THE ROLE OF REASON, EVIDENCE, AND PROOF

 

 

We are to use all of our God-given faculties to serve Him, even our minds:

 

·       And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38)

 

There is no vacation for God’s people. Instead, we must serve Him wherever He has placed us, shedding His light in the darkness.

 

Although it is God who must open hearts and minds to believe the Gospel, there is also a place for reason and proofs:

 

·       And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. (Acts 17:2-4; 28:23-24)

 

God saves, but He invites us to partake in His work of salvation:

 

·       And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. (2 Timothy 2:24-26)

 

Through God’s equipping, we sow the seed, but He provides both seed and growth:

 

·       …work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)

 

We believers also require the reasoned evidential encouragement of the Word:

 

·       [Apollos] greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus. (Acts 18:27-28)

 

Even John the Baptist, who had testified that he had seen the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus, required evidential support. Therefore, while he was imprisoned, he sent his disciples to find Jesus to confirm that He was really the Messiah.

 

Instead of telling them to tell John to “Just believe”:

 

·       …Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.” (Matthew 11:4-5)

 

Jesus willingly fed John’s tormented mind with evidence, and He instructed John’s disciples to relate to him the evidence they had seen. Therefore, we shouldn’t neglect our need for evidential reassurance. More than ever, in the face of great opposition, we need this reassurance.