more than just that, but I just kind of, just kind of thinking through, like, what were some of the things that I take for granted. And so, I don't think it's too far of a stretch to be able to recognize that, you know, we already have the faith, but it's deciding what we choose to put our faith in and believe in. So, it goes back to kind of a choice.
It's a pretty good day.
That's a pretty, you know. You know what, if all those things go.
Yeah. A lot of modes of transportation, though, for one day.
And it. Well, I mean.
Your car, the bus, and Uber.
I was kind of throwing a wide net. Not assuming everybody that has the luxury of driving, perhaps.
And include bacon.
And that you'll have bacon. 100 percent.
Anybody ever have their lunch stolen?
Oh, yeah.
Out of the. Out of the. Or. Sucks.
Yeah.
But anywho.
You want to talk about it?
Well, you work by yourself, do you get your lunch stolen?
So, it's kind of crazy.
Alter personality?
There's a story?
No, no. My lunch is always there. It was kind of funny, though. I walk into my office. This was, like, last week. And so, where my kitchenette area is, there's a coat rack by my printer. And I turn and I see this coat hanging on the coat rack. And I'm like, well, who the heck is in the office? Like, this is kind of weird. I'm like, oh, that's my coat from last week.
You've many sweaters in there, too.
I do.
Yeah.
Yeah. Thereware.
Thereware. You should start a line.
You think you've been stealing someone's lunch every day for the last year, and it's the lunch you left in there the day before.
I know. I know, I thought I was, like, super sneaky. I'm all, like, quiet about it. I'm just, like, looking around, grab something, scurry back to my office.
That makes me feel really good. Remember when I lost my mug for three days?
And where was it?
It was in the microwave.
Sure was.
'Cause I was really good about heating it up.
Yeah, but mine's a joke.
Oh. No, you said you didn't know.
Well, the coat thing.
Yeah, that's the same thing.
I don't steal my own lunch.
No. Yeah, but you didn't remember that you left your coat in there.
Fair.
Okay. Thank you. We're the same.
Still not the same.
I think that's interesting. I heard it described as faith is understanding that the chair exists, and belief is. Or belief is understanding the chair exists. Faith is that I'll sit on it, it will hold my, support my weight. I think that's an interesting parallel to what you're saying and other opening thoughts, I was really thinking about, kind of diving in here, is the thief on the cross beside Jesus and the belief he had in who Jesus was when his own disciples scattered and walked away, except for John and what kind of courage that took to take that leap of faith and that belief in that moment that this was actually God on the cross beside you and accepting that.
Yeah.
Yeah. Like Dr. Jon, you said about how faith and belief are interchangeable, and I realize that it really applies to other areas outside of faith and in general, how much anything that we don't fully know, anything that we don't know 100%, it requires some faith. So really, anything, if you really think about it, anything takes faith unless you perfectly know 100% of what, what's going on. Yeah. It just gave me this realization that everything requires faith, and we reduce it to just one little spiritual talk or something, you know?
Right. It's like we use it so much, but yet when it comes to God, all of a sudden that's the thing that we can't, we can't cross that bridge.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think for me, the first thing that came to mind was probably similar to where you guys are going with that. But it's like belief is the cornerstone to everything that we do. And so, what you can, you can talk about your faith in, like, a religious sense, but you can also talk about, I mean, I believe that my job is going to pay me, and so I'm going to show up and do my job. I like. I believe that I am a healthy person, so I'm going to make choices that reflect me being a healthy person. I think that what we believe about ourselves, what we believe about other people, is going to really direct our lives and we're going to end up wherever we end up as a result of our beliefs. And if that is true, like, how much more so can what we believe about God really shape and determine our lives for good or bad? That's where my mind was going with it.
Yeah.
To start.
I like that. I think that's so important to point out that we all have faith and belief in something. Right? Whether we choose to put that in God or not is the choice we all get to make. But we all, absolutely, whether we understand that or not, we do put our faith in our belief, even if it's in ourselves.
Right.
Or in that actor we love or in a parent or a spouse, whatever that looks like.
And I think even, like, further to that, like, belief, we don't always think about what we're thinking about, so we're not always even sure what we really believe. Like, if I really believed certain things, I would probably act differently than I do. I'd probably take different risks. Or, like, I would probably adjust my actions to coordinate with that belief. I'm trying to think of examples, but I can't. But you know what I mean? Like, I think that sometimes we just, like, we just go about our daily lives and we kind of think that we believe things, but if we really did, we'd probably adjust how we lived.
Our actions back up our beliefs.
Right.
