Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Why Do You Believe? | New Testament | John 20

Episode Date: December 28, 2023

Does Jesus demand blind faith? What is actual blind faith? Do you need to see in order to believe? In today's episode, Patrick discusses John 20 and why you don't need blind faith to follow God. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: John 20

Welcome to 10 minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. In John 20, we see Jesus after he's resurrected, and he's speaking to his disciple, Thomas, who has come to believe that Jesus is not dead. He truly is alive. And Jesus asks him, do you believe Thomas because you've seen? That's the question Jesus asks Thomas right after his resurrection. and the underlying question is clear, Thomas, why do you believe? You didn't used to believe, but why do you believe that I'm resurrected? It's a question that applies to more than just believing in Jesus. I mean, ask yourself, why do you believe that anything is true?

That the earth is round, that the Declaration of Independence was written in 1776. Why do you believe anything? Before we get to this part of the Gospel of John, we hear about the story of Thomas. And Thomas is hearing from all of his friends that they've seen Jesus alive. He's come back from the dead. How does Thomas respond to them initially? He says, unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.

For Thomas, seeing is believing. And honestly, who can blame him? Thomas lived in the same world we live in, a world where people don't come back to life after they die. Did his friends just expect him to blindly believe just because they said so? The story continues in John 20, verse 26. Eight days later, Jesus' disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.

Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed. Here it is, the evidence. Jesus said only the weak need to see to believe. They need visual, tactile evidence.

Jesus is calling for blind, irrational faith. That's what the evidence is for, right? Well, no, I actually think that might be wrong. Can I be honest? I used to think for a long time that's exactly what this passage was teaching. Jesus wants us to have blind faith. I thought Jesus was calling us to blindly believe, and that's why he was critical of Thomas because he didn't have blind faith. But I want to show you something in this passage that changed my life, that freed me from the guilt that I have because I find blind belief rather challenging. Here's how it changed my life. It made me begin to ask, does Jesus actually

demand blind irrational faith. To answer that question, I need to ask you a question about atoms, particles, the granular substance of the universe. Here's the question. Do you believe in atoms? Why? Have you ever seen an atom? Probably not. Let me ask you a different question. History. Do you believe in Abraham Lincoln? Why? Have you ever seen him? Or how about personal history? Do you believe that you were born on your birthday? Well, did you see it? Did you believe? Did you you check a calendar the day you were born just to make sure the date was right? Do you believe in all these things? Do you believe in Adams? Do you believe in Abraham Lincoln? Do you believe that your birthday really is your birthday? My guess is you do. Why? Well, it's not because you saw any of

those things. It's because you heard them from credible, reliable eyewitnesses whose testimonies were corroborated by others. We believe in atomic particles because of the credible, reliable, and corroborated findings of Neal's board. We believe in Abraham Lincoln because we have the credible, reliable, corroborated, eyewitness testimony of his life. We believe our birthday is correct because we have the credible, reliable, corroborated eyewitness testimony of our parents and the doctors who were there. And you know the funny thing? We don't call any of this blind faith, even though we can't actually see it with our eyes, even though we can't touch it with our hands. Because apparently, in some circumstances, in fact, in most circumstances,

hearing is believing. It doesn't matter whether it's science, history, the news, or even our personal life. Much of what we claim to know isn't based on what we've actually seen. It's based on what we've heard from people we trust. In real life, in ordinary life, hearing is believing. And this is a totally rational thing, by the way. It's not blind faith. Do you know what takes blind faith? disregarding credible, reliable, corroborated eyewitness testimony. That's what requires irrationality. You can deny atomic theory. You can deny the existence of Abraham Lincoln. You can deny your own birthday. But we won't call you rational. We'll call you a conspiracy theorist. This takes me back to Thomas, because do you remember what Thomas did? He refused to hear. Thomas denied the credible,

reliable, corroborated, eyewitness testimony of his friends about Jesus' resurrection. And that wasn't rational. Thomas did take a blind leap of faith to deny Jesus' resurrection. When Jesus rebukes Thomas, it's not because Thomas didn't have blind faith, it's because he had it in the wrong things. It's because he blindly refused to hear the credible, reliable, corroborated evidence of Jesus' resurrection. So when Jesus says, Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed, he's not calling us to blind faith. He's calling us to hear. Because seeing isn't the only kind of believing. In most of life, hearing is believing. It is highly rational to trust the credible, reliable, corroborated eyewitness testimony recorded

in the Gospels. Hearing is believing when it comes to so much of life. So why do we demand that Jesus give us a level of visible evidence which outstrips what we require for most of the gospel? of what we know about physics, geography, history, and even the basic facts of our life. I think it's because Jesus claims to be God, and if He's God, couldn't he just give me something to see? But Jesus has given you something to see, the eyewitness testimony of the disciples and the New Testament. That's what we have in the Gospels. That's what we've been reading for this entire year. The question for you today is not, do you have blind faith? blind faith would be to deny the testimony that is reliable. No, the question is whether you will deny

the credible, reliable, corroborated, eyewitness testimony recorded in the Gospels. Will you deny what you've heard? Trust what you've heard this year. Trust what you've heard in the Gospels. Trust what you know about Jesus because you know it the same way you know most things by hearing credible testimonies.