Jacob Ninan
I was once speaking to a group of Christians on the practical application of some doctrines. When it was over, one young man took me aside and scolded me for implying that what I believed was the right interpretation. He said I should have described different views people had and left it there. Is it wrong for us to have convictions, and if we are convinced about certain things, should we refrain from sharing what we believe? Shouldn't we be consistent with what we preach and what we believe? Of course, if someone was teaching in a seminary, there would be place for presenting different points of view; but even in such a setting, shouldn't there be a need to finally point out what the teacher believes?
Some people seem to be quite comfortable to hold contrary opinions in separate compartments in their mind without believing or accepting any of them as the truth! How do agnostics, who think they belong to this category with respect to belief in God, manage when they concede there may be a God, but refuse to conclude this way or that? The way they actually live their practical life will indicate what they really believe, irrespective of what they claim to hold as a philosophical view.
We Christians can also be very inconsistent with ourselves with regard to what we profess or consider as truths in our mind, if how we live is different. It is one thing to profess certain values and struggle to live up to them, giving others an impression that they are inconsistent. But there is really no inconsistency here because what they believe is what they are seeking to practise even though they fail here and there. It is quite another thing to proclaim one belief and then live entirely as if it did not matter! Many may be even unaware that there is any inconsistency in their lives. But we must realise that such inconsistencies will cause much confusion in our life.
On the contrary, it is when we act according to what we profess we believe, or at least go in that direction, that our life becomes meaningful to ourselves and produces an impact on others. And, if what we believe is in line with God's truth, we can bear much fruit for Him. An outstanding example of living according to one's faith was Saul the rabbi who acted out his belief by persecuting the Christians and then began to preach the Gospel immediately after becoming a disciple of Jesus.
How different it is if we hold many doctrines in our mind and even preach them without actually believing them in our heart – as seen from our practical life! Is it possible that we fall in this category, but we do not see the inconsistency here? When it comes to discussions, we can hold on to our doctrines quoting chapter and verse, but we may not be aware that our lives show that we actually believe the opposite of what we say we believe.
Consider what we believe about creation versus evolution. There are many who believe that everything evolved over billions of years by chance without God. If we agree that the universe originated from a big bang and we are just 'organic machines' or animals that have evolved from monkeys, then it is logically inconsistent for us to believe in any morals, accountability to God or a life to come. But if we hold to moral values which we agree God has given us in His word, but still 'believe' in evolution that is inconsistent. God has obviously not chosen to reveal to us details of how He created everything and our questions on such things cannot possibly be answered except in our life to come, but it is clear that He wants us to know that it was He who created everything including us. If we don't believe God created us, how sin came into the world and the plan of salvation He made for us, we cannot be consistent with the rest of the Bible too.
If we believe that Jesus is the only way to God and that others who worship other gods are actually worshipping demons (1Cor.10:20), how can we greet others and even join with them when they celebrate their religious festivals? Of course, in a multi-religious and multi-cultural society we need to tolerate the fact that others have a right to choose whichever form of faith they may wish to follow, but it doesn't follow that we should join with them!
When Christians proclaim that the Bible is the inspired word of God and not what men have thought up, will it not be inconsistent if we then pick and choose what we like from the Bible and disregard the rest? When it comes to our doctrines, they must be based on what the Bible teaches as a whole, in line with the thread of God's plan for man as it runs through the Bible and with different verses interpreted according to their context. What happens if we form doctrines by taking verses from here and there and ignoring other verses that say something else?
Much has been written over the years about prayer. But if anyone claims that God will give whatever we ask for, it is not consistent with the whole Bible and certainly it is totally inconsistent with experience! When some verses seem to indicate the possibility of 100% answers to prayer according to what we ask for, shouldn't we also take into consideration other verses that place caveats on such assumptions? But what if we proclaim as a doctrine that God will give all that we ask for and don't even question our own or others' experiences to the contrary, where is our consistency?
With the goal of exalting God, if we attribute unreasonable and inconsistent characteristics to Him, we get a caricature of God which will dishonour Him and in turn spoil our practical life. For example, if we claim that God is love and practically negate all aspects of His holiness and justice, the God we present is false! If we say that God sovereignly chooses whom He will save or damn, what happens to His desire to save all people and the unfairness He will be showing to those He doesn't choose to save?
If we don't recognise both what God will do for us and what we need to do in response to Him, we end up with an unbalanced life – always troubled about whether we have done enough to find His acceptance, paying scant attention to denying our sinful desires which then results in a tolerance of sin in our practical life, finding acceptable euphemisms for our sins or getting upset with God for not doing His part.
If we are able to hold certain views in our mind and at the same time live our practical life in a way that is contrary to our belief, what does it tell us? That we don't really believe what we profess to believe! That kind of faith will not save us. Genuine faith will produce works consistent with what we believe. The particular burden that James tried to express in 2:14-26 is this: if you say you have faith and what you do doesn't show a consistency with what you believe, that kind of faith is useless; it is when you act according to what you believe that you can claim that you have a living faith.
We can even become experts at pointing out the inconsistency and hypocrisy in others and miss to see how we ourselves can be totally blind to our own inconsistencies. We think we are trying to help others to come to a life of consistency by picking out the specks in their eyes while we may be going around with a beam in our eyes that makes clear vision totally impossible (Matt.7:1-5). But we can be sure that there are inconsistencies in all of our lives and none of us is exempt from them. The problem is that it is very difficult to see our own failures while those of others stand glaringly in front of our eyes. We ought to be aware of this possibility and learn to live our life sitting before our Master and listen to what He has to say to us personally (Lk.10:38-42).
A sincere Christian life that proceeds from the heart always strives after understanding God's ways better, admitting where we come short and seeking Him for help to fall in line with His ways. "The one who says, 'I have come to know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him" (1Jn.2:4).
-- Editorial in the Light of Life magazine, October 2019
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