THE SPIRITUALLY SKEPTICAL (2 OF 3)
Scripture: John 1:43-51
This content is part of a series.
The Spiritually Skeptical (2 of 3)
Series: Come and See
Dave Gustavsen
John 1:43-51
Good morning.
The great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote this about himself: ''It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna has passed through a great furnace of doubt.'' And of course, ''Hosanna'' is a term of praise. And so, what he's saying is this: ''I didn't arrive at my faith so easily. It was a hard process; it was a painful process; and it involved deep questioning and real doubting.''
And over the years, I have found that a lot of people-not all people-but a lot of people really need to hear that. They need to know that they're not strange for being skeptical. If you are an analytical, doubting, hard-to-convince person, that doesn't make you weird. You might be weird for lots of other reasons; but not because of that.
So…we're doing this 3-part series called ''Come and See,'' because that little three-word phrase, ''Come and See,'' tells us a lot about Jesus. It shows up three times in the first four chapters of John's Gospel-and each time, it's a different kind of person who first hears that invitation and then becomes a giver of that invitation. So we're looking at those three kinds of people.
Last week we looked at the Religiously Disillusioned-people who grew up in the hierarchy and the tradition and the guilt of religion, but it left them cold. And we saw that for people like that, Jesus actually respects their process instead of forcing himself on them, and then he winds up changing them more deeply than religion ever could. This week we're looking at the Spiritually Skeptical; next week we're going to put the series on hold for one week, because we have a very special guest speaker-Duffy Robins will be with us talking about youth culture-really looking forward to that-and then the last week of the series we're going to focus on the Sexual Captive.
So today we're focusing on the spiritually skeptical. Peopl ...
Series: Come and See
Dave Gustavsen
John 1:43-51
Good morning.
The great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote this about himself: ''It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna has passed through a great furnace of doubt.'' And of course, ''Hosanna'' is a term of praise. And so, what he's saying is this: ''I didn't arrive at my faith so easily. It was a hard process; it was a painful process; and it involved deep questioning and real doubting.''
And over the years, I have found that a lot of people-not all people-but a lot of people really need to hear that. They need to know that they're not strange for being skeptical. If you are an analytical, doubting, hard-to-convince person, that doesn't make you weird. You might be weird for lots of other reasons; but not because of that.
So…we're doing this 3-part series called ''Come and See,'' because that little three-word phrase, ''Come and See,'' tells us a lot about Jesus. It shows up three times in the first four chapters of John's Gospel-and each time, it's a different kind of person who first hears that invitation and then becomes a giver of that invitation. So we're looking at those three kinds of people.
Last week we looked at the Religiously Disillusioned-people who grew up in the hierarchy and the tradition and the guilt of religion, but it left them cold. And we saw that for people like that, Jesus actually respects their process instead of forcing himself on them, and then he winds up changing them more deeply than religion ever could. This week we're looking at the Spiritually Skeptical; next week we're going to put the series on hold for one week, because we have a very special guest speaker-Duffy Robins will be with us talking about youth culture-really looking forward to that-and then the last week of the series we're going to focus on the Sexual Captive.
So today we're focusing on the spiritually skeptical. Peopl ...
There are 16344 characters in the full content. This excerpt only shows a 2000 character sample of the full content.
Price: $5.99 or 1 credit
