TotPotC – Chapter 21 (Faith and Testimony)

[Anonymous]

Chapter 21: Faith and Testimony

From the Life of Howard W. Hunter

1. Through faith, we can find God and know that He lives.

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[1] The greatest quest is a search for God—to determine his reality, his personal attributes, and to secure a knowledge of the gospel of his Son Jesus Christ. [2] It is not easy to find a perfect understanding of God. The search requires persistent effort, and [3] there are some who never move themselves to pursue this knowledge. …

[1] Why?

[2] Is it possible to find a perfect understanding of god? Is there a paradox at work here, where certitude only cuts one off from continued revelation, putting a halt to their progression? In other words, the more we think we’ve got god figured out the less likely we are to come to an understanding of god.

[3] Is that a bad thing? Why or why not?

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The supreme achievement of life is to find God and to know that He lives.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/eyod68Y.png[/img]

“I can never get these things to work.” -God (probably)

2. To obtain knowledge of the reality of God, we must make a faithful effort, do His will, and pray for understanding.

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In order to find God as a reality, we must follow the course which he pointed out for the quest. The path is one that leads upward; it takes faith and effort, and is not the easy course. For this reason many men will not devote themselves to the arduous task of proving to themselves the reality of God. On the contrary, some take the easy path and deny his existence or merely follow the doubter’s course of uncertainty. …

What makes one path easier than the other? Is there a degree of comfort that comes from knowing that god is a reality. Would the absence of that knowledge make a path more difficult? Or is finding god an arduous task and exploring other interests is viewed as being lazy?

[Anonymous]

3. We must believe in order to see.

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On the evening of the day of the resurrection, Jesus appeared and stood in the midst of his disciples in the closed room. He showed them his hands through which had been driven the nails and his side which had been pierced by the spear. Thomas, one of the twelve, was not present when this happened, but the others told him they had seen the Lord and that he had spoken to them.

There we go, ripping on Thomas again. Mark tells a slighlty different story, “Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.” It sounds like there was more than one apostle that had trouble believing… but Jesus showed mercy and appeared to them anyway, even when they didn’t believe in order to see.

Here’s a new-world, nibbler translation of Thomas’ “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

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Wow! That’s amazing! It sounds too good to be true! I really, really want to have an experience like the one you had!”

In other words his “I will not believe” is more of an indication of his desire to share in the experience than a true reflection of his beliefs. That’s not the worst thing in the world.

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Thomas was not willing to stand on faith. He wanted positive evidence of the facts. He wanted knowledge, not faith. Knowledge is related to the past because our experiences of the past are those things which give us knowledge, but faith is related to the future—to the unknown where we have not yet walked.

Is that why we place so much emphasis in our culture on knowing things?

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If this had been Thomas, would he have gone as he had been commanded or would he have asked the question: “What good can come from washing in the stagnant waters of that dirty pool?” or “What medicinal properties are there in saliva mixed with the dust of the earth?”

What did Thomas ever to do Hunter? Stagnant? Dirty? I think Hunter is conflating the pool of Siloam story with the story of Naaman but that’s okay, he’s telling a story in a certain way so he can make his point while teaching a principle. Would Thomas have obeyed?

[img]http://i.imgur.com/aMhP08R.png[/img]

Jesus: Now go and wash.

Thomas: Nah, I’m good.

I’m just defending Thomas, my besmirched gnostic buddy.

4. Acting on our faith leads to personal testimony.

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As children we accepted as fact the things which were told to us by our parents or our teachers because of the confidence that we had in them. A little boy will jump from a high place without fear if his father tells him that he will catch him. The little fellow has faith that his father will not let him fall. As children grow older, they commence to think for themselves, to question and have doubts about those things which are not subject to tangible proof. I have sympathy for young men and young women when honest doubts enter their minds and they engage in the great conflict of resolving doubts. These doubts can be resolved, if they have an honest desire to know the truth, by exercising moral, spiritual, and mental effort. They will emerge from the conflict into a firmer, stronger, larger faith because of the struggle. They have gone from a simple, trusting faith, through doubt and conflict, into a solid substantial faith which ripens into testimony.

I thought section 4 was pretty good, as far as TotPotC lessons go.

[Anonymous]

I’ll defend Thomas.

John 11 (NIV, emphasis added):

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7 and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” 8 “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. 10 It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”11 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” 12 His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. 14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 Then Thomas(also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

This Thomas was willing to go back to Judea and die with Jesus, and told the rest of the apostles so. So tell me again, what might Thomas do?

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

Quote:

[1] The greatest quest is a search for God—to determine his reality, his personal attributes, and to secure a knowledge of the gospel of his Son Jesus Christ. [2] It is not easy to find a perfect understanding of God. The search requires persistent effort, and [3] there are some who never move themselves to pursue this knowledge. …

[1] Why?

…hm…let’s see…this week…the greatest thing in the history of ever is this quest.

Next week…the most important thing you can do is…missionary work. We’ll keep adding to the most important things we can do as we go. :eh:

In all seriousness, I think the greatest quest is to find peace or happiness. Perhaps that is through the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that is the message.

Quote:

[2] Is it possible to find a perfect understanding of god? Is there a paradox at work here, where certitude only cuts one off from continued revelation, putting a halt to their progression? In other words, the more we think we’ve got god figured out the less likely we are to come to an understanding of god.

Perfection is not possible in this temporal existence. Like Plato’s Theory of Forms…

Quote:

In his Socratic dialogues Plato argues through Socrates that because the material world is changeable it is also unreliable. But Plato also believed that this is not the whole story. Behind this unreliable world of appearances is a world of permanence and reliability. Plato calls this more real (because permanent) world, the world of ‘Forms’ or ‘Ideas’

. God is in the world of ideas and forms, and we are not. We cannot come to that perfect knowledge as of yet.

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[3] Is that a bad thing? Why or why not?

It is not a bad thing. We can find that seeing through the glass darkly, with limited view and understanding, puts us in the mortal existence where we can gain experience by making choices with only partial light and understanding. The understanding will one day become light and perfect, after the day of our probation has revealed our character, our heart’s desires, our intentions, and our works. This life is about walking with faith, and that can only be done with imperfect knowledge. We want surety, we want perfect knowledge, but it is beyond our reach and so are left to do what we can in our circumstances.

Having strong beliefs on God and his character is a very strong motivating force for us to do good. Love for goodness is a better way to live than selfish desires.

[Author]

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