Well, yeah, and it kind of goes back to again, what is at the top of the hierarchy of, like, what's the thing that's most important? That is the thing that we believe in most and the thing that we hold most important. And if we're not intentional about what's at the top, something will make its way up there. Like, we're going to believe in something. To your point, your points. It's like, and if we're not careful, whatever works its way up, I mean, that could be something that will, you know, cause pain and cause others pain. And so, really just getting an understanding and taking the time to think, okay, what is actually, what is, what are the things that I believe in? What are the things that I put my faith and trust in? Yeah.
And really, that thing becomes your god.
Yeah.
Because where you put your hope and trust in and where your direction of your life goes in and how the outcome. How the outcome looks.
Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 1 out of the King James Version, actually, it says,
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
And I think it's interesting that, I know that those words can be used synonymously at times, "faith" and "belief." But just to separate them for a moment, if faith is evidence, and then we have maybe another, maybe that evidence is over here, you know, and then on this side, we have what we can see.
You still have to make a choice on what to believe. You know, you can have a pile of evidence over here, which is your faith, and then a pile of evidence over here, what you can see. And ultimately you have to choose. It's like maybe like in a courtroom setting, like with the evidence provided, which one are you going to choose?
Right.
And, and that's the point at which we, you know, need to make a decision. It's like there can be doubts, but ultimately given the doubts, you can still make a choice. You know, despite the doubt, you can still choose, decide with the evidence of the faith. And so, I think it's interesting that Hebrews uses that word "evidence" there. Like it's substance, it is something, it's something that can be relied upon when making a decision. And ultimately you just choose to believe it. And you can't always believe your eyes, you know, you can't always believe your senses.
Yeah.
I can't believe it's not butter. It's like.
It's not.
It's not, you know,
It's not?
Thank you, Fabio.
Was he the one that did that?
Absolutely.
Well, yeah. And the choice. And that's the thing too is like when evidence, like we do have evidence that we do acquire, and it stacks up and we can choose not to believe the evidence. And I think that that's, it's one of those, it's an interesting thing when we choose not to believe, basically truth. And that's the choice that we have. And we, yeah, every one of us needs to just be very aware of and just, I guess it comes down to sometimes we won't believe something just because we don't like it. And the truth can sometimes be uncomfortable. It can be painful. The truth can hurt. And sometimes that can lead us to say, no, I don't want, I don't want that because it's too, it's too painful to accept the truth.
But how painful is it to live in lies? And how painful is it to live in like the shadows of being dishonest to ourselves and being dishonest to what we know is true? You know, it's just a different type of pain and it ends up being a whole lot worse. Yeah.
Like cherry picking Scriptures.
Sure.
Something the Lord has been speaking to me is that I can't take the Scripture and go, "I love it," and the Scripture, and go, "Nah, that's not good." I think that it's so, you know, our humanity, right? That we just like this one and don't like that one. And I love what you said about that. And also, to what you're saying about evidence, I think that we, that faith is like, I'm going to pray that Rogelio is going to be healed and have that faith that absolutely, the belief that God, I have the authority in Christ to pray that healing and that God is going to come through. And I've seen that again and again and again on the streets. One really cool story is a woman who came through and she was a, really upset and I asked her if I could pray for her. She shared that her husband was alcoholic and he wasn't treating her very well. So, I got to pray for her. And she went on her merry way and didn't actually think about her until the next week. She came up to me and said, I got home and he threw away all his beer, went to church with me and he's treating me so well. Like the faith that comes from that, like you got to pour into faith before the evidence comes.
That's good. That's a great story.
Yeah.
You know, something that happens like in the scientific community is that you only have evidence in what you can see. And I think the problem with that is actually science is always filtered through the subjective eye of the observer. So, because human beings are trying to replicate, you know, their hypotheses or put them to the test, like again and again, they might get a lot of the same, but at some point, like it doesn't actually explain like the meaning of life. I mean you can repeat something in nature or in science, but it doesn't ultimately explain the meaning of life. And the hard thing about that is there's always a subjective angle. So, people that get caught up in, well, faith is for just, for just blind people who just believe but have no logic. And I think there's a real flaw to that. Yeah, because logic also has its limitations as well.
Yeah.
Yeah. Even somebody who would be a self-proclaimed atheist, that is all about science. I mean, the hypothesis is a step of faith. I mean, it's like, I think this is what it is. So, this is the thing that's compelling me to then do the research, to do the study. Well, that has to be predicated on some amount of faith because otherwise, I mean, you can't see it. But you, but you think you know what it could be and then you test it out. And so, it's like, yeah, there's, we use faith and we believe a lot and everybody does.
