One of my posts earlier this week concluded on the note that questions can be used by God to bring us to a better knowledge of Him or by Satan to lead us into deception and unbelief.
It will interest us to note that Church leaders and members are employed either by God or Satan for the corresponding jobs above. God may work through us to answer tough questions and strengthen the faith of others. Or the devil may work through us to chase them out of God’s house and stifle budding faith. Many such chasing and stifling have been done by Bible-wielding, tongues-speaking, passionate Christians. Christian leaders are not always innocent either.
Here is how we fail to be God’s vessels and become Satan’s tools through our response to tough questions.
- We handle questions flippantly.
One of the subtlest ways we throw people out of the faith is by handling their questions with little or no seriousness. It shows in our general view of questions and the weight we attach to specific questions. It also shows through the way we consider questioners. Are they challenging us, being a bother or simply seeking better understanding?
Questions are thinking gaps that must be filled with the truth of God’s word. They are puzzles that must be solved. Sometimes, instead of seeing the confusion and craving that questions represent, we brush them under the carpet and hurriedly move on. Questions must receive thorough answers, not casual answers. If we understand that wrong replies are waiting to fill the thinking gap, we will see questions from our members as divine opportunities to save them from deception. Do not treat questions flippantly. Don’t just snub questioners. Don’t consider them to be examiners who are bothering you or seeking to challenge you.
While we treat these questions flippantly, there are champions of darkness who freely sell false explanations and conclusions. It’s like refusing to teach your child about sex and having them fall into the trap of a bad teacher at school. Nature abhors space and will fill it with weeds unless we are conscious about weeding out and planting. It is not enough to weed out doubts, we must be sure to plant the Word in doubting minds and make them ambassadors of the answers instead. That is how to tackle social media pollutants. You take the questions at church or your home, punch holes into the arguments and let the congregation or children return online with stronger answers and explanations for their hope. You don’t fight false teachings by simply brushing the overtures in your congregation under the carpet and subtly promoting a culture of “no questions”. Questions will come. Be ready with the answers. That’s what God says. (1 Peter 3:15)
“Now, who will want to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don’t worry or be afraid of their threats. Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ.” (1 Peter 3:13-16, NLT)
Sometimes, we handle questions disrespectfully by throwing answers at people instead of giving them the answers. God does not only call us to answer but to also do this gently and respectfully. It is important to acknowledge intelligent questions and those that sound silly. Then, we should diligently and gently answer them to the best of our ability with respect. After that, we must follow up to be sure that they have been answered. This must be done in an environment of respect for thinking. The point is not only that you answer but that they are answered. It is not about you – feeling knowledgeable. If it was, then feedback from the questioner would be unnecessary. It is about them – being answered and gaining knowledge of the truth.
- We tackle questions angrily.
Perhaps, this is the opposite of the first point. While some pastors and teachers will simply brush off questions, some give stronger reactions to them. Especially when the question is considered an attack instead of a call for help, some Christians or preachers respond in anger and even insults sometimes. At this point, let me say that questions do not always come with question marks. Some come with exclamations. Some accusations and arguments should be considered as questions. They signify misunderstandings and knowledge gaps.
Angry explosions at questions from the weak among us can mix their confusion and doubts with offences. Then Satan cajoles their minds with both the unanswered questions and their bruised egos. Jesus told us how effective offences are against our relationship with God. He said blessed are those who don’t take offence in Him. (Matthew 11:6) But woe unto those through whom offences come. Woe to those who cause the little ones to stumble. These are the words of Jesus;
“But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world for the causes of sin. These stumbling blocks must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!” (Matthew 18:6-7, BSB)
Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. (Hebrews 12:15, NLT)
We are warned against the root of bitterness because it causes trouble. It corrupts many. We must ensure that not even one of us fails to receive the grace of God especially because of us. Offending people by answering their doubts and questions disrespectfully not only bruises their egos, it deepens their questions. It is better if the angry and unpalatable response is considered to signify our ignorance of the answer. That may just result in a change of denomination. They leave to a different branch where they can get better answers or responses. Sometimes, they never ask any further questions. We would have succeeded in casting them out of our congregation and removing the threat we perhaps perceived that they posed to the rest of the congregation and our ignorance. But we also silence these people forever sometimes, or for a while. Sometimes, people who are bent on fomenting doctrinal troubles must indeed be taken out from among us so that a little leaven doesn’t leaven the whole dough. But that is not what we are talking about here.
