GUEST POST: The Paradox of Pursuit

Posted on January 17, 2026 by Don Merritt

I am very pleased to present a guest post by Ricky Lovestrand of https://religiousnutspiritual.com/ . I hope you enjoy his post here, and that you will check out his blog linked abouve.

How should a genuine seeker go about finding God? As it often does, the Bible gives us a
wonderfully simple and mysterious answer. If a person wants to find God, he must seek him
with all his heart and soul (Deuteronomy 4:29). And yet, if anyone would come to Jesus, it must
be granted by the Father (John 6:44). Two things must happen: a person must seek God, and
God must reveal himself. But just what should it look like exactly for a person to seek God with
all his heart and soul? Today when the term “seeker” comes up, we think of people who have
genuine curiosity or openness to religion. But the Bible does not say that God is looking for
“seekers.” He is looking for worshippers. And he will not reveal himself to anybody based on
whatever terms a person may dictate. In this short post, I won’t offer a comprehensive treatise
on how to seek God. But I would like to offer one essential part of the answer. God will not be
found by men and women who do not have humble hearts. A person must go low to meet the
Most High God.
The Bible frames the pursuit of God as always something more than an intellectual quest.
Perhaps the only person who radically encounters God in his pride is Paul, who is then
transformed with humility afterwards. The normative pattern we see in scripture is
encountering God through lowliness. God himself said “I dwell in the high and holy place, and
also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit” (Isaiah 57:15). It is the humble and faith-
filled persistence of the Syrophoenician woman who finds God in a miraculous healing. It is only
through his humility and repentance that David can find fresh fellowship with God once again.
God is even moved by the humble prayer of King Manasseh, despite his wickedness, to bring
him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then there’s the wise men, who come looking for Jesus
but doing so as worshippers. This echoes CS Lewis’ insight, “A proud man is always looking
down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see
something that is above you.” The modern conception of someone who seeks God as a mere
intellectual enterprise is completely foreign to scripture. And the irony is that seeking for God
merely intellectually could easily inflate a man’s pride. As his heart lifts itself higher, he may, as
Lewis wrote, find himself looking down on things and people—and missing what is above him.
But where does this leave the unbeliever? Shall he humble himself and call out to God in prayer
like David and King Manasseh? He should.
But here we run into a problem. We may say a non-believer could find God through prayer. But
how can a non-believer pray to a God he doesn’t yet believe exists? Shall we ask him to sacrifice
his intellectual honesty and integrity? Should he just fake it till he makes it? We’ve got a circular
problem. Unbelief is short circuiting the very channel through which he may be granted belief!
What are we to do?

Scripture itself provides a precedent for praying to God even if you don’t have clarity about his
character. Paul writes in Romans 1 that based on creation alone, it is evident that there is some
very powerful and eternal being. This fact by itself Paul says, is enough to obligate a person to
give thanks to such a being. I would argue that the non-believer does not need to pretend that
he believes in such a God. He does not need to fake it. There are enough reasons to make it
reasonable (such that his intellectual honesty would not need to be sacrificed) to humbly reach
out to such a God in prayer. Similarly, a non-Christian does not need to embrace every point of
the traditional doctrine of sin in order to humble himself. Our consciences bear witness to us
that we have fallen short of the glory of God. The seeker may not use that language, and that
seems fine to me. The point is that all of us are intimately acquainted with our shortcomings. I
believe that confessing them and sincerely reaching out this eternal and powerful being can be
done sincerely by an open, but non-Christian seeker. There’s no need at this point to embrace
every part of Christian doctrine. What’s needed is a contrite and lowly spirit. And if such a
seeker is willing to go low, and then even lower, he will find the one who has been highly
exalted and given “the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11).

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What we have Heard from the Beginning

Posted on January 16, 2026 by Don Merritt

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

1 John 3:11-15

Well, we have heard this message from the beginning, that we should love one another.  A quick look through Christian blogs will reveal that everybody writes about it at one time or another… or every day.  Why does it take so long to sink in for so many?

John takes us right to the story of Cain and Abel, an interesting choice.  He tells us that Cain murdered his brother because Cain was following the evil one, that his actions were evil and Abel’s actions were righteous; murder was the result. Now to be fair to Cain, I’ve never heard this mentioned as a motive for murder on a detective show before.  The usual motives for murder are hatred, greed, fear of exposure, jealousy… wait!  Maybe that’s the one: jealousy!  He was jealous because Abel was righteous and Cain was evil, and that led to hatred, which led to murder.  I wonder if Perry Mason or DCI Barnaby would see it that way….