That's true.
I like this passage out of the book of Mark and it talks about belief.
Fairly long passage here, but Mark, chapter 9, verses 17-27 out of the ESV.
"And someone from the crowd answered him, 'Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.' And he," Jesus, "answered them, 'O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.' And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him," this is the unclean spirit, "immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, 'How long has this been happening to him?' And he said, 'From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.' And Jesus said to him, '"If you can"! All things are possible for one who believes.' Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, 'I believe; help my unbelief!' And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, 'You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.' And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, 'He is dead.' But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose."
So, that the Father there, he says, I believe, but help my unbelief.
And in the book of Jude, it says, have mercy on those who doubt.
And I think God, Jesus did in that case. He had mercy on him who doubted. But he, it's also interesting how Jesus said his words back to him like, if you can.
Right.
If you can. You'll be healed. He says, if you can.
If you can? What do you mean, if you can? You know, you're talking to?
It's like on Twister. Did you get the dog? Of course I got the dog.
Of course I got the dog. That's the best.
Twisters. The new one.
Yeah.
Anyway. Yeah. So. And it's interesting how in relating with God, you know, at first, we maybe say our prayers to him, and then we read His Word.
I think that as we grow in him, we start saying, instead of our words to him, we'll actually say his words back to Him. And then as he's speaking to us through His Word, he's actually going to say our words back to us. And it's kind of like this active listening, reciprocation kind of thing. It's like this relationship where, like, now we can remind God of his promises and he'll kind of respond in a sense to our belief as we, you know, it's like this, this interchange happening. It's interesting to see that happen there in the Scripture.
Yeah, yeah. And it speaks to how powerful words are. And I love, like, you just kind of pointed out there that Jesus is like, do you realize what you just said? Like, let me say it back to you so you hear what you just said. And it's almost like when he heard his own words, that's the part was like, oh, my gosh, like, please, like, I believe and help me to believe. And that part of that was really cool, too, because it's okay to ask God to help us believe more. And that's, it's like, we don't need to, like, once we become saved or get to that point where all of a sudden, we're like, have perfect faith and perfect belief. It's okay to be like, I don't believe. And I'm having a tough time bridging the gap between what I, I'm praying that will happen and what will happen through, you know, through your grace and mercy. And it's okay to say, God, help me believe.
Yeah.
I mean, I've had to do that plenty of times where it's like, yeah.
Even that is a measure of faith. Like, that is a measure of belief that, like, I can come to the Lord with this, like, deficit that I have and that he's going to meet me there. I think a lot of belief is just deciding that, like, especially when it comes to faith, what I read in the Word is actually true, regardless of how I'm feeling or what I'm seeing at this current moment. And so being able to come to the Lord and like, okay, I know you said this. By the way, I do love coming to Jesus and reminding him of his promises because it's not like he forgot, but maybe I did.
And then saying, like, you said this, and reminding yourself of what he said and what he promised you and then asking him to, like, increase your faith in that matter. And maybe sometimes your emotions catch up with it, maybe it doesn't. But regardless, he's going to be faithful and true, even if, like, I don't, I can't fully comprehend that at this moment.
It's also so important to have community because when you're lacking faith, the people around you can stand up and believe for you and have faith for you. That's even biblical.
Right.
To be in a place where you're surrounding yourself with people who can say, you know, you're in a place where it's hard for you right now, but I'm going to stand in prayer and belief that God is going to come through in this big way.
Believing is really hard too, because it kind of like requires a certain amount of change from the inside out. And it's kind of like lifting weights or something. Not that I, not that I do that, but like, but I imagine.
Oh, I bet you do. You look like you do.
I know, you just, you can see the six pack under this.
How many shirts were you wearing today?
But no, really, because it's a struggle. I mean, like, it, it's like falling down, getting back up and, you know, asking forgiveness and starting over. It's almost like every day you have to just keep on the path that God set before you. And it's a constant struggle. I mean, there will be battles like around you or even within you. And just to be real too, I think that believing requires like a difficult kind of growth process and engaging with, with that, just wrestling with that. Right?
Yeah.
It's hard.
And I think in therapy we kind of see something similar probably where it's like we have the faith for the client. Like, they can't see, especially when talking about like hopeless or depression, they can't see that there's a way out of it necessarily. And then like, as therapists, we're like, trust me, like there's a way out and, you know, trust me, that we can get there together. But yeah, kind of a similar thing there.
