Answering life's big questions

The Bible does not set out to prove God, it simply states that He is (Genesis 1:1a). But in any case, we don't find God by reason. We only know persons, when they allow us into their lives. Please note, I'm not saying reason is not important. And if we are to love God with all our mind (Mark 12:30), then we need to be in the ongoing process of working through the many disconnect we find between our faith and reason. It can be helpful to read how other have done this.  Physicist John Polkinghorne (Quarks, chaos and Christianity) says “A big fundamental question like belief in God (or disbelief),  is not settled by a single argument. It's too complicated for that. What one has to do, is to consider lots of different issues and see whether or not the answer one gets adds up to a total picture that makes sense.”

Journalist Lee Strobel (The Case for a Creator) set out to disprove God. But instead, chronicling his journey from atheist to believer, he comments “when I opened my mind to the possibility of an explanation beyond naturalism, I found the design hypothesis most clearly accounted for the evidence of science. The ‘explanatory  power’ of the design hypothesis outstripped every other theory.”

There are many other fundamentals questions that knowing the mere existence of a designer, does not answer. Is He the God of the Bible; Can I know Him as a person;  Does He loves me;  Does life has meaning or purpose; Why is the world so messed up; Why is there such cruelty, cruelty that seems to be embedded in nature itself (i.e. nature red in tooth and claw); Is mankind is good,  or evil; How do relationships work; Why do they so easily go wrong; Why pursuing the things we want so badly, so often lead to disaster etc., etc.

Fifty years ago, when the culture could still,  at some level,  be described as Christian, the sitcoms had life lessons that reflected, Biblical values and Biblical wisdom. Today the basic lesson the sitcoms teach,  is that jumping in and out of bed at the drop of hat is normal,  and there are no real consequences to doing so. These are two huge lies (Galatians 6:7).  And one of the reasons for Jordon Peterson's  incredible popularity (12 Rules for Life), is that he is, at least partially, filling the vacuum left from the lack of teaching Biblical values and wisdom. He tells, for example, that the room goes quiet when he suggests we need to take responsibility for our lives. Who would have known, fifty years ago,  that that would be a life changing revelation today?

Perhaps the aspect of life that has suffered the most from the retreat from Biblical values and Biblical wisdom, is relationships. Paul summoning up his admonition to couples says “let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Ephesians 5:31). Here is not the place to go into exposition, but consider how far we have come from the ideal where, in intimate relationships, we confess our faults one to another,  and pray for one another in order that we may be healed (James 5:16a).  

Fifty years ago, the need for the church to teach these things was not as dire as it is today. The cry today is not is it true, but is it relevant?  Well, what do you think, Jesus came to heal the broken hearted (Luke 4:18)?