It would seem to me that John is suggesting that evil will oppress the righteous. Then he takes another interesting step, adding linkage that we should pay close attention to, because it takes the old story from Genesis and brings it starkly to life: Do not be surprised if the world hates you.

I never cease to be amazed when Christians act all horrified and indignant that certain elements in society oppose us at every turn.  What is surprising about that?  Certain elements in society murdered God’s prophets and opposed the Lord Himself to the point of death, not to mention the early church, and evil regimes all through the ages.  There is nothing new in any of this.  No, it is not a sign that the end is near, it is a sign that we are in the last age, just as John said his readers were…

We must love one another, because we have passed from death into life.  We must love one another because God first loved us and He also loves our brother, and we love our brother because we love God: This, too is nothing new.  How will the world know that we are in Christ? Because we love one another.  Will the world hate that?  Yes, but many will also want it and be attracted to it, because once you separate individuals from the society in which they live, they want what we have in Christ.  Therefore, loving one another spreads the Gospel and accomplishes God’s purpose.

Oh, sorry, I’ve gotten a little ahead of the text.  That’s coming…

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Go and do likewise

Posted on January 16, 2026 by Don Merritt

Welcome back to our road trip, our journey of discovery, as we examine that little theory of mine.  We’ve been travelling along, and up to this point, we have made several stops where we were able to look at certain aspects of the theory.  Today is the changeover, for up to this point, we’ve been looking at things people do that get in the way of their spiritual lives, but from here, as we turn into the home stretch, we will consider the counter-intuitive life of following our Lord Jesus.  To refresh your memory, here’s the theory again:

“Christian theology is not particularly difficult to understand.  Its precepts and premises are fairly simple, it was given to “regular” guys to share with the world, and they did it.  Yes, of course they had a lot of help from the Holy Spirit, but then so do we. Yet we love to argue, follow tradition and form to avoid spiritual growth and reaching out, because they are counter-intuitive, and the fact that they are counter-intuitive is exactly the point of all things being new, for our human intuition isn’t new, it’s the old thing that Jesus died to free us from.”

The things I mentioned here that are counter-intuitive are “spiritual growth,” and “reaching out.” In truth, you really can’t separate the two, for growing spiritually will almost automatically cause us to reach out to others for Christ.  Let’s begin this part of our discovery by looking at the  most fundamental of all of the teachings of our Lord.

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Luke 10:36-37, larger context, Luke 10:25-37

I’m sure that you recognize this as the final two verses of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, in which Jesus told a story about a man who was attacked, robbed, beaten and left for dead out on a highway.  As the man lay there on the road, passers-by stepped right over him, but did not offer any help, not even the religious leader, until a lowly, unclean Samaritan gave the man aid and comfort.  It must have been hard for the expert in the law who was trying to trap Jesus in this conversation, to concede who the “neighbor” was, and you might have noticed that he didn’t mention the word “Samaritan” in doing so.

The exchange begins when the expert in the Law asked Jesus a question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  (10:25) and Jesus responds with a question of his own: “What is written in the Law?” (10:26) and the expert replies in verse 27 by reciting the “greatest commandment” that you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and then he adds that you shall love your neighbor as your self.  He follows up with another question, “Who is my neighbor?” (10:29) and so Jesus answers with the parable…

Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor; this is Christian theology in a nutshell, the very heart and core of our faith.  It is so easy to say, but make no mistake, it has far-reaching implications!

You see, if we really love God like that, and He loves all His children as He loves us, and was willing to send His Son to die, as Jesus says in John 3:16, then we must love all His children as He does, and as He loves us. Forget all the arguments and debates, forget all of the social and class distinctions.  Forget about being comfortable all the time and about what somebody else might think.  We must love our neighbor, even the one who is unlovely.  Now, consider that while you were still in your sins, God sent Jesus to die for you, so great was His love, (Rom. 5:8) how can either you or I sit by while even one more of our neighbors dies without Jesus?

Why do we linger?  Why do we step over the injured and keep on walking?  Why do we look the other way?  Why do we continue to look to our traditions, our customs, our forms of religion and our ceremonies?  Have they ever saved even one single child of God who was broken out there in the street, or in the neighborhood?

No! Not even once. Those things don’t save anybody, only relationship with God through Jesus Christ can do that, and oh how marvelous that relationship is.

