I was wondering if you’d do something for me. I was wondering if you would listen to something for me. You could listen with your g/f. A good friend sent this link to me.
So many atheists have asked me over the years things like:
How can you believe that God created the universe?
How can you believe the Bible?
How can you believe this and how can you believe that?
How can you be so irrational?
Isn’t that really what you guys are asking? What you’re saying to me is, “How can you have all these really important unanswered questions and still believe that Jesus is your Lord and Saviour?”
Some of you already have the answer. You think you know why I’m a Christian.
“It’s ‘cause you were born into a Christian country.”
“It’s ‘cause you were brainwashed.”
“It ‘cause of this and it’s because of that.”
Anyhow, Hugo, would you just listen to this and tell me what you think? I’m not asking you to agree with it. I just want to know your thoughts.
http://media.northpointministries.org/northpointministries/podcasts/andystanley/its_personal/itspersonal_part1.mp3
This explains how I can say the things that I say in the “Because . . .” series. It’s something personal - not theoretical - personal.
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ReplyDeleteHere's the transcript I noted down while listening (ya I type pretty fast ;)) and I wanted to comment on it later on, but I guess I'll just make one comment at the end since there is not that much substance after all
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1:40 - Give up resistance
2:30 - A Christian is someone who abandon himself to Jesus, re-order his life according to that
Reasons not to become a Christian:
3:30 - There is too much suffering in the world; it's stupid to believe
3:50 - Know too many Christians, I am better than them
4:00 - Raised in another religion; the problems is that you guys think you are right, other are wrong
4:20 - What about all the other religions?
4:30 - Jesus is not the only way
4:50 - Starting to believe but parents/friends did not, or emotional reasons,
5:15 - Cannot say my family was wrong
5:45 - Notion of somebody paying for another person's sin
6:05 - Just don't care
6:50 - You have things that are between you and being a Christian, you cannot ignore them
7:10 - He has observed that very few adults become a Christian after overcoming their issues/obstacles
8:30 - Adults become Christian become something happened that shrinks their obstacle
9:20 - Example, huge tragedy, suddenly start to believe, nothing else matter; he gives many examples of 'stuff' that were obstacles to faith (dino on ark, who wrote the Bible, etc...), these all become real small, but not resolved.
10:30 - God becomes a personal thing, not a category, and then they start reading the Bible, thinking that now they believe these things, obstacles being still there but small
11:30 - Christianity isn't about a category, it's intensly personal. Adults decide to follow Jesus when the questions get shrunk by the personal relationship with Jesus.
12:00 - "No I am way too smart to make something like that happen"
12:45 - We're just starting, just an intro, no worry, we are not trying to resolve everything
12:50 - To men, do you remember all the reasons you had not to get married?
13:15 - If you're single and don't want to you have a list of reasons.
13:40 - Don't want to be committed, not enough money, cant even buy what I want (hahaha)
14:10 - I'd rather be single and lonely than stuck!
14:30 - Not too young; what happen if I meet someone else? What if it's at the reception (hahaha)
14:55 - How many of these did you think about honestly?
15:30 - Gives funny story of how a guy could go through his list of things to do...
16:30 - I feel pretty confident that none of us resolved any of this before we got married
16:50 - (Shows something we don't see, seems funny)
17:30 - What happen is... you fell in love! Before, marriage was a category
18:00 - Was not about women, engagement, it was about HER, became very personal
18:30 - Married in spite of all that you were afraid of
18:45 - Issues/concerns did not go away, just got smaller
19:00 - That's how adults become Christians too.
19:15 - Cannot explain to you everything, you would just have more info
19:30 - Christianity is very personal at its core
19:45 - Because something happens, beings to shrink all these obstacles
2/3
ReplyDelete******
20:00 - For ladies...
20:10 - Why want a baby? Do you know how dangerous that is? ... (hahaha)
20:45 - You want a baby because there is something inside of you that wants you to have one
21:10 - It's YOUR baby
21:45 - Obstacles get so small because you want something so bad
22:00 - They are not even worth talking about
22:15 - All I am saying is this, keep your objections, keep asking big questions, be honest
22:30 - Chances are, if you decide to follow Jesus, the things on your list wont go away
22:45 - Some will disappear, but some will just become smaller
23:15 - The reason you look at Christians and say You're so naive is... Aren't you rational? Etc...
23:35 - Of course they are aware, but when they embrace their personal savior, things get smaller
24:00 - It's just different, because it's personal.
24:15 - Read John 1:43
24:35 - Jesus starts to add disciples, here's a story of one
25:00 - Finds Phil, tell him Follow me
25:35 - Phil says we have found THE one to one of his friends; Moses talk about him
26:00 - You know that one we have been waiting for for hundreds of years; found him
26:30 - Friends are like, hum ya right...
26:40 - He told them it's Jesus, the son of Joseph, from Nazareth
26:55 - Nathaniel is skeptical
27:00 - Funny restaurant analogy
27:30 - Nat replies, Nazareth!? Can anything good can come from there?
28:30 - Analogy with colon-cancer-curing-person found in Cherry Log, Georgia
29:30 - At this point Phil could have made a huge mistake and discuss Nazareth
29:45 - They would have discussed this issue, this obstacle, but he would not be closer to Jesus
30:00 - He illustrates what has been happening and replied
30:20 - Just come and see!
