What is your first response when you come across what may be describe as the abnormal?

Skeptical?

Cynical?

If I said, Gullible, your sense of the concept would encourage you to recoil, so let’s call it, the desire to believe!

Take a look at this, and see what you think

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This was on a “Christian” website, Relevant Magazine dot Com, with the description…

This guy copied a masterpiece painting. With a Bic pen. And the results are amazing. Check out the video (embedded below) and be amazed at what 90 hours and one ballpoint can do …

I confess, after watching this video, considering it is an advertisement for a pen, I do have some doubts… but I would also like it to be so!

In a day and age when people think if they watch it on TV, read in a magazine, and maybe the worst example… read it on-line, then such is the Truth [with a capital "T"], and reason enough to believe!

However, this introduces an interesting question, as Christians, what should be our initial response to situations that call for us to “just believe.”  Should we hold to a skeptical first disposition, withholding our commendation until such can be reliably justified… Or… should we be prepared to believe, particularly when completed by someone with declared Christian credentials, until something disproves what we are presented with?  These two categories are quite stark, and there are other factors involved, such as your relationship to the person, their track record, etc, which all make an appropriate impact when we are confronted with the “facts.”

Which one do you think is more reflective of Christians in present practice?

While this is significant, here is the money question… Which one should be?

Is it wiser to be more open-minded, closing your acceptance to belief only when the context says “close now”… or… is it wiser to be more close-minded, opening your acceptance to beliefs, only when these have been validated to an acceptable or reasonable standard?

Is this made even more conflicting by the many calls from Christians, “to just have faith,” which is fine in certain contexts, but if this held injudiciously, we swallow the kool-aid, look stupid, and even more tragically, defame the name of God!

Is there a solution?

The answer may be to marry what may seem conflicting perspectives, which makes this even harder in practice. [1] God is a miracle working… God… makes this explicit with the greatest of these, this being the resurrection of the sinner to new life.  We should desire to see this reality, and other more functional transformations [which is where the issue tends to practically reside], by God’s grace, in our day.  However, because such is our desire, and we see much of this happening in the life of Jesus, it can be very easy to allow this acceptance at the worldview level to impact our acceptance at the practical real life level, without discretion.  Therefore, [2] while we hold this worldview, we must keep our gates shut, shut, until we are sufficiently sure that it is God who has worked, and as He has opened the gate, we will follow our Master.  Sadly, a generalised Christian commentary tends to have this other way around, which allows things to get wings that belong, dead, under the ground.  We need to remember, after all, the deceptive tactics of the enemy!

Practically, this is not easy, and involves a tension, which can move more in one direction or the other, based on the examples of the miraculous that have informed our understanding, both positively and negatively.  This explains why we need wisdom to act skillfully and respond, not as fools, but as those who have had their senses trained, bodies being filled, minds being renewed, and lives being transformed.  To the extent that we fail to implement this reality, we will either be practising fools, jumping on any new bandwagon, no matter where it may lead… or… we will become functional deists, those who believe in a Creator God, but just can’t find how to see a practical use for His Being.  If the truth be known, we all stand somewhere in the cross-hairs, doing our best, by God’s grace, to be both wise of the ways of this world, all the while, welcoming the unfolding drama of God in and through the lives of His people on this planet, which is the nexus for His redemption song!

To help you think through this some more, over at the Beretta Blog, the Glenn of the Peoples, has been thinking through this context, as it relates to what may be described as the miraculous, with Miracles Happen, and subsequently, Why I’m Such a Cynic.

Have a read, and think through this subject and this context, remembering that Wisdom is something like Skillful Living, which shows itself in such contexts, where only the wise will survive!

Let us know your thoughts on this subject!

For the Fame of His Name

Man of Spin

H/T: Zoecity