They Don't Believe... But They Know.

"They Don't Believe... But They Know."

By: Pastor Jack Schneider

“We pray this so you may live a life worthy of the Lord, pleasing Him in every good work, growing in knowledge and being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might.  May you have great endurance and patience and joyfully give thanks to the Father Who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light!”  [Col.1:10-12, NIV]

Man, that’s some prayer!  It shows Paul took seriously his role as mentor of God’s people and, hopefully, that they took seriously their role as students of God’s Word.  I know we’re doing that on this campus today because Pastor Andy stated this as one of our goals: Biblical literacy.

Interestingly, the newest Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has found from a survey of 3,400 Americans that, on average, atheists and agnostics are better with answers to factual questions about religion than Protestants and Catholics.  No joke.  When given 32 basic religious questions, average Americans answered only 16 correctly.  Mormons and evangelicals did better on questions about the Bible and Christianity; Jews and atheists/agnostics scored higher in areas about world religions and religion in public life.  To quote the tag-line from the newspaper article reporting this event, they don’t believe, but they know.

Hmmm.  Sounds like we need more prayers, doesn’t it…and more study, too.  You see, skeptics prepare themselves because they want to discuss the topic intelligently and from a position of understanding.  Unfortunately, it does not speak well of Christians when we come across as uninformed and disrespectful toward others.  When Paul spoke to the crowds on Mars’ Hill in Athens, he spoke with knowledge, with respect, and with effect.

Remember why we’re here.  Go back to the Great Commission of Matt.28 and the unique translation so fondly spoken around here.  “While you’re doing whatever it is you’re doing, make sure you’re doing this: making disciples.”  It has been said people don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care.  This begins with our immersion in God’s Book of Wonders, His life-giving Word, and it’s lived out in the way we sit and listen, share and pray in the name of Christ.  At last Wednesday’s “Digging Deeper” class ten folks ran through the 32 questions from the survey.  No one missed more than three.  Now, we can either feel smug about that, or we can ask, “How are we doing at loving our neighbor in Jesus’ name?”

Where do you think we all need to start?



- Pastor Jack