Conference yukon::christian_v7

    
    Good topic.  The ability for Faith and Reason are two very human 
    traits.  Contentment would be difficult to find where the two 
    are at odds.  Joined, they make for a stronger whole.
    
    Except.......
    
    "Suffer the children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of God" 
    and other similar admonishments to approach God with the faith of a 
    child.  Simple faith.
    
    These instructions show how reason is also prone to great doubt and 
    how reliance on reason is reliance on self.  God is all, and it is 
    faith in this and the love and atoning sacrifice of Christ which 
    should be our basis of faith.  We should rely on God, simply and    
    purely, not ourselves.
    
            Otto

James 1:5  If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all
men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.


Thanks, Otto.  Simple faith is not simple-minded faith.  Simple faith
does not have to preclude reason, nor does it have to be "blind" acceptance.
The faith of a child demonstrates trust.

An example:  my first-born daughter wanted reasons for many of the things
we told her to do.  My wife thought this was a matter of disrespect.
Primarily based on a book we read, we recognized that this was a temperament
thing and not a matter of disrespect or distrust.  Some people want to know
why things work they do and why it is important to do some things certain
ways.  They want to understand.

My second born daughter is different.  We tell her to do something and
she's run off to do it, sometmies having to come back and ask what it was
we wanted done.  She ran off too quickly to do what we wanted that she
didn't get the instructions straight.

God is a rewarded of them that diligently seek Him.  (Heb. 11:6)  He also
has been patient to answer many of our questions.  With our first born, 
we give a reason by reason that she needs to understand why.  After that,
she knows why and then we may be crossing or nearing the line of disrespect
and disobedience.

I delight in my second-born's willingness to please her parents, but sometimes
her action on simple faith doesn't get the job done because it was not
understood.  And I don't mind explaning to my first born, when she is 
really interested in knowing why something is the way it is.

I really liked what you said: "Joined, they make for a stronger whole."

Wisdom is the proper application of knowledge.  Foolishness is the
improper application of knowledge.  Knowledge, like reason, by itself
lacks spirit and doesn't have any use.

Mark

    
    Glad you brought up the point of trust.  For a child, this is 
    instinctive.  How sad to see that it is 'natural' (not as 
    God intended, but as seems required in society) for us to 
    lose it..
    
    The 'faith without reason' brought to mind something I've 
    seen among folks.  Rather than thinking for themselves, 
    some are quite content having someone else tell them what 
    to think.  Think of advertisements...the press...politicians.. 
    almost anything.
    
    What makes me saddest is that there is even some of this 
    approach in many church members.  Rather than taking the 
    Gospel into themselves, challenging it, thinking what it 
    means to *them*, making it a real part of their lives, making 
    the Gospel live in them, they sit back and let the pastor do 
    all the thinking for them.
    
    Is this an example of the one steward who simply buried the 
    talents?
    
    Also reminds me of a saying I've heard.  If two men agree all the 
    time, only one is doing any thinking.
                                

Thanks for the spark, Otto.  

There comes a time in everyone's life where it is natural to test what
we have been taught.  I grew up in a Christian home with Christian values.
There came a point in my life where I could no longer survive on mere
acceptance of someone else's values (my parents', for example).  And I
would test some, and accept others, depending on whether I needed to 
understand for myself.

Growth is a natural phenomena.  When a child doesn't grow, we take them
to the physician to determine what is out of sorts.  Imagine if we could
choose to stop growing.  My first-born girl wanted to stay a little girl
longer than time would allow her.  And we, as adults, no longer have the 
freedom from some of the responsibilities children are.  And yet, we can
see it in some Christians as easily as we can see it in some people who 
have, for whatever reason, been unable to physically grow that way that
most people do.  And we get the feeling that something is tragically wrong,
and we hope that it is not so.

Inability to grow and refusal to grow are very different.  An adult who
refuses the responsibility of adulthood becomes a burden to society and
not a contributing member of society.  We are each responsible for what
we are capable of doing, and this is where the parable of the talents 
comes in.  Not everyone is given the responsibility for 10 talents, but
the person with 5 talents is responsible for 5 talents.  The person
who wisely invests 5 of the 5 talents is a better servant than the one 
who wisely invests 7 of the 10 telents even though 7 is more than 5.

I think it is perfectly fine to come to God without reason (i.e. "blind
faith").  I think, by definition, faith picks up beyond what is known,
over the horizon.  It is not wishful thinking, but a surety and conviction
about the known but unseen.

I do not think it is okay to remain in God without reason.  Is it?  
I think God has so much more for us than "get to heaven by the skin 
of my teeth" theology.  And to remain in God without reason is (to me,
it seems) a refusal to grow, and a stunting of natural growth in Him.

Mark

� There comes a time in everyone's life where it is natural to test what we
� have been taught.  I grew up in a Christian home with Christian values.
� There came a point in my life where I could no longer survive on mere
� acceptance of someone else's values (my parents', for example).  

It goes further than that - to become a Christian, the child has to enter 
the kingdom individually.  Has to go through the question 'is this me 
personally'.  Often in a Christian home, the decision is made very early, 
and later, memory of the actual event may be hazy or lost.  But the 
personal identification with the God of the Creation, and the salvation of 
Jesus' blood is always an individual step.

Having gone back to that 'obvious' point, the Christian, however young, is 
then indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and is able to test between what the LORD 
is saying to him, and what comes from another source.  Not having the 
background, history, hangups (!) of his mentors, some things will clarify 
differently from the way they have appeared to an earlier generation.  The 
preceding generation is still worthy of respect (even where they are not 
Christians), but their teaching must always be subjected to the Spirit.

I, too, saw a clear difference between some things I was taught which 
reflected God as I knew Him from both His Word and from personal experience, 
and other things which bore the stamp of man's culture, prejudice or the 
receipt of 'blind' instruction by rote, without understanding.

The example to follow is that of the Bereans, in Acts 17:11.

								Andrew

Acts 17:11  These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they
received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures
daily, whether those things were so.