My focus has shifted as you can see, from that which holds us back from this relationship, to how incredibly awesome the relationship is. It is loving, safe, secure, marvelous, miraculous, and holy.  It is unlimited, eternal, and full of possibility. In short, it is the most satisfying, the most fulfilling and the most… counter-intuitive thing that a human being can ever become involved in, and it is sitting right there waiting for us to grab hold of it, just as soon as we can stop holding on to the things that distract us.

Wow, what a way wrap up a work week, considering the awesomeness of our relationship with the very God who created the universe!  I pray that you’ll go through the entire day with these things on your heart, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow, when we make our next stop, where we will take a look at why we would give everything else up to serve our Lord.

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Doing What is Right

Posted on January 15, 2026 by Don Merritt

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.

1 John 3:7-10

This is an interesting passage with which to begin any fiscussion: Don’t let anyone lead you astray. There are many who would do so, and they may try by appealing to our pride or vanity, they might appeal to greed or lust, they might even appeal to our intellect with attractive arguments or curious reasoning, but have you ever asked yourself why they would bother?

John gives the reason in this passage: They are sinful, of the devil, and doing the devil’s work, because the devil has been in rebellion against God since the beginning and is looking for allies… or at least to separate us from Christ. It is very important that we get this point.  It is the work of the devil to separate us from Christ, because in Christ we are part of His work, and His work is to destroy the works of the devil.  Actually, this is so simple we might miss it− In Christ, we are a threat, so there will be opposition.

Within this context, John speaks of doing what is right as opposed to doing what is sinful, and in this context doing what is right means following Jesus Christ, and doing what is sinful means not following Christ and trying to lead His followers astray.  So far, this is very straight forward, and then John throws us a curve at the end, a curve that leads us to the next section. Doing right means that we love one another, doing wrong means that we don’t.

Wait! I thought you just said that doing right was following Jesus, and doing wrong was not following Jesus!  Where did all of this love stuff come from?

Simple answer: If we do not love one another as He loved us, then we can’t possibly be following Jesus Christ, because loving one another is where He is leading us.

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Traditions, Forms and TWWADI

Posted on January 15, 2026 by Don Merritt

Today we look at tradition, and thus,

we consider this part of the theory that we are currently examining:

Yet we love to argue, follow tradition and form to avoid spiritual growth…

In the last stop on our journey, we looked at argument and premises and a couple of examples, one from history and one from the present to see how adding to the New Covenant resulted in long-term consequences and how that can lead to conflicts and divisions. Of course, I approached all of this in very general terms, using larger concepts rather than small details, and so I will continue. I also introduced the concept of TWWADI: The Way We’ve Always Done It.  I wrote a post some years ago that is called TWAADI: Church Killer, and rather than repeat that all here, I’ve linked to it. The main thrust of that post was how our local church traditions can stifle a congregation.  Here I’d like to center more on what I’ve already called “form.” In a post the other day,  I mentioned that we like to come up with certain forms so that we can codify that if a person does X, Y and Z, they’ve done all they need to do. Well, this kind of form completely misses the mark, even though it could be “right” in and of itself.  Here’s an example:

You are seeking God.  A friend invites you to church; you go, you like the experience, like the music and the sermon and they take good care of your kids.  The people are great, you want to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, so you sit down with the Pastor, Minister, Vicar, Priest (or whatever they’re called).  He shares with you about the Lord and you say YES!  (This is the short version again, please don’t contact me and tell me I left something out)  Then the Pastor (or whatever) hands you a handy sheet that lists what you need to do.  Maybe it says something like this:

1. State your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior before the congregation.

2. Be Baptized into His Name.

3. Promise to attend three new members classes (schedule attached).

4. Read and pledge to support and observe out Core Values Statement (attached)

5. Tithe 10%

6. Attend Worship regularly

7. Be ready and willing to volunteer to help church programs and activities; get involved.

OK, that’s enough for you to get the picture of what I’m talking about.  I’m not taking issue with any of this right now; it’s just a story…

Except for one little thing. How does that new person perceive this?

There are many possibilities, but the biggest in my view, is that you just gave the person a list of 7 things to do to become a Christian, and none of them have moved one single inch from or beyond becoming a Christian.  What is there that takes them the rest of the way into discipleship; where is following Jesus in all of this? All we’ve done here is to give them “form” to follow.

