Gospel.com Blog

Brian Deacon isn’t a Christian. It’s a wholly unremarkable fact—many billions of people don’t believe. But Brian is a bit different. Despite his unbelief, he’s had a direct hand in leading hundreds of millions of people to faith in Christ.

Brian portrays Jesus in the Jesus Film, which by some estimates has helped bring 225 million people to the Christian faith. He isn’t the first evangelist to not fully believe the message he spread. In the following devotional from Our Daily Journey with God, Sheridan Voysey writes about another “unbelieving evangelist:”

Jesus once healed a blind beggar (John 9). The means were unconventional—saliva, mud, and a dip in the creek. When the beggar returned with sight, his community plied him for answers (vv.8-10). He told them that a man called Jesus had healed him, though he didn’t know much more than that (v.11). The beggar was dragged before the Pharisees, who were incensed at Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. “I don’t know whether He is a sinner” (v.25), the former sightless man said to the Pharisees regarding Jesus. “But I know this: I was blind, and now I can see!”

Read the rest of the devotional at ODJ’s site.

Do you know of other people who have preached Jesus without believing in Him?

The Lausanne Movement is holding their once-per-decade meeting in Cape Town this year. As part of the run-up for the conference, they’ve partnered with Christianity Today to create a series of videos to go along with The Global Conversation initiative. Previous videos have explored global partnerships and the idea of following Jesus while still being a Muslim. This month they’re talking about truth and common ground.

In the following video, they ask people on the streets of Madison, WI a simple question: what in life are you completely sure of?

Common Ground from The Global Conversation on Vimeo.

How would you answer that question? What in life are you completely sure of?

[HT: Out of Ur.]

Share your thoughts!

What’s it like to feel your faith slipping away? Christianity Today published an interview with David Bazan, a well-known musician and the former frontman for the indie rock band Pedro the Lion. Bazan is a former evangelical Christian who no longer counts himself as a believer, but he continues to speak (and sing) about God and the doubts that led him away from the Christian flock.

Bazan’s departure from Christianity was a sad and reluctant one, and his former faith continues to haunt him, as this quote illustrates:

Christian spirituality has played a huge part in your music. Will it continue to play a role?

In some ways, I hope not. But I can’t imagine that it won’t. It’s still the central question of my life. I read a lot about theology and church history. I’ll never get a vacation from this. I’m not kidding when I say that this is the central question of my life.

Bazan is certainly not the only person to abandon the Christian faith; but the circumstances of his departure make for an edifying read. Bazan didn’t reject his faith to become an angry, bitter atheist; nor did he simply drift away from Christianity due to apathy or a lack of commitment. Rather, his departure was prompted by, among other things, a sense that the Christianity he practiced was actually interfering with the ethics he wanted to pursue.

The interview doesn’t get too specific about those obstacles, but one obvious question that occurs to me is whether the hurdles that drove Bazan from the faith truly were fundamental elements of the Christian faith, or if they were human “additions” to the faith. It’s also interesting (and a little disturbing) to see the powerful role that fear played (and continues to play) in his spiritual life.

What’s your reaction to the interview? What might you ask or say to Bazan if you had the chance to talk to him about Christianity?

In the Gospels, Thomas famously doubts Jesus’ resurrection. Thomas even went so far as to say that unless he could put his fingers where the nails held Jesus to the cross that he wouldn’t believe Jesus had been raised. A week after Thomas’ proclamation, Jesus appeared to the disciples and Thomas called Jesus his Lord and his God. Thomas’ first-hand knowledge strengthened his faith.

In the following devotional, Our Daily Journey with God reflects on the relationship between knowledge and faith:

The preacher asked his audience whether they believed he had a $20 bill in his closed hand. After a woman said that she believed he did, the speaker announced that he would destroy her faith by opening his hand and showing the money. “Now that you know I have a $20 bill,” he said, “you can no longer have faith that I do.”

If the preacher is correct, then the return of Christ will destroy the faith of His followers, for our faith will now be sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). And Jesus would not have told Thomas, “You believe because you have seen Me” (John 20:29), but rather “Because you have seen Me, you are no longer able to believe.”

The preacher mistakenly thought that empirical proof destroys faith. Instead, proof strengthens faith by eliminating the uncertainty that often accompanies it (Hebrews 11:1). Firsthand evidence confirms our knowledge, which bolsters our faith.