It is the case of budding believers or Christians with genuine questions. Our poor handling of questions stops their roots from growing deeper into God’s word. Because we merely labelled, intimidated and/or insulted them, the shallow roots predict their exit from the faith, sooner or later. Their young faith hits the rocks – our rocks. Are our meeting places more rocky than fertile? Are our loyal members (or fans) drying out feeble roots?
Sometimes, the exit comes earlier. These offended souls who still have tough questions about the faith simply leave the faith. They don’t move to another church. If we are lucky, they leave silently. If we are not, they turn on their cameras on social media or use other platforms. Now, all the many questions on their minds are recited as perceived evidence against Christianity. They sprinkle their questions with the behavioural lapses in the church today. They complain about the mistreatment and court pity from many, including Christians. They may add the scandals that they witnessed in the church and recount the hypocrisy of some Christians. As a Public Relations person, this is a full-blown crisis resulting from the poor handling of a simple issue/question. The ego of the preacher causes more harm than the doubts of the inquirer. Alas, we turned a genuinely inquiring mind into a pot of poison and their mouth into a pathway to Hell. Now, the discussion you abusively cancelled at church is raging on social media, and your members will attend. And many more fall away (even though the number is reduced through the intervention of God through apologists online). Why? Because we failed to answer a single question, or we chose to miss the ball and hit the man. God calls us to handle questions with care.
- We answer questions with superstitious opinions.
“Every word of God proves true. He is a shield to all who come to him for protection. Do not add to his words, or he may rebuke you and expose you as a liar.” (Proverbs 30:5-6, NLT)
When we answer questions with the Word of God, God defends His truth. The Bible says that God’s word is proven. Do you know what is not proven? Our ideas. When we answer questions with our own beliefs and traditions, we make God’s word of no effect, especially when we pretend these opinions are God’s word. Jesus blamed the Pharisees for making God’s word of no effect on His people because they preferred and preached human traditions. Instead of preaching the clear and balanced Word of God on giving for instance, they skewed it to one side, promoting giving to the temple over giving to parents. (Mark 7:9-13) And by this seemingly harmless and religious tradition of temple giving, they despised God’s word and made it of no effect on the people He sent it to. We do the same in many ways. Indeed, the passage in Mark 7:9-13 ends with “this is only one example among many others” (NLT).
When we replace the word of God on decent dressing with traditions of no makeup, no trousers etc., we sound spiritual, religious and even holy. But these opinions and superstitions are not proven. They will not stand the test of time. When they are queried, they will crumble. Some people will blame it on God’s word. Meanwhile, we preached the tradition, not the truth. By that preference for tradition, we make God’s word on decent dressing of no effect. Because now people don’t even regard the Word anymore and they go all out in indecency. It is the “we are tired” syndrome. Many are tired of us and all our preaching, and it’s no fault of God. It is because we have twisted His words to our taste. Unlike God’s word, our wisest doctrines and traditions do not stand the test of logic, time and scrutiny. This is how we keep creating and sustaining unbelievers, some of whom came to the point of nearly becoming committed Christians: by preaching propaganda instead of the perfect truth of God.
If this approach doesn’t make them unbelievers, it makes them “believers” who disregard God’s word. The Word becomes of no effect to them. They disregard God’s word by blatantly disobeying even the truths available to them because they’re tired. Ya br3 mo! (We are tired of you!) Even if they obey your half-truth half-lie parochial interpretation of the Scriptures, they would be obediently walking in disobedience to God. In advancing your preferred tradition, you cancelled the Word of God.
“And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.” (Mark 7:13, NLT)
Apart from the obedient disobedience and the blatant rebellion, there is another way our preferment of superstition and tradition over truth makes people disregard God’s word in a more unsuspicious manner. This time, they remain in the church and obedient to the traditions we taught them. They manage to be as obedient to the poor doctrines we have taught as much as possible. If it’s about not wearing trousers as women, they obey. They wear only long robes. If it’s about not applying makeup or wearing wigs, they comply with the last dot. If it’s about not wearing certain colours on certain days, they comply. Some of our traditions are not skewed Christian doctrines. They are full-blown teachings of demons. If it’s about not marrying, they remain single for life. If it’s about not eating certain foods, they comply fully.