Now I know of great churches that do some of this kind of thing, but they never leave it here, and they never give somebody the impression that they just joined a club. but those are rare these days.

When we insist on putting form in the superior position, we have an easy way to handle things, but we are not following Jesus… and do you know why we let this happen?

Because it is intuitive, traditional and the way of this world.  We can catch hold of this and never have the need to grow, because everything is already done.  That is why I say we’d rather argue, follow tradition and form to avoid spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is naturally uncomfortable, and sometimes a little messy, and requires that we trust God in fact, and not just in word… and we can always alter our premises to justify it.

 Well troop, now that we have come to the very brink of “radical,” maybe this is a good place to break.

Let’s have a little review, and then back to the hotel.

What I’ve tried to show you so far are things that cause problems for believers, and some possible reasons.  Whether my contention that we tend to do these things because they are intuitive, rather than just follow Jesus because that is counter-intuitive is for you to decide; my mind is pretty well made up already.  If you see it differently than I do, fine and dandy.

Next, I’d like us to visit some places where we can see more about what it really means to follow Him, and how that relates to “reaching out.”  After that, you will have all that I have to make your conclusion about my theory, and whatever your decision turns out to be, I will pose three questions for you to consider.  They are the three big questions of Applied Theology really, but don’t be concerned, they are really easy.  They are:

1. Is God speaking to you in this study?

2. If He is, what is He telling you?

3. What are you going to do about it?

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Photo of the Week: January 14, 2026

Posted on January 14, 2026 by Don Merritt
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Children of God

Posted on January 14, 2026 by Don Merritt

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

1 John 3:1-3

It’s really an amazing thing to read this text and give it a chance to sink in; this is a text to read slowly, prayerfully…

While we were dead in our sinful rebellion against God, He loved us so much, even in spite of our mindset against Him, that He went to extraordinary lengths to redeem us to Himself, and once reborn, we are now His children.  There are moments when we may not feel like it, but when God looks upon us, He sees His own children… what more is there to say?

None of us really can appreciate exactly what that entails.  It’s like being asked what heaven is like…  I’ve been asked this many times, but I must admit that I don’t really know.  People repeat certain Biblical passages about heaven, and act as though they know all, but they are kidding themselves, for they are quoting non-literal passages that give indications of certain aspects of heaven, but not details, and do you know how I can say this so boldly?  It’s easy; human language does not, nor could it ever, contain the vocabulary to describe fully, accurately and completely those things which no man has ever seen and reported directly – we have no references to comprehend.  The same is true for being children of God.  Much remains “hidden” for there is simply no vocabulary to convey the full meaning.  When we see Jesus Christ face-to-face, we will see all. What a glorious hope! It is only natural and proper for us to respond to this by setting aside the old life, the old ways, and to be pure as He is pure to the best of our ability, and according to His leading.

Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

1 John 3:4-6

John highlights the point made above about purity in these verses.  For us to disregard everything He has done for us, to reject His love and His grace and remain in the old ways is simply inconceivable. That isn’t to say that we will never struggle or make mistakes; it isn’t to say that we are suddenly perfect.  He came to take sin away, after all, not to catch us messing up.  John is once again pointing out the contrast between the follower of Jesus Christ and the one who rejects Jesus Christ.  He doesn’t appear to be referring in any way to a follower who had a bad day.

Before I conclude this, dear reader, what is it that really jumps out at you here?

For me, the thing that jumps out is that not only is God’s love for us amazing, boundless, and tremendous, but that it holds implications that go far beyond anything that we can even begin to comprehend in our current mortal state, and that our hope for eternal life is not only assured, but far more amazing than anyone has ever understood it to be.

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The Rubber Meets the Road

Posted on January 14, 2026 by Don Merritt

Welcome back to our road trip, our journey of discovery investigating my theory…

“Christian theology is not particularly difficult to understand.  Its precepts and premises are fairly simple, it was given to “regular” guys to share with the world, and they did it.  Yes, of course they had a lot of help from the Holy Spirit, but then so do we. Yet we love to argue, follow tradition and form to avoid spiritual growth and reaching out, because they are counter-intuitive, and the fact that they are counter-intuitive is exactly the point of all things being new, for our human intuition isn’t new, it’s the old thing that Jesus died to free us from.”

We have been looking mostly at simple ideas, but now, we have arrived at the place where things are made difficult and complicated, and with any luck, and good Lord willing, we’ll un-complicate to a certain extent.  