Faith is not the opposite of knowledge. Faith actually rests on knowledge. The more we know, the more we’re able to believe. Knowledge itself is not sufficient for faith, for even demons believe and tremble (James 2:19), but it’s impossible to have faith without it.

Read the rest of the devotional at ourdailyjourney.org.

Have you had any experiences where knowledge has strengthened your faith?

In a devotional today at Words of Hope, Jessica Heikoop asks if Christians are truly “surrendering all” to Jesus. Christians often talk, sing, and pray about turning over their lives to God, but have you ever considered just what it means to completely surrender your life to Him? Consider what true “surrender” means:

This encompasses every aspect of our lives. It is rendering to God all that we are and all that we have. True surrender doesn’t just pick and choose those parts of ourselves that we feel like giving him. He wants all of us, not just a portion of our lives, not a small fragment of our time, not merely a fraction of our possessions.

Selective surrender isn’t real surrender. If you want to be a living sacrifice, you can’t say, “Lord, you can have my heart but not my head, my voice but not my hands and feet.” You can only say, “Lord, I surrender all.”

Read the full devotional at Words of Hope.

Have you devoted all of your life (not just your Sundays) to God? How might your life be different if you did?

The book of 1 Corinthians gives Jesus one of the most unusual titles you could ever imagine being applied to a religious figure: stumbling block. The point (as I understand it) is that one of the hardest things to accept about the Gospel message is the person of Jesus Christ himself. The person and meaning of Jesus defy human learning and logic; the fact of the Messiah trips up and confounds those who approach Christianity from a human-focused perspective.

In your religious journey, have you encountered what you would describe as a stumbling block? If you’re a Christian, was there one particular issue or demand that you bumped up against time and time again before you finally made the choice to follow Christ? What ultimately helped you to make it over that obstacle?

Share your thoughts!

Today’s devotional centers on Romans 8:28 and comes from Oswald Chambers’ beloved My Utmost for his Highest. In it he explores the difference between claiming we are faithful to God and actually being faithful to God.

It is only a faithful person who truly believes that God sovereignly controls his circumstances. We take our circumstances for granted, saying God is in control, but not really believing it. We act as if the things that happen were completely controlled by people. To be faithful in every circumstance means that we have only one loyalty, or object of our faith— the Lord Jesus Christ. God may cause our circumstances to suddenly fall apart, which may bring the realization of our unfaithfulness to Him for not recognizing that He had ordained the situation. We never saw what He was trying to accomplish, and that exact event will never be repeated in our life. This is where the test of our faithfulness comes. If we will just learn to worship God even during the difficult circumstances, He will change them for the better very quickly if He so chooses.

Being faithful to Jesus Christ is the most difficult thing we try to do today. We will be faithful to our work, to serving others, or to anything else; just don’t ask us to be faithful to Jesus Christ. Many Christians become very impatient when we talk about faithfulness to Jesus. Our Lord is dethroned more deliberately by Christian workers than by the world. We treat God as if He were a machine designed only to bless us, and we think of Jesus as just another one of the workers.

The goal of faithfulness is not that we will do work for God, but that He will be free to do His work through us. God calls us to His service and places tremendous responsibilities on us. He expects no complaining on our part and offers no explanation on His part. God wants to use us as He used His own Son.

Read the devotional on RBC’s site.

Matt Chandler, the pastor of The Village Church, is currently recovering from brain surgery. Before he went under the knife he recorded a short video, which you can watch on The Village Church blog. It’s well worth it.

What’s amazing about the video is Matt’s perspective on his medical situation. In the midst of a life-threatening problem Matt boldly says he’s thankful for the opportunity. Basically, he thanks God because now he can say that in the face of death he still did his best to uphold Christ.

In his own words:

“There’s this part of me that’s so grateful that the Lord counted me worthy for this. And there’s this part of me that goes, “Okay,” because now in an area where it’s not a big win I get to show that he’s enough.”

Have you ever been in a similar situation? Did it strengthen your faith?

One fascinating facet of humanity is how many different religions we have. And for every religion there are people who are sincerely convinced that it’s the truth.

While I doubt anyone would argue that Christians should remain wholly ignorant of the beliefs of other religions, I do wonder what your approach is to learning about other religions.

How much should we learn about other religions?

Share your thoughts!

The day one of my parents’ peers requested to be my friend on facebook I knew that social networking was here to stay. There’s something about connecting with each other that just makes sense, even for people who five years ago would barely take a second glance at a computer.

For those that do participate in social networks, I’d like to ask you: has social networking had a positive impact on your faith?

What do you think?