Spoiler alert! These people sometimes even go further. Because our tradition is not founded on the verifiable Word of God (in the Bible), our self-made doctrines are open to updates. (There are many lies for one truth.) Very soon, a deacon narrates the tradition and adds his nuances to it. A deaconess repeats the doctrine, but her upgrades show up there. Don’t wear trousers now extends into don’t wear shorts, even as underwear. Don’t do makeup extends into don’t apply body lotions or use perfume. Do you see what we are doing? We have made the word of God on adornment of no effect. Because while all these jokes continue in the church, what God has said clearly in the Bible regarding Christian adornment remains unheeded, disregarded and misinterpreted. We do this because of our interests just like the Pharisees intentionally encouraged temple giving to the detriment of catering for parents. While we fail to preach the truth about giving in the New Testament Church in integrity, an elder soon adds to our traditional doctrine on giving which we may be projecting for selfish or corporate benefits. Sometimes, it’s even an Apostle or Papa who says those who don’t give in a certain way won’t go to Heaven. Another deacon will say they had a vision about how exactly we should give. Because we have closed our Bibles or twisted them, we have no true standard for judging the many versions of our wrong doctrines. Again, these twists to God’s clear word for personal or corporate interests will not stand the test. They will crumble, and people who think it is God’s word that has crumbled. No, it’s not. When our lies about God are crushed, God’s truth may be ostracized but never hospitalized. His word remains perfect and pure. His truth is not faulty.
But here comes the greater damage that comes with refusing to answer questions with the Word of God. We create a culture of superstition in the church. We criminalize thinking by treating questions disrespectfully. We legislate superstition by answering them with conjectures instead of God’s word. Instead of making God’s word the centre of our doctrine and life, we allow people to speculate when they please. A simple step away from the Bible is a billion varieties of falsehood. A single misinterpreted verse of the Bible teaches how the over 31,000 verses can be misinterpreted. Lies multiply, while truth endures. The permutations are dangerous. In the end, we the same people who misinterpreted one verse yesterday will be fighting several errors from the same pulpit tomorrow. The results? More questions! Why? Because we intentionally failed to provide the correct answer from God’s Word to one question. We cannot put our traditions and preferences above the Word of God. Failing to apply God’s word to our thinking in answering tough questions opens us to many conjectures. One may say, what if I tell them that we don’t know the answers but they should just believe? We look next at the dangers of unnecessarily blind faith.
- We simply ask people to believe.
Another easy approach we use on questions is to unnecessarily answer with “only believe”. Let it be said emphatically at this point. The Christian walk requires faith. It requires believing in things we may not fully understand. It requires trusting God. But to look away from the evidence and explanation God gives for our faith is very disingenuous for our very faith.
God wants to be believed based on what He has revealed about Himself, not baselessly. When we promote baseless beliefs, we may think we are doing God a favor. We aren’t. When we tell people to “only believe” without teaching the wisdom based on which God invites them to believe, we are opening them to the temptation of believing everything. God gave us His word to delimit and guide what we believe.
God appeals to our senses too, not just our hearts. And He wants us to detect lies about Him through the exercise of our reasoning. If Christians promote “just believe” over reasonable faith, then people should believe everything. Ditching thinking does not promote the Christian faith. There is a reason God draws people to Himself through the lifting of Christ Jesus who is His Word. God’s Word invites us to reason about Him and His Spirit influences our hearts to believe in Him. If we do not think and study God’s word to answer the tough questions, then we cannot pull down the strongholds of false religions and bring thoughts in obedience to Christ. Our warfare requires that we take thoughts captive by engaging minds. The Bible says we should give people A DEFENSE to people who ask about a REASON for our hope. There are justifications for the Christian faith.
“And always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15b, NKJV)
Now, even the people who unnecessarily say “just believe” have some reason for their faith. The call is that we expand such reasoning through careful study of the Word of God for our benefit but also to answer tougher questions instead of lazily preaching blind faith to “seeing” minds. Such endeavors promote suspicion of the faith. We are not accountable to God for the things He has not revealed. But for those He has, we and our children are accountable. We must not bundle everything into “secrets”. What God has said is no secret! Study!