I think when the Bible says that faith without works is dead. I mean, that's a great example of that is that, I mean, I have a hard time believing that belief or faith are really belief or faith if there's not like subsequent like work that would show that it's just a, it's just a nice thought. But it's like if it really is true, then it has an effect on your life and those around you, I guess. And doesn't matter what the belief is. Like, I'm not even talking about like a big faith in God, but if any, of anything that you think is gonna, anything that you really believe has some sort of evidence in your life. It's kind of like, I mean, I feel like our pastor said this before, but his dad used to say to him, like, he'd be like, I know dad. And his dad would be like, I know you know, but you do. And kind of like if you really, if you really knew that you probably would be following suit with your actions.
Yeah.
That passage you just brought up, I just want to hold that on one hand for a second. Like, the faith without works is dead, which is the James 2:17, faith without works is dead. And then also we're talking about believing. And that reminds me of Ephesians where it says that we are saved by grace through faith. And so, believing, it's. I mean, they go together. And I think that. Because that sometimes can kind of feel a little funny. Like, on one hand, it's like, if I believe, then that's enough. And it's like, "yes, and" you kind of need both. I mean, it wouldn't be, I suppose, a real faith if it didn't force you to have to, you know, cut off some branches.
Sure.
You know? But Ephesians 2:8-9, we're saved by grace through faith.
Yeah.
After Jesus was resurrected from the dead, it says in John, a little later in the book of John, John, chapter 20, and verses 24-29 out of the ESV.
"Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, 'We have seen the Lord.' But he said to them, 'Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.'
Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.' Then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.' Thomas answered him, 'My Lord and my God!' Jesus said to him, 'Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.'"
So, Thomas, at that point, I mean, he still had to decide to believe, but now he did not really need the faith necessarily to believe. He, Jesus, said, you believe because you've seen me.
So, there's. There's possible, there's a possibility that even those who have seen miracles that knew Jesus, the Pharisees, they saw sick people get healed, they saw Lazarus rise from the dead. Some of those people didn't need, like, faith to see the results of the miracles. They saw the results of the miracles, and yet they still did not believe.
Wow.
Right.
The choice is the belief, right? It's interesting how belief can be. It comes down to basically a choice, with or without evidence and miracles to look at and that kind of thing. So.
Yeah, and. Oh, you have something? Oh. And the thing that kind of stood out a little bit different. The point, the part where Thomas is like if I don't. Was it. If I don't see it, I'm not going to believe. If I don't touch it, I'm not going to believe. Right? And I think it's just like, just that's a huge caution, like be very careful about what you say you will or won't do if certain things aren't in how you think they should go. Because I mean you could fill in a lot of different things. I mean Thomas is, unless I touch the wounds, I'm not going to believe. I mean, I think any, any one of us or anybody listening or watching can also put something in there that perhaps be like, well God, if you don't do this, right? Then, you know, but if you do this, I'll believe. It's like, well man, that's some, that's some pretty heavy stipulation that we put on something that is very, it's given to us freely and yet, I don't know, we just have to do a little self-check on what is it that is, is our stipulations for believing.
That's when you're reducing God from God to a genie in the bottle.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think there's like, I mean I can think of a few instances where I probably said those exact words and I think the reality is you just don't want to feel or look see stupid. You don't want to waste your time on something like if maybe it's pretty out there, maybe it's pretty ridiculous. You know, I think God has said, if you look biblically, like God told a lot of people a lot of things and especially for that time, it would have been really outrageous. So, to say like I believe that you, that this is true is pretty remarkable. So, I, like, I under—I'm not advocating that that's how we should live—but I guess I understand like that temptation of like Lord, please like give me something finite so that I can believe this. And oftentimes, I would say most times, like that is the trust that he's asking from us and like he's not as concerned about like our reputation or like whatever we're holding on so dearly. He's not necessarily as concerned about that as he is about like that relationship with us and instilling that trust with him.
Yeah. Well, and the flip side is also true is, "I believed in God, but then this happened and then I don't believe." And so that's like a different, different level of. Well, that, that's more pain related where it's if this, if he wouldn't. Well then, the thought is, "If he wouldn't have done this, then I would still believe."
Right. If you wouldn't allowed this.
Yeah, it's like it's the same coin, but it's a different side. And so again it's that, it's that self-reflection is what is it that's causing me to respond this way to God. And you know, it's the pain's valid, the difficulty is valid, of course, but again it's, we box ourselves in depending on our thoughts and how we interpret our experiences and how those relate to our relationship with Christ.
Yeah.
