Born: June 9, 1972
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August 22, 2005 at 10:54 am
Daily Dose of Heresy #5 (The Caveat)
I’m always going off on tangents here, so this should be nothing new. But, it’s not always intentional. Sometimes, thoughts just strike me in the oddest ways.
Case-in-point: Yesterday, Tim Keel delivered a great sermon about the spiritual formation of children. It was very interesting and got me thinking about all sorts of ways that my parents aided in my own spiritual formation (and what things they did that aided in stunting my spiritual formation). But, in keeping with tangents, that’s not really what I wanted to talk about.
During Tim’s sermon, he had us read Mark 10:13-16 (NLT)
One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch them and bless them, but the disciples told them not to bother him. But when Jesus saw what was happening, he was very displeased with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I assure you, anyone who doesn’t have their kind of faith will never get into the Kingdom of God.” Then he took the children into his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them.Now, I’ve read this verse plenty of times. Apparently, I’ve always skimmed past Jesus’ warning in verse 15 without a second thought:
“...I assure you, anyone who doesn’t have their kind of faith will never get into the Kingdom of God.”What does this mean to us as believers in Christ? (Believers who, on a large scale, root our faith in “The ABCs of slavation.”)
Does this mean that even if we Admit our need for God, Believe in Jesus Christ, and Commit ours lives to following Jesus that we may still fall short of the Kingdom of God?
Most of the time my faith is far from “childlike.” There are moments when I can feel a childlikeness — a simplicity — that can’t be denied, but for the most part, my life and faith is firmly planted in adulthood. Am I missing out on God’s Kingdom because of this? Where am I when I have faith, but it is not childlike? Is it really faith at all?
Yeah, so, this seems to be loaded with a bunch of questions and no answers. I apologize for that. But, Jesus states his warning plainly: If our faith is not like that of a child’s, then we will never enter God’s Kingdom.
That’s scary.
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Comments (14)
I really enjoyed this post. For me when I read these passages I get the impression that it is referring to the heart. Many people complicate Salvation as only head (believe) but it is much deeper than that as you know. That is why I love the passage “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and Believe in your heart that God has risen from the dead you shall be saved.” If we did this with an attitude of a child then that is all Christ needs. I feel Jesus was addressing people who believe in there head and not with their heart and referring to conversion. For me at conversion that “heart Faith” must be childlike.
» Comment by dh () , on August 22, 2005 at 11:57 am
hmmm….. i know what i think but i’ll mull over my response more first. good thoughts..
» Comment by dennisthemenace () , on August 22, 2005 at 1:11 pm
I can’t really think of how “confessing with your mouth the Lord Jesus and Believing in your heart that God has risen from the dead” can be compared with being childlike. To me, that is a serious step of faith (that, most times — in my own experience with others — is made from a state of maturity).
Childlikeness (to me) is: uninhibited, inquisitive, playful…awkward, clumsy, ignorant.
The dictionary definition is: marked by innocence, trust, and ingenuousness.
Honestly, most of the time, my faith comes with a lack of most of these things. I desire a way to be childlike all of the time, but sadly, life always remains entangled in adulthood.
Childlikeness (to me) is: uninhibited, inquisitive, playful…awkward, clumsy, ignorant.
The dictionary definition is: marked by innocence, trust, and ingenuousness.
Honestly, most of the time, my faith comes with a lack of most of these things. I desire a way to be childlike all of the time, but sadly, life always remains entangled in adulthood.
» Comment by timsamoff () (URL), on August 22, 2005 at 2:16 pm
Maybe I’m going from my conversion experience. I think it can be done childlike. We may not understand all of the intricases (spelling) of being a Christian but as a child we can by Faith believe and confess those things. When I was five and accepted Christ you can imagine how clumbsy, awkward and the like but I understood by Faith that Jesus was Lord and understood what Christ did on the cross for me and at five that was life changing. I think the heart is the issue and it can be childlike even though the concepts might appear to be farther along than what it appears. That kind of my understanding of “unchildlike Faith”. Does that make sense or am I confusing? Love ya brother. :)
» Comment by dh () , on August 22, 2005 at 3:39 pm
I guess I feel strongly that the two passages can be combined.
» Comment by dh () , on August 22, 2005 at 3:41 pm
Oh, I think that the two passages can be combined as well — and should be… I just don’t know if we should think that they are inherently combined. I don’t think that they are.
I think that we’d be fooling ourselves if we equated belief/faith with childlikeness. And that’s the scary part.
I think that we’d be fooling ourselves if we equated belief/faith with childlikeness. And that’s the scary part.
» Comment by timsamoff () (URL), on August 22, 2005 at 4:02 pm
I agree except at the moment of conversion. When I have had the opportunity to lead people to Christ I seemed to see some measure of “childlikeness”. We need to always make sure we give our hearts to the Lord not just a “head knowledge”. I think this is probably the context of the passages but that is just me.