“The Lord our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us, so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions.” (Deuteronomy 29:29, NLT)
God wouldn’t speak if He did not want to be heard. Let’s give Him our ears. The Bible says that what God has revealed is for us. There are things hidden by God, but TO THE EXTENT OF WHAT HE HAS REVEALED, He has nothing to hide. One of the things He does not hide is that there are things He hides. He hides the good news from those who consider themselves wise and reveals it to fools. He does not hide this. We will find through prayerful studies that God is transparent. People ask why God will not descend and announce Himself in the skies to be believed by all. If we studied the Bible, we would be shocked at the transparency with which God answers that question. God is not hiding, we are. We are the ones hiding from His answers.
“As for God, His way is perfect;
The word of the Lord is proven;
He is a shield to all who trust in Him.
For who is God, except the Lord?
And who is a rock, except our God?”
(Psalms 18:30-31, NKJV)
Like the other approaches, “just believe” also works for a while sometimes. But it is not sustainable. When you lazily train your child to “just believe”, they will grow to ask why. When you train your members to “just believe” the tough times of life will shake or shipwreck their faith. When you teach generations to just believe, a poor thinker will cause upset. Even for our justifiable “just believe-s” (the secret things of God that require us to simply believe), the justifications are in the Word of God. So the Word of God must inspire both our thinking and our beliefs. The Word of God!
“Brethren, do not prove yourselves to be children in your minds. As regards evil, indeed, be utter babes, but as regards your minds prove yourselves to be men of ripe years.” (1 Corinthians 14:20, Weymouth)
“Just Believe” cannot stand against the “common sense” family even though their propositions lack good sense. It takes reasoning to figure out the lack of sense in their “common sense” and mute their voices with the truth. In the face of such opposition, unjustifiable “just believe” grows weak.
The apostles of “just believe” are themselves susceptible to the deception of false thinking and false thinkers. Many of the ex-believers, ex-pastors and ex-apostles fell away because they did not believe in the first place, or their faith was not founded in a proper understanding of the Word of God. They were artificial attachments to an idea of the faith instead of rooted believers in the truth. This is why “just believe-rs” are questionable. What do they believe? A friend told me many years ago that he was switching to Islam, according to him, from the Christian faith. I asked him about what he used to believe as a Christian and he could not articulate it. My humble conclusion? Maybe he never was a Christian. What did he believe? Are we Christians because we believe in something or because we associate with a group? Believers must have something they believe. Christians believe in someone and some things. This is why God equips us to teach His Word. We are born by the Word (1 Peter 1:23), fed by the Word (1 Peter 2:22), and live by the Word as Christians (John 6:63, 68). So how many “Christians” in our churches have no beliefs? How many don’t know to a good extent (even a salvific extent) what sets Christianity apart from other religions? How many of them will just walk away and embrace another religion? How many of them believe that “we all worship the same God”? How many of us preach it? Do we even understand what that means? If “we all worship the same God”, why shouldn’t people defect if Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus bring a better emotional, financial or even spiritual/experiential offer?
In for a shock! When the other religions fetch our children with the “we all worship the same God” ladle, they are poured into the “better argument/experience” soup. This is how I met an old Christian friend who is currently a Hindu. And his message is, “We also believe in Christ”. Then, he tries to tell me how superior even their beliefs about Christ are to mine. I say to myself, “A Hindu wants to teach me about Christ?” Many Muslims use this strategy too. They start with we are all the same (Abrahamic religions) and end with you are wrong. We still won’t preach the uniqueness and truth of the Christian faith and defend the flock against falsehoods because we are afraid to offend. So we say, “just believe”. Meanwhile, Mosques are preaching against the biblical Christ, maybe more often than churches are teaching about either false religions or Jesus Christ. We have settled for other interesting topics. We think these are tough questions. Maybe we teach them to the seminarians for exam purposes only. We think our flock are possibly too young, always too young, and never mentally mature to understand what we consider to be meaty. Even the pastor hates beef! Only “milk” is served. I don’t see how the uniqueness of the Christian faith is not a basic must-know to the chosen generation, royal priesthood, holy nation and peculiar people. More complicated but false responses are winning in the marketplace. “Just believe” makes them leave. This is the danger in attacking polemics and apologetics for our parochial interest, and preaching “just believe”. Believe what?