We Christians love to argue, follow tradition and form to avoid spiritual growth…

As we move forward in our faith, we inevitably run into a brick wall.  That wall is the place where we first encounter the counter-intuitive aspect of following Jesus.  In the theory, I labeled it loosely as “spiritual growth.” We may not like to set self aside to follow Jesus.  We might have goals and ambitions and pride that get in the way; what can we do?  Usually, we adjust our premises to make things OK.  Here’s an historical example of this:

Once upon a time there was an emperor in Rome named Constantine.  For various reasons, He is supposed to have made God a promise that if God would help him in a certain desperate conflict, he would become a Christian. (This is the “quick” version)  Constantine’s side was victorious and then the emperor issued a decree accepting Christianity as an approved state religion.  Eventually, it became quite trendy in society and shifted to the only approved religion: It became the Official State Religion and all others were banned.  That means that a crime against the State is a crime against the Church, and a crime against the Church is a crime against the State. Well, as you might imagine, this had far-reaching consequences for the government, and far-reaching implications for theologians.  The New Covenant has no particular imperative or priority as to government, the “State.”  Yet there they were with a royal edict to conform theology to the requirements of a theocratic government.

But they found a way to get it done.

Though the New Covenant makes us citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, with little particular emphasis on earthly government other than to keep out of trouble and respect those in charge, the Old Covenant created a theocratic State, the Kingdom of Israel.  In its 613 laws, the Old Covenant (Law of Moses) contained the entire civil code of a Nation.  So, even though the Old Covenant had been entirely fulfilled by Christ and was no longer in force, various aspects were brought into the New Covenant so that the Roman government could be harmonized with its official religion.  This was done by adjusting the premises of Christian theology, in particular the distinction between covenants.

Since then, “Christendom” has had nothing but strife.

Here’s a modern example.  In our time, various Christian groups will protest, yell and complain about various laws.  Let’s say drug laws, or the loosening of some of them for example.  It is easier for us to “stand up for our beliefs” and get a bunch of people to demonstrate in favor of passing a tougher drug law than it is to get the same number of people to reach out to drug addicts and help them change their lives to follow Jesus Christ.  Why?  There aren’t any political demonstrations in the New Testament, but there’s a great deal of reaching out in love, so why would we rather condemn someone and demand political action instead of reaching out in love to messy and broken people?

It’s a simple answer, isn’t it?  Reaching out is counter-intuitive, messy, scary.  A demonstration is a couple of hours blocked in your day timer.  How can we justify this?  By changing the premises of our simple theology so as to convince ourselves that following Christ has something to do with our being able to condemn the sins of others.

Jesus is rather famous for teaching the opposite.

Am I suggesting, by this example, that we abandon morality?  Of course not, far from it:  I’m saying that the highest form of morality is to love God and love your neighbor, and that condemnation is God’s job, while our job is making disciples of Jesus Christ.

Simple, yet challenging and counter to our natural human inclination. Of course, there are other complications as well, like our traditions, ceremonies and all of the things our churches do because it’s the way we’ve always done it…TWWADI.

I think TWWADI is at our next stop…

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Continue in Him

Posted on January 13, 2026 by Don Merritt

And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.

1 John 2:28-29

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I sit back and think about everything involved in following our Lord and it all just seems a little overwhelming.  Thinking about who He is, what He is, His love for us, His call to us… and all of the implications of these things… Wow!

I don’t want to mess this all up!

Oh sure, I’m confident in forgiveness for sins, and I understand that He is loving, merciful and not interested in a “gotcha” moment, no that isn’t it at all; I don’t want to grieve Him or let Him down.  In the text we’ve been looking at, John seems to sense the same kind of thing.  He’s taken us through all of these amazing attributes, and he’s taken us through the facts of life in a spiritual battlefield, and now suddenly, he seems to take a little step back to survey the scene, and just as though he were reading my mind, he writes these two verses.

Wow!  What do we do now?  John’s answer is “continue in Him.”  Yes, that’s right; continue in Him so that when He appears we may be confident and unscathed by this world of ours.  By “continue in Him,” I think John means that we should simply keep on living in Christ’s image, as He taught us, doing what He did, following His Father’s purpose and not being distracted. We do know that He is righteous; so then, we do know that everyone who does right is born of Him.  By “right,” John must mean that they do the things that He would do, so while Jesus is the Model for all of us to follow, when those around us follow His model, we have someone to show us the way when we are confused.

