The Logical Conclusion of our Faith

There is an illustration I often give students to demonstrate true belief. I tell the class there is a certain amount of money outside our meeting area, then I ask them if they believe me. For the sake of my illustration, everyone answers yes. Then I say, alright, the first person to reach that place where the money is can keep it. For the illustration, I say, suppose half of the class run to it and the other half remain seated, who really believed what I said about the money? The students answer, the people who ran.

Every belief system has logic trains that take it to logic conclusions. However, observing people shows us that many people claiming to be aboard a certain logic train never travel toward their conclusion. These are the people dubiously known as “hypocrites.” Hypocrites come from all different belief systems. I know evolutionary atheists that are very hypocritical in action based on what they say they believe. Some atheists I’ve met are philanthropic and quite selfless. Selflessness has absolutely no place in the atheistic worldview (unless of course you are selfless because you gain your greatest pleasure from living this way). The logical conclusion of naturalistic atheism is to do whatever one feels like whenever one feels like it. Monogamy, compassion, charity, and sacrifice don’t fit with the atheist worldview, and yet you can find professing atheists who possess these qualities. In their case, the hypocrisy is commendable. But hypocrisy is most often associated with people from religious belief systems, and this is what I want to draw the reader’s attention too.

What is the logical conclusion to Christianity? Acts 2:42 – 47.

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongs and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” ESV

This is an account of how believers in the early church acted upon what they professed to believe. Those who had an excess of the world’s goods gave to those who didn’t have enough. They even turned inheritances like lands and houses into cash for easy distribution by the apostles. I brought this text to the attention of a recent class of mine and asked the class to discuss it. One student suggested that perhaps since those believers didn’t realize how long it would be before Christ returned, they adopted that practice of selling their possessions. The class’s discussion raised two themes.

1. Christians don’t live this way anymore
2. Christians generally think it would be unwise to do so

Therein exposes the hypocrisy of Christians. We call for people to leave the world while we busy ourselves with buying up stock in the world. This is not where the Bible’s logic train goes. The Bible’s logic train presents Christians as sojourners ministering in this world while we wait for our Master, not profiteers most concerned with the health of the world’s economy and leaving behind possessions to posterity. Consider this testimony about saints of old, Hebrews 11:35-38 –

“Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated – of whom the world was not worthy – wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” ESV

You may disagree with these people’s belief system, but according to what they believed, this behavior was logical. If you believe this world will be destroyed (2 Peter 3:7) why would you be so concerned with possessions? If you believe that God will provide your needs (Matthew 6:32-34) why does worry over what we will feed and clothe our families with occupy our minds? If you truly agree with the Apostle Paul about heaven – Philippians 1:22-23, “If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” ESV
Why do we hold on so tightly to this world? Why do we measure our success in life based on our reputation in a condemned world versus what our reputation in heaven is?

My concern over this behavior has two main features. First, even if we really do believe what we say we believe, what production can we expect when our actions don’t logically follow those beliefs? Secondly, actions that don’t logically follow our belief systems may reveal we don’t really believe the things we say we do. Perhaps the most upsetting passage in the whole Bible is this statement by the Lord in Matthew 7:21-23 – “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” ESV

There are those who have deceived themselves into thinking they know God, but the way they process life suggests they do not. Trials are the things that flush the truth to the surface. Consider this example from Acts 4. In that chapter, Peter and John are threatened by the Jewish rulers not to preach the name of Christ anymore. They go back to report to their fellow believers what they’ve been told. How did this group respond when they were faced with imprisonment, persecution, and death? V23-31 –

When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. ²⁴ And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, ²⁵ who through the mouth of our father David, your servant,^[d] said by the Holy Spirit,

“‘Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples plot in vain?
²⁶ The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers were gathered together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed’^[e]—

²⁷ for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, ²⁸ to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. ²⁹ And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, ³⁰ while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” ³¹ And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. ESV

This is the logical conclusion to our faith: boldness, not fear, trust, not doubt, love not hostility, self-control, not anger, and steadfastness, not wavering. Revelation 12:11 “And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” ESV