It is not always the answer that people should not ask questions but just believe.
- We don’t own the conversation.
All through the Gospels, Jesus confronted the tough questions of His day. Sometimes, He did that unprovoked. Other times, it was in response to questions. Jesus did not leave people to argue back and forth about tough questions. Sometimes, He answered these tough questions while they were still being contemplated (Matthew 9:1-8). Jesus owned the conversation on tough questions. He was in charge. They knew who to go to with their tough questions. This shows us God’s attitude towards tough questions.
The Church must likewise and therefore own the conversation on tough questions on religion. We must not leave it to some deluded folk on social media. We must not always be reacting. Our leaders must not be at the back while “the small boys” argue things out on social media. We must invade every space with answers as proactively or promptly as possible. The Church is God’s pillar of truth in the world. We must not only be authorities on biblical truth, we must also be actively preaching it. We must wage war; constantly “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2Cor.10.5, NKJV). We must be ready when the fight is brought to us. And we must be frontal, active and aggressive even when the dogs are sleeping. We are not to let sleeping dogs lie. People are not “entitled to” their arguments. We are in a battle to cast down those arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. It is an affront against high things, not with our own enticing or painful words, but with the powerful double-edged sword of God’s word backed by the Spirit of God. The picture I see in 2 Corinthians 10:5 is the decimation of hyped hips of junk. A recent post by an apologist here related how different “exalted” hips were decimated by dedicated warriors both online and offline by the power of God. We do not cast down arguments exalted against Christ by looking away. We should confront them! We should not say that people are entitled to their views and leave them to spew arguments that hinder the true knowledge of God. That’s an unholy tolerance. No! We do not also take thoughts captive by merely preaching God’s word as an alternative viewpoint. We are to cast down arguments and take thoughts captive. We are to contend for the faith (Jude 1:3). These are martial terminologies because indeed it is warfare. It is not a physical warfare, however. It is a battle to rescue thoughts for the Truth. The Word of God is our sword. May we not withhold our swords from blood and be cursed (Jeremiah 48:10). We shall rather win souls as wise people and shine like the stars forever. (Daniel 12:3) We must lead the charge in apologetics.
We also fail to own the conversation properly as leaders when we allow confident but ignorant or deceived individuals to use our very space to propagate deceptions so convincingly, especially at a time when we are unable to neutralize their possible effect competently for lack of time or information. The Church is a place where people can ask questions and should receive answers. It is not a place for strange doctrines to be entertained to confuse the weak. Owning the conversation means being properly in charge. It does not mean entertaining doctrines of demons and threatening the vulnerable audience with sophisticated and convincing lies.
FINAL WORDS
At this rate, I must say that the weak must quickly be strengthened. The weakest among us should be as mighty as David (Zechariah 12:8). One Christian made a very wise decision on Facebook recently. Under one subtly deceptive post, she warned, “If your faith is not strong, don’t read.” (I paraphrase) According to her, she stopped reading after a few lines. Yes! It is reasonable to NOT entertain poison in our heads. I applauded her for that. However, at the rate that deception is spreading, hiding from it is good, but not enough. Growing to confront and diffuse it is in high demand and low supply. We need more interceptors against the missiles of deception. As one brother said during Bible studies last Sunday concerning a different subject, we need to recruit more; this time for intelligent apologetics. But we don’t need to recruit a few smart guys. The Bible commands all Christians to readily defend and explain their hope. Even though some may be more effective than others in answering tough questions, we all must hold a justification for our faith in Christ Jesus that, at least, can withstand the popular false arguments of our day. We must all be ready with answers. (1 Peter 3:15)
“If you cannot speak like angels,
If you cannot preach like Paul,
You can tell the love of Jesus,
You can say He died for all.
If you cannot rouse the wicked,
With the judgment’s dread alarms,
You can lead the little children
To the Savior’s waiting arms.”
All Christians are called into apologetics. The times are turbulent.
THIS WILL BE REPOSTED IN PARTS FOR EASIER READING BY OTHERS
Pious D. Serwonu
piousdserwonu@gmail.com
November 4, 2023.