Christian Living

It All Starts Here

by paul hoffmaster
04/03/26
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One of the most difficult challenges in life, at least from a Pastor’s perspective, is to get an inquiring person to move from reasoning to faith.  To help them move from a tangible observation to the unseen.  Sight and sound ignite reason.  The phrase “I have to see it to believe it,” seems to be the response of people.  The State of Missouri’s slogan is “Show-Me.” In other words, seeing is believing.  Thomas, one of Jesus’ Disciples, fell into the “seeing and believing” category.  He knew Jesus had died and was buried, but to believe that He was seen by ten of his compatriots, a few days before, was too big a leap.  To appease his questioning mind, he stated that before he would believe Jesus was alive, he would have to “See in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nail, and put my hand into His side. (John 20:25)  Every generation tends to believe and accept what they can see, hear, and touch. One of the reasons many people have a hard time accepting Christianity is that it is beyond human reasoning. To move beyond our senses and accept the reality of an unseen God takes a giant five-letter word called FAITH.  What is Faith?  “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:2)  Pure substance is a compound of one single type of matter or element.  So Faith is the basic ingredient in reaching beyond our human capacities. It is seeing the Scriptures exhibited in real time.  It is seeking and finding what the Word of God is actually saying. 

Faith is the foundation of the Christian movement.  Take Faith out of the equation, and you have no Christianity. Christianity is built on the substance of Faith. To approach Christianity by reason dilutes the Scriptures to simple words and phrases.  To dissect the Bible by way of human analysis or academically will result in speculations that lead to disbelief and ridicule.

The Bible was written by 40 individuals over a span of 1500 years. and in three Continents, Asia, Africa, and Europe.  Kings, Priests, Shepherds, Fishermen, Politicians, Tent Makers, Doctors, Tax Collectors, Song Writers, all were used to write as God’s Holy Spirit directed them. (II Peter 1:21, II Timothy 3:16)  The starting point of the Christian Faith is to believe that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant Word of the living God.  As one opens the Bible, one is introduced to God and Jesus through the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

Satan realizes how important the Scriptures are to the Christian movement.  So what he attempts to do is flood the marketplace with different Translations of the Bible, hoping to confuse Christians.  What Translation best represents God’s dictation?  There are over 900 English Translations in the world today, of which a great number conflict with each other. To bring even more confusion, there are over 25,000 ancient transcriptions, from which Bible publishers can choose what manuscripts to draw their version from. So which Bible do we read? Should it not be whatever the Holy Spirit chooses to engage your spirit?  The Bible states that “Without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 12:6)

Eight days after Thomas had made his faithless proclamation, Jesus would appear and accept Thomas’s challenge to fulfill his request to touch His body.  Thomas did nothing but cry out, “My Lord and my God.” (John 20:28)   Jesus ended the engagement by saying, “Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed.  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” (John 20:29)