Everyone has certain beginning points in their thinking. I begin with God. I presuppose God. Why? Because I want there to be a God. I want to believe in Him. I want to believe in Jesus and his resurrection. I like this religion. I don’t like other religions. They are cold and empty. My presupposition is that the religion I like is true. Others do not like Christianity because they do not want someone telling them what to do. They want to keep their sin. So their presupposition is that there is no God who has the right to tell them what to do or will judge them for their sin in the end. It is self evident to me that Christ is true. Nothing else makes any sense. The Bible says that people love their sin more than God, and so they will not believe in Him. This is the same thing that happens when a Christian sins. At that moment he loves his sin more than God. In my life, He had to get me to a point where I loved Him more than anything and anyone else. It is this very belief in Him that proves His existence to me, because “faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.” I want to believe in God and therefore I do, but Jesus said that this is a valid reason to believe. “If you want to know the truth,” he said, “ you will know that the things I say are true. You must turn from your sin every day and face the unseen and follow the One who you want to exist. I begin my thinking with Jesus. I may study to understand better or to explain to others, but ultimately I choose Jesus because I want Him more than anything else. Then at some point the Holy Spirit comes in and witnesses his presence to me. I know He is there because I feel him there at the center of my being and know that if He was not there I would be hollow.
People do not come to a belief in Jesus from a neutral position. They have built up biases over a life time. That is why Jesus told Paul it was hard for him to kick against the picks. He had had his biases attacked by the death of Stephen and other martyrs and was finding it hard to ignore this new information. The Pharisees came to Jesus with presuppositions that when Messiah came he would support their position and power. Unfortunately Hassidic Jews today bear the same presupposition. But you can come to something with valid presuppositions. The Word of God is true. Jesus never lied. God is intimately involved in our lives. And God is good. But we must not presuppose that God’s idea of goodness is ours or that God should do this or that to be good. Everyone has certain beginning points in their thinking. You must make sure that your beginning points are God’s Of course, since God was before the beginning, his beginning points are sometimes quite mysterious.
People do not come to a belief in Jesus from a neutral position. They have built up biases over a life time. That is why Jesus told Paul it was hard for him to kick against the picks. He had had his biases attacked by the death of Stephen and other martyrs and was finding it hard to ignore this new information. The Pharisees came to Jesus with presuppositions that when Messiah came he would support their position and power. Unfortunately Hassidic Jews today bear the same presupposition. But you can come to something with valid presuppositions. The Word of God is true. Jesus never lied. God is intimately involved in our lives. And God is good. But we must not presuppose that God’s idea of goodness is ours or that God should do this or that to be good. Everyone has certain beginning points in their thinking. You must make sure that your beginning points are God’s Of course, since God was before the beginning, his beginning points are sometimes quite mysterious.
