Christian Twitter kind of exploded a few days ago. The popular “Desiring God” account posted this:
I read the
linked article, and it has a point to be made. But I don’t think it is possible to have faith
without some doubt. The whole point of faith is having that “I could be wrong” feeling, yet trusting anyway. It may sound contradictory, but I believe the enemy of faith is not doubt – it’s certainty. Certainty leaves no room for growth, questioning, exploration, further discovery. Only faith can do that.
Do I ever go through seasons of doubt? Absolutely. I’ve spent countless nights lying in bed wondering if this whole church thing is worth it, if God really called me to this, if the Bible is really telling us the truth, and if Jesus is really worth devoting my life to. How can I know? I can’t. That’s part of it.
Faith is a choice. It fails to be a choice when we can no longer say no, when there is no possibility of being wrong.
The real question is, “Does it make sense for me to choose faith over disbelief?”
Here enters the writer/physician/historian/professor/explorer Luke. By the time Luke writes his gospel account, Mark and Matthew had already written their own (presumably). These gospels and some of Paul’s letters had been making the rounds through the churches. And there were also a plethora of stories being passed along simply by word-of-mouth. And while a few letters or fragments of the gospels carried around by traveling preachers might be enough to convince and convert many people throughout the Roman world, others may not have been so easily persuaded. You know the types – they don’t fall for emotional manipulation or clever story-telling. They want sources cited. They want facts. They want thorough investigative journalists to give an accurate recounting of the events.
And that’s exactly what Luke gives us.
So many others have tried their hand at putting together a story of the wonderful harvest of Scripture and history that took place among us, using reports handed down by the original eyewitnesses who served this Word with their very lives. Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story’s beginning, I decided to write it all out for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught. (Luke 1:1-4 // The Message)
Luke tells us exactly who his audience is – a man named Theophilus (God-Lover), possibly a wealthy patron paying Luke to do this research. Luke tells us exactly how he wrote – through careful investigation, using interviews and other sources. Luke even tells us WHY he wrote – to provide a more ordered account of the events, actions, and teachings of Jesus.
All this is done so that we may know with a greater degree of certainty that the things we’ve been taught about Jesus are actually grounded in reality.
When you are in a season of doubt and discouragement, when you are finding faith difficult to come by, when you are beginning to question if Jesus is even real and if it even still matters today – Luke has written a book just for you.
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This is the first in a series of supplemental posts to my Sunday morning class series on the Gospel of Luke, which I have titled “The World Turned Upside Down.”
Daniel N. Lee 