I like how you said, Chris, that it comes down to a choice for every single one of us. And the Doubting Thomas metaphor, I think is very real of humanity. But, something that I really like in that phrase, sorry, the verse in Ephesians about being saved through faith is that like right after that it actually says, "this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God." And so, it's talking about salvation. And what I love about that, it says this "is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
Yeah.
And, and I think that for me speaks a lot because it just reminds me that even you know, as believers that like, for all of us, like we're all needing like his mercy and his, well, everything that he is. And so, none of us, like, no matter how much we might make, respond in good choices or try to make the choices that are faithful, and we want to believe in Jesus. But it's nice to know that like, and this sounds a little funny, but there's a phrase out there that, "The ground is level at the foot of the cross." And it's kind of nice to know that. It might be like a Max Lucado thing, we're going to get billed like thousands of dollars for breaking a copyright law.
Start saying all the names. It could be Max Lucado, could be Rick Warren.
Jimi Hendrix.
But the ground is level at the foot of the cross.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, I just, it's good to remember that, you know, all glory, you know, belongs to Jesus.
Absolutely.
Yeah. I do think it's interesting that is the, like, the currency that God chose for us to like, have access to him again is like, it wasn't, it's not works. It's nothing we could do. It just is all he requires of us is belief.
And really, Thomas was asking for a fleece, right? Putting out a fleece and wanting dew to be on it in the morning, like in the Old Testament story, and just—
Right.
I think that it's fair to say that he, of course, he was a Doubting Thomas, but they all doubted. They all ran away, they all were hurt and abandoned. And even though Jesus told them this was going to happen, they didn't really take that in and really understand that until it did. And so, I think that we all have that moment in our lives, right? And again, the community aspect where the others were able to stand in the, in the faith with him. And Jesus, how much grace.
Yeah. For all we know, they were all thinking it and he just got the brunt of it. For all of eternity.
He was the one that spoke it out loud. And he was like, yeah.
Well, he missed out on what all of them did get the opportunity to see. And so, it's maybe a little different for us today, you know, because like, he just the other day missed out on Jesus appearing to all the other disciples. And so, it was like, kind of available to him. You know, it's just like.
There's a comedian, Mark Lowry, that said Thomas, he missed church, the one day he missed church. And he gets the moniker doubting Thomas. The one day he missed church.
Awesome.
Well, on this subject of. We've been talking about faith, and it's interesting in, I think In Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 37-39, out of the ESV,
"For,
'Yet a little while,
and the coming one will come and will not delay;
but my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him.'
But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls."
It's interesting how, I like how it says, like, two things can be true at the same time. Like, number one: the person that shrinks back is, God's not happy with that. But number two: that's not you. That's not us. We're not those people. It's true. And it's also true that God can preserve us who believe. So, I think that's—
And our nature is to shrink back.
Well, I mean, we need to be encouraged to persevere.
Right.
And be encouraged to endure.
Because it, it is true. The consequences of not believing are serious. In the Book of Jude. And it's interesting, like I've known, I've been following a lot of people on YouTube, preachers and commentaries and things like that. And there's like this circle of people that take it upon themselves to like either validate or invalidate each other.
Yeah.
Like they rubber stamp. Well, this person's speaking the truth and this person I think is a false teacher. And it's almost like it's degrading into like, I don't know, competition. If I didn't know better, I'd say they're trying to demolish the influencer's competition or something like that. I don't think that's what they're really trying to do, but it sounds like it.
Maybe accidentally. Yeah.
But one of the things, one of the reasons that I picked up on somebody like invalidating somebody is because they were, this person was talking about like the consequences of unbelief. And this other person is saying like, well, the gospel is all good news, you know. Preach the gospel, preach Jesus, you know, and disregard the judgment stuff, you know, that's like Old Testament. Well, I thought was interesting in the book of Jude, it actually kind of addresses that. It says, Jude, verse 5,
"Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe."
It's actually referring to Jesus in the Old Testament among the Israelites and talking about the importance of belief in that sense. And in the book of Galatians, chapter 1, verses 6-9 says,
"I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed."
Well, the gospel is good news. That's like preaching like another way to heaven. This is the way I interpret it. If anybody's preaching another good news, another way to heaven, another way to God, another way of salvation other than Jesus, that's not good. But it's not saying if anybody's preaching you like, like good news only, you know, there's like a consequence side of things that people need to be aware of that, which is the consequences of disbelief.
And so, anyway, that was just kind of something I observed. Like it's important to have, I think—I don't know if you call it a holistic approach or just well rounded—but not to, not to dismiss what the purpose of the good news is. The purpose of the good news is that there's doesn't have to be bad news for you anymore.