Wow! Once again, the answer is simple, if not always exactly easy.

Yes, dear reader, let’s just continue in Him…

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Precepts, Premises and Regular Guys

Posted on January 13, 2026 by Don Merritt
donmerrittonline.com

OK group, break’s over, let’s get back on the bus!  Our next stop is at a place called Precepts, Premises, and Regular Guys, as we continue on our journey.  Here’s the theory again…

“Christian theology is not particularly difficult to understand.  Its precepts and premises are fairly simple, it was given to “regular” guys to share with the world, and they did it.  Yes, of course they had a lot of help from the Holy Spirit, but then so do we. Yet we love to argue, follow tradition and form to avoid spiritual growth and reaching out, because they are counter-intuitive, and the fact that they are counter-intuitive is exactly the point of all things being new, for our human intuition isn’t new, it’s the old thing that Jesus died to free us from.”

Last post was “Christian theology” and here we go!

When I posted that short paragraph of Christian basics, remember that really simple one last time?  Well, those were actually theological conclusions.  Now don’t freak on me, I’m not going academic on you, no sir, not on this trip.  It’s just that that’s what they are.  Conclusions are built upon precepts or premises.  These are also sometimes called presuppositions, assumptions or preconceptions or even preconceived notions, but to keep it simple, let’s just say premises today… OK?

Good.   All conclusions are built upon and based upon their underlying premises or assumptions.  So, if you see somebody who has a conclusion that is different from yours, you will never change their mind by attacking their conclusion, because they have probably arrived at their conclusion logically, but with a different set of premises backing it up.  That’s just a little bonus tidbit for you at no extra cost, by the way. Anyway, the point is that these premises are the reasoning behind the conclusions that I stated in our last stop.  I’m not going to list those premises here; this isn’t that kind of post.  This whole journey is a thinking journey more than an analysis; we’re just having some fun together.

My set of conclusions is pretty much the standard Christian bundle of basics; offhand I can’t think of a major group that would be Christian who would argue with any of them… but there’s probably somebody I’m not thinking of.  There are more conclusions that I could have listed, but I didn’t because I want to keep our “theology” at a point where there is very little to debate.  However, when debates and divisions pop up, they always pop up in premises that lead to logically arrived at, but erroneous, conclusions on someone’s part. Sorry, this is already getting fuzzy for some of you, so let’s move on to the main point.

The simple basics of Christian theology are based upon simple premises that you’ve heard many times before.  God did not make our faith complicated, but so many of you feel lost in theology, and this is because we add to it because we are looking for, in fact we insist upon, a complicated answer to the simple question of : “What is the meaning of life.” (Or something similar) These premises, as I’ve mentioned above are simple and you have heard them all before.  Consider a couple… There is one God who is the maker of heaven and earth. Another one is that the Bible is His Word.  Now, you can either believe them or not, but if you take either one or the other out from under your logic, you can’t accept any of the conclusions I mentioned last time, because they will no longer work.

Get the idea of how this works? Easy, simple, almost simplistic… but counter-intuitive.  If you’ve got the simple part, we can talk about the “regular guys.”

The Apostles of Jesus Christ were not seminary professors, nor were they philosophers or anything like that.  With the exception of Paul, they were strictly blue-collar types.  Can you guess why that might have been?  For one thing, the “professionals” were almost all opposed to the Gospel.  They were the elites, the Pharisees, the great religious rulers of the day, and you know what they had done with Judaism?  They had complicated it with a rigid set of rules that far outnumbered the original 613 laws of Moses.  They were so very important that they had to add to what God had given their fathers; they complicated it with extra premises, resulting in all manner of extra conclusions, most likely because they simply were not willing to accept that God’s ways are simple.

The “regular guys” were not well-educated.  There was no drive, at least when they came to understand, to add extra premises.  They handled God’s Word faithfully, with no need to protect their position… they had no position to protect in this life! So, take heart! “Regular” people, “real” people you can understand the Bible!  Yippee!  Even a dolt like me can get it! They even had the Holy Spirit with them to help them, to guide them and when necessary to give them the words they needed, and so do you and I. He will lead us to the truth if we will seek His presence, and He will do so at the right time.

I hope you see all of this as a great encouragement if you have or are struggling in your faith!

Our next stop on our journey is at the place where the rubber meets the road for most Christians.  It is the place where our natural human intuition battles with God’s counter-intuitive truth.  See ya tomorrow!

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