30:30 - I cannot even give you a good argument of why he is the savior
30:55 - I cannot convince you, I just want you to meet him
31:10 - The Bible affirms your intelligent honesty, you cannot pretend
31:25 - When Jesus saw Nat approaching, he said it was a true Israelite, not a pretender
31:50 - Nat is honest with himself and people around, he will ask questions
32:15 - Jesus knew his name, freaked him a bit
32:30 - Nat asked Jesus, how do you know me?
33:10 - Nat did not ask about the Nazareth thing since he did not care anymore
33:30 - He met a guy who knew his name, it became personal
33:50 - Nat declared, you are the king of Israel!
34:00 - We don't know what happened exactly but he became a follower of Jesus
34:20 - He still had his questions, but since it became personal it did not matter
34:30 - That's how rational smart adults become followers of Jesus
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3/3
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34:45 - I'll pray like crazy that your very valid list, some emotional, some intellectual, shrink
35:00 - You're real issue could be a life-style change
35:15 - You know it's a smoke screen
35:25 - I hope it will begin to shrink
35:40 - People asked Jesus what's most important to God?
36:00 - Jesus said: Love the Lord your God, with all your soul, with all your mind
36:30 - I like this series because I try to understand my God with all my mind
36:40 - Then I will allow myself to love him (Nat said that)
37:00 - But God wants you to love him more than to understand
37:10 - Once you love him, you understand him
37:20 - Jesus wants you to trust him, love him
37:30 - The obstacles don't go away, just become smaller over time
37:45 - Like Nat you wont get all the Nazareth thing, but it will become a love relationship
38:00 - It's personal, your heavenly father wants you to love him, know him, more than answers
38:30 - Don't you want the people in your life to know you? Love you? Before knowing everything?
38:45 - That is the reflection of God's love for you
39:00 - God says that I want you to get the answers but I want you to love more/before
39:20 - Then you will know your God, his son, and it will become personal
39:40 - Would consider praying this for a week:
39:50 - Heavenly father, I want to know you, more than I wanna know the answers to my questions
30:05 - if you can be known, I want to know you, more than I want to know the answers
40:15 - repeat
40:30 - Even if I got all the answers to my questions, I would have all the info, but would not know you
40:50 - repeat
41:00 - Your heavenly father cannot wait to answer that request, some question will go away
41:10 - some might stay but shrink
41:20 - Jesus is not just The saviour, he is MY saviour
41:50 - Challenge to begin to pray:
42:00 - Thank you to make it personal, no god system to understand, thank you not to be a distant god, I know that when I was talking, some were scared a bit, they felt something, it got so personal, because that's what you do
43:00 - Maybe we began to doubt, wherever we are father, there will always be people who want to know you, thank you for making it personal, in Jesus' name
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So, what am I suppose to reply to this? I don't know.
ReplyDeleteTo me, it's perfectly understandable that people who do not think a lot about religion can eventually become followers of Jesus for the reasons the guy mentions. It's so easy to just let yourself go and become a follower for emotional reasons.
I find it ironic that it seems to him that it's hard to become a believer, when I think it's the complete opposite. Being a believer is so simple. You just need to... believe. Then, you take your Bible, read what you like, discard what's obviously wrong, slavery let's say, and that's it. You then join with people who live like you, have similar values, and you don't need to think too much about it.
Oh sure, some people are afraid to change their lifestyle as he says, but seriously, that's just pathetic. If I knew for sure that God existed and he were going to judge us exactly as the Bible says, it would be freaking easy to follow the commandants. It's such simple logic... because it was written by simple men.
Using our brain, thinking, finding rational solutions, working out problems, trying to see the good and the bad of each issue; THAT is the real challenge in life in my opinion.
In short, the only think I understand from this podcast is that to have a personal relationship with Jesus, you need to start by believing in him, love him, and then shut your brain off concerning the contradictory things the rest of the religion tries to teach. In other words, give up some of your humanity to become closer to the "divine"... but what if we just don't believe?
Anyway, thanks for sharing, I think it's a very positive approach and I fully understand that people fall for that. It gives comfort, makes people happier I guess when they have this love relationship with their imaginary friend. Really it's mostly good; but I am just afraid of the consequences such mentality brings upon a society as a whole, because some people think the EXACT same way for so many other things, some which are dangerous for us all. No need to give examples I guess...
Cheers!
Oh one more thing you might be curious to know, since you mention my gf; not she did not listen to it because she is away for a few days, but I would not bother making her listen to something like that because she already believes in a personal god, so she already has that personal relationship and she is more convinced about it than I thought before actually! WE do have interesting conversations about that sometimes ;)
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness, I hope I didn't give the impression that I wanted you to transcribe the thing. I was just interested in your comments.
ReplyDeleteYou went to a great deal of work and I appreciate the time you took. Thank you.
Of course no, I did not think you wanted me to do that; it was just an efficient way for me to comment on the speech.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as I felt there was not many different ideas after all, I think it was not necessary to insert comments between lines as I intended to do in the first place.
I still wanted to show the text anyway just as an example of how I care about various things presented by you, or any other people with different beliefs.
It's great that you recognize the efforts and the time I spent regarding the suggested podcast; thanks.