Right. Well, it's kind of silly to think that there's no consequences. I mean our whole existence, I mean it's going back to the idea of look around you, there's, our day to day is full of consequences. And so, to think that like, well, except for when it comes to Jesus and the Bible, it's all good. Like there's nothing but all good. It's like all good things coming to me.
Right.
And to say there's not consequences, I mean. Yeah, that just doesn't seem very logical.
It's also like really dangerous. Like it's a lie. And so just because you don't believe there's consequences doesn't mean there aren't going to be. And I think that people often end up in a world of pain because they're living out the consequences to things that they didn't think they'd have consequences for.
Yeah.
And I think beyond that too, like we're kind of in this world right now where it really is, it's almost controversial to say, like, I'm a sinner and you're a sinner because God is love. And so, people develop that mindset that because God is love that he's not going to ever, like there's not ever going to be any consequences. But Jesus died on the cross because sin entered the world. Like if we don't believe that we're sinners, like why did Jesus die? What is the—and that is the good news is that even with our sin, like we can be like confronted with the truth that we are like, I've failed and I'm full of hate or full of selfishness or whatever you want to name. And even and then, yes, God's love is still real. Like it's not, God loves me because I'm not with, full of sin. It's the opposite of that. Even in my shortcomings, God loves.
Yeah. Well, yeah, that's kind of what my thought was too, was like, well, why again, is it called good news?
Right.
Like, why is it called good news?
Yeah.
Because we're saved.
Yeah.
From what?
Right, exactly.
A consequence.
Yeah.
Of our sin.
Yeah.
So those two go hand in hand. It is good news because we're saved from our consequences that we have in sin, 100%.
Yeah. You know, it actually, it's. It comes a point when you don't believe. Because when I didn't believe, there came a point where if I would have kept in that direction, I really would have just condemned myself. So really the only way out of that was like, to believe. And so that, like, that. That is like. But that's all I needed, right. That's all the healing anybody ever really needs is to turn around and say, wait, like, I can believe in you, Lord. I mean, that's the way. And you know, a lot of people get stuck on kind of like what you're saying is like the maybe, like, it's hard to accept truth, you know, but we need grace and truth. I think truth maybe can also, like, cripple people with no grace. You can do that too. But really like grace and truth. And it actually reminds me of like, because we often get caught up in like, well, after the sin of, you know, Adam and Eve, it's like we're just cursed. Like, we're cast in, into the pits of, you know, the earth or whatever. But, I mean, at the end of the day, it's like, actually, like, immediately, like God has a plan for remedy. Like immediately He's like He has a plan so that He can bring us back and turn to the fullness of His presence. That's pretty amazing.
It reminds me of that age-old argument, "I'm a good person, so I'm going to go to heaven." But what are you measuring yourself against? And how judgmental are you in saying that? Because obviously you're comparing yourself to someone who isn't as good as you. And who gets to define what that looks like? We'd all get to heaven with that, with that idea. Even someone who murders a lot of people would think they're a good person and did something right. So, we have to have a God who tells us what is good and bad. We have to have that defining line from someone who is perfect and lived and walked a perfect life to be able to be that example for us and show us what this really looks like. And the need for him. Because to your point, we've all done something bad to somebody, whether we wanted to or not. We've all hurt somebody out there. There's always going to be somebody that can point at you and say they're not a good person. Always. And that could be for a number of reasons, but no one can be a good person and expect just to get a flyby, right?
Right.
Yeah. And to be the authority of what is good and what is not good. We're just calling ourselves God.
Yeah.
That's just what it comes down to. And so, then we put ourselves at the top and then we are becoming like. Well, that's kind of what caused Lucifer to fall, was wanting to be equal with God and wanting to. And in putting himself in a position that he was never supposed to be. And how many times do we end up doing that here on Earth where it's like, "I know best." It's like, "Well, says who?" "Well, says me." "Well, where's that coming from?" Then, "Well, myself." So yeah.
Yeah. There's so much comfort, I think, in knowing that God has defined that for us. So much comfort for me, because I know what that line is. I know what it looks like. I know what it says in the Scripture, and I know that I'm not a good person. And I accept that. And I know that the grace of God is Jesus dying on the cross and that you believe in your heart and you confess with your mouth. It's so simple. It really is. I mean, he made it so simple for anybody to have eternal life with him.
Yeah.
So simple.
In that case, you're a good person.
Thanks, Rogelio.
You're gonna make it any way you slice it.
Well, sort of our key verses of the day. John 3:16-18 out of the ESV.