» Comment by DH () , on August 23, 2005 at 08:21 am
You know… I wonder whether asking yourself a question like this is really relevant. If we take the whole bible literally I’m pretty sure absolutely no single human being will go to heaven, ever. Simply because we’re all sinners in biblical terms. Then there’s the forgiveness concept which would could remove all of our responsibilities alltogether as long as we show regret after we’ve sinned. Personally I don’t even believe in a God of ‘punishment’. It wouldn’t make sense. Why would God create beings, put them on earth and guide them through all kinds of ‘tests’ to see if their faith is strong enough in order to either take them back or throw them into some sort of waste bucket they call ‘hell’. What purpose would it serve? I have no idea. Literally speaking the fact that hardly anyone strictly follows God’s rules could even be interpreted as a very bad design by God. He clearly designed people to fail in completely unacceptable numbers which indicates a really shitty job.
Now I don’t believe God did a shitty job at all. If there’s something out there after death I strongly believe we’re all going to be there and meet our Creator, not just 0,000001 (or less?) of us that strictly followed all rules and guidelines. Anything else just wouldn’t make sense at all.
Just my five cents!
Now I don’t believe God did a shitty job at all. If there’s something out there after death I strongly believe we’re all going to be there and meet our Creator, not just 0,000001 (or less?) of us that strictly followed all rules and guidelines. Anything else just wouldn’t make sense at all.
Just my five cents!
» Comment by Marco () (URL), on August 23, 2005 at 10:42 am
A child often accepts things that they don’t understand—not from a place of fear or intellectual discernment, but from their hearts. That’s the kind of faith I think is being addressed here.
How we choose to work out our faith is a different story and is something that should be taken seriously, but the working out of faith is a very different thing from the faith itself.
How we choose to work out our faith is a different story and is something that should be taken seriously, but the working out of faith is a very different thing from the faith itself.
» Comment by Todd () (URL), on August 23, 2005 at 12:19 pm
I totally agree Todd. Your response sounded a lot like my first two responses. I really enjoyed yours, Todd. :)
» Comment by dh () , on August 23, 2005 at 1:26 pm
HMMM... i was looking for those words, todd. Yes, well said. I think with scriptures like this, to look at them isolated is really just setting ourselves up for frustration and confusion. As always, what seems more elementary or easier to understand about scripture should be used to understand the more complexing. what ELSE does scripture say about faith, our minds and how salvation is attained? I think the answers are more within our grasp when that approach is taken.
I still wonder if those present at that very moment understood that. Ever wonder that? We can view scripture as a whole and discern but those who are addressed on specific occasions probably had a whole harder of a time. Just a thought…
I still wonder if those present at that very moment understood that. Ever wonder that? We can view scripture as a whole and discern but those who are addressed on specific occasions probably had a whole harder of a time. Just a thought…
» Comment by dennisthemenace () , on August 23, 2005 at 7:52 pm
and someone really needs to sit with Marco. I don’t think here is the forum but just ignoring his post seems more damaging than actually having some diologue about his statements. dh?
» Comment by dennisthemenace () , on August 23, 2005 at 7:55 pm
Dennis, you are right… I wasn’t ignoring Marco’s comment, but rather, ignoring this whole post for a couple of days. I think Marco has some good questions that we could attempt to answer. But, that might not prove much. In any case, I don’t know if this is the forum for such things. Marco is a friend and I think he’d prefer to discuss these ideas with someone closer than a stranger. Maybe I’m wrong? Just a thought.
» Comment by timsamoff () (URL), on August 24, 2005 at 08:37 am
I guess I thought my comment was relevant to the posting but apparently most others don’t seem to agree. Tim is asking himself whether he’ll be able to enter God’s Kingdom or not. My statement in short is that either all of us will or none of us will. Anything inbetween wouldn’t make sense to me at all because I don’t believe God has created stuff that fails (us) in order to punish us in the afterlife for what can be seen as his own mistake, since he’s the designer after all. If there’s a hell out there God will have to have created it as well since the general belief is that God created everything. Now why would he create something awful like that? I don’t believe there’s a hell at all. It doesn’t make sense, like many fundamental christian beliefs.
I’m by no means an atheist but I don’t believe in the classic god / satan / good / evil / heaven / hell thing nor do I think anything the Bible says should be taken literally for the simple reason that it’s been watered down by those who passed it on and on over the generations. It’s become a human interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation etc. etc.
Anyone would like to comment on these statements?
I’m by no means an atheist but I don’t believe in the classic god / satan / good / evil / heaven / hell thing nor do I think anything the Bible says should be taken literally for the simple reason that it’s been watered down by those who passed it on and on over the generations. It’s become a human interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation etc. etc.
Anyone would like to comment on these statements?
» Comment by Marco () (URL), on August 24, 2005 at 09:19 am