"'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.'"
And yeah, Ro, you kind of indicated like, self-condemnation. That's like, kind of part of it. It's like we know that God will. He's like the ultimate judge. But in some ways, I kind of think like, we all have this, our own little courtroom in and of ourselves where we are the one on trial. We're also the judge and jury. We're the one that brings the evidence. We're the lawyers. You know, we like do all this in our heads. And I think that in a lot of ways, like, we need to believe, you know, what God says about us so that we will have that sort of peace, you know, and then the one who doesn't believe doesn't really have that peace, right?
That person is basically kind of wrestling with, I think something inside, kind of just like a self-condemnation kind of a thing in many cases, so.
Yeah, we're pretty good at being the prosecutor in our own lives. And what's interesting too is when we do that, like a lot, that we're kind of partnering to some extent potentially with the devil who is the accuser. And so, it's like he's accusing us and we're basically just piling on. And it's like we have to be able to also play the role of the defense in our own lives just for that, for that positive, like, what is truth? But yeah, where does the truth come from? Well then, it's Christ. He's the defense attorney and he's the one that's in, he's, the judge and he's also. So, it's really important that we just understand—again, I guess this goes back just to more, a little bit psychological—but where's the thoughts coming from and where, why are we potentially so accusatory to ourselves and we're not giving any room for the defense?
Or like, I could try to be my own defense attorney and maybe I don't, I'm not very qualified at that. Like I'm. But like, if Jesus is my defense attorney, I know that sounds a little corny, but no, for real, like he's qualified to be, you know, he has what it takes to like defend me in court.
Yeah. And when it comes to things of sin in the big picture, it's like, actually, no, we can't defend ourselves. Like, we're actually, we don't have that ability. And so, when Christ is like, no, I got you, like, yes, not only are you guilty, not only should you be condemned, but I'm going to take your place. And it runs into a little bit of cliche for those that maybe grow up in the church, but it's like, no, we were already convicted and condemned and we're supposed to have eternity in hell. But Christ is like, no, I'm going to take your place and I'm going to die in your place and so that you can live.
Yeah, it's kind of like we were talking about how God repeats our words back to us. And as we repeat God's words back to him, it's like, I like this part in Matthew 16:15-17. It's Jesus speaking.
"He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?' Simon Peter replied, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' And Jesus answered him, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.'"
And then in Matthew 12:36-37, it says,
"'I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.'”
So, it'd be great to have some words on record that you spoke that can be repeated back to you in the transcript.
Not all just nonsense.
"I believe." You know, it. "By your words." Those words will be read back.
And it's like those words don't, they're not empty. There's meaning behind them. And so, for the one who does believe and says they believe, the Bible indicates, you know, there's not a lot—I'm glad that there's not all these things that are added to that in order to be saved.
The verse says in, in Romans 10, verses 9-11,
"because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, 'Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.'”
And uh. Done and done.
It's pretty simple.
Right?
It's pretty simple. What are you going to choose to believe?
Well, closing thoughts on this topic as we wrap up the subject of believe?
Yeah. Well, there's portions of Scripture that lets us know also that it doesn't need to be like. Faith can be small and doesn't have to be a massive, like. I think that sometimes we get caught up in think like, "Well, how much faith do I need to have?" And I think just one little, you know, reminder. Matthew 17:20,
"'For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, "Move from here to there," and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.'"
So, it's like there's already kind of this idea that it doesn't take a lot of faith in order to do big things. And the biggest thing that we can put our faith in is Christ's work on the cross. And so, I guess it's. We don't need to be, like, banging our heads against the wall, like, "Well, I don't have enough faith." Like, well, fair enough. But if we have a little bit of faith, I mean, it says even a little bit, we can move a mountain. And so, let's just start there. And then the other thought could be like, "Well, okay, so how can I help develop faith in my own life?" And so, one is certainly: ask God, and He is, He's willing and faithful to help build our faith. But I think it's also, like, look around and look to see, like, evidence that God is who he says that he is. I think that another interesting passage of Scripture is Romans 1:20 in the ESV says,
"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."
So, there's no excuse for us to not know who God is based off of things that we are surrounded with. And I think that one little thing just to kind of hammer that thought home is something as basic as the complexity of the human eye. I know I'm kind of taking a little bit of a detour here, but this is kind of a trip. So, this is from, actually, from a protective eyewear company, which is kind of interesting, but they did a blog on what, like HexArmor. And so, here's just some interesting facts about the eye. One eye consists of more than 2 million working parts. Eyes are incredibly complex, highly productive and resilient organs that can adjust to different conditions and environments immediately. The muscles that move your eyes are the fastest and strongest muscle in your body.
Relative to their function, they're 100 times more powerful than necessary. After the brain, your eyes are the second most complex organ in the body.
Most of us are familiar with fingerprinting, yet retina scans are now commonly being used for security purposes.
Instead, your fingerprint has 40 unique characteristics, whereas your iris has 256.
On average, we blink 5.2 million times a year.
Your eye can detect over 10 million color hues. Your eyes are capable of processing 36,000 pieces of information per hour.
The function of tears is to keep your eyes clean. But scientists still haven't figured out why we cry when we're upset.
Your eyes will process 24 million images in your lifetime. Overall, your eyes contribute to 85% of your total knowledge.
So, that's just the eye. Again, one of those things that, like, we don't think about too often. It's one of those. It's like something we take for granted. But if we just like Google, like, what's cool about the human eye and you come up with a list like that, you start to think, well, maybe there's, maybe there's a creator that made my eye. And if you can start to at least be agnostic about it and say, well, if there's a creator, well, maybe I can give it a little bit more effort to see who this creator is.
And if we do a little bit more, just a little bit more research, then we can start to ask the question, well, is this creator someone I can believe in? And the evidence is there. And I think the question is whether or not we're going to choose to.
That's good.
You know, something too, what we've talked about is one day we will all stand before God and we'll all be held to account. And there really will be nobody, not a single soul that will be able to stand before God and say, "I didn't know." Nobody will be able to say that because we all have that choice to make: to believe or not to believe. Another thought I had is that Christianity is made for the world. You know, this is the only faith system that believes that everybody is encompassing in that. Everybody's part of that. Everybody is included in that. Not just people who believe this way or that. And I love that.
Yeah.
Yeah. I always thought about, like, what happens to the guy in the jungle who's like, never heard the word Jesus and never seen the Bible. But then there's something about like, Jesus being the perfect judge who, like, if anybody's going to be saved, it's going to be done through Jesus regardless of the, like, I mean, you know, I guess I don't know ultimately if everybody has heard, but Jesus knows the story and he's the perfect judge. But something really simple about today that came up for me was like, so the kind of thing that sometimes, like with science and faith, which I don't think they're like conflict. I don't think they're entirely like, you know, antagonistic. But something that I often hear is, people pin it down to like, well, is it faith or logic? And I think that's really silly actually, because, like, like, love is logical, but it's also like, it goes beyond logic. And I think that's the thing we have to see is that logic has its limitations. But God's love is logical, but it's beyond logical. It's translogical is like I've heard it said before. And so, if you, if you think about God's perfect infinite love and mercy and etc., like that, it is wild and it's just extreme and like it doesn't make a whole lot of sense and like just simpleton terms.
Yeah.
So that's why it's beyond logic. So yeah, that's all.
That's good.
Yeah. I think what was kind of coming up with me in this conversation is that just, I'm feeling convicted on like what I really believe about God and what I, and how that is—I guess like I'm also thinking of Noah and the ark and God telling Noah that this flood was going to come and to build this ark and to put his family and every animal in the earth in there. And at that time, rain hadn't even happened. So, this is like, like I was kind of saying before, there's a lot of things that God said in the Bible that like at the time would have been absolutely ludicrous. And so, you have Noah who's building this enormous ark, and his neighbors are probably walking by like, "What's up with that guy?"
But like he knew, he had this knowledge from God that something was going to happen, and he was preparing himself for it. And so, I guess what I'm taking away from this conversation too about just belief and its place in our lives is if I know that God is up to something, like how am I preparing myself for what he's already said he's going to do? So.
Yeah. Well, it's like if you have Noah building an ark, you have Abraham moving completely.
Right.
And they didn't have the Bible like we have.
Right.
We have so much more reason to believe. And that's the part where it's like if you have access to the things that the five of us do and it's like there's no room for like to not believe.
Right.
That's the choice.
Right.
I think at this point with where we're at in human history, it takes far more faith not to believe than it does to believe. Because this is, this is pretty straightforward stuff.
Yeah, it is.
Did you guys believe in mom when you, when you shared the womb?
We're not twins.
Oh, sorry.
Still not twins.
I didn't know that.
Pardon me. Pardon me.
You grew up in the same womb.
Not at the same time.
Wombmates we were not.
Well, I think that about wraps up this episode of The Defined Podcast w/ Dr. Jon et al. Thank you for joining us. We look forward to another episode—soon.
Wait for it. Take care everybody.
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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.
