Good morning. Last Saturday’s thought for the day considered the question of Christian intellect. The point was that there are some people who are proudly non-believers in God and Jesus, and they support that denial in self-described “intellectual elitism”. Frequently these people proclaim that any person of faith must be guilty of either being intellectually challenged, or at the very least, persons who have willingly set aside their intellect to live a life of faith. Saturday’s thought for the day pointed out how erroneous was this type of thinking. In truth, Christian faith is established in facts as well as matters of belief.
For today’s thought I would like to build on that thought by sharing some of the words of Jesus, words that compel the person of faith to be critical and well-rounded thinkers.
Early in His ministry, Jesus had an evening interrupted by a Pharisee named Nicodemus. This man was a leader among the Jewish people who came to Jesus quietly, after dark, in an attempt to discern the truth of Jesus.
Nicodemus was operating on purely a rational level, meaning that his thoughts were guided solely by what he considered to be worthy evidence (empirical thought). Such rational thought is commanded by God and is clearly important, but the Christian comes to realize that there is more. There is truth of a spiritual nature that is not purely defined by rational-physical evidence. Nicodemus’ questions and Jesus’ answers are shared in John 3:1-21. He began by saying: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Nicodemus is speaking for a group of Pharisees, not for himself alone. They recognize through basic rational thinking that Jesus must be of God, for there is no other explanation for how He could perform the miracles that were undeniably being performed by Him. Jesus responds to Nicodemus’ statement with a reply that is from the spiritual vein: Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
For the purely rational thinker (Nicodemus in this case) this makes no sense. His reply to Jesus is: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Can you see the conflict developing? It is not an argument over facts, it is a question of what is true and how is that truth to be recognized, understood, and shared. Jesus continues to give answers that are spiritually centered: Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
That which was formed purely from rational thought had come to a place where to find the truth the rational must be merged with the spiritual (not the irrational, that is never the point or the command of God). It is only through this merger that truth in its fullness could be realized. The conflict of thought continues: Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Nicodemus, as well as his Pharisee partners, needed to learn how to learn. They had become so used to thinking only in one way that spiritual truths escaped them. It would have been interesting to hear the vocal inflection Jesus used in the sentence just referenced. Was He incredulous, frustrated, and/or annoyed? Did His voice reflect that He was saddened by the state of Pharisee understanding?
Jesus told Nicodemus that he must grasp the analogy between earthly and heavenly things. Jesus was strongly encouraging Nicodemus to “think outside the box” and to be open to spiritual truths as well as worldly realities. Spiritual sensitivity is required to know the full truths of God. This theme was a common teaching of Jesus:
He also told them this parable: “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into a pit? Luke 6:9
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? Matthew 7:3
Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? Mark 4:13
And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” Matthew 15:10-12
There is a spiritual side of truth, and to learn from only the empirical is to learn only in part. There are spiritual truths that are taught to us by Jesus using the examples of well-known and worldly ideas, but to learn these truths, we must accept that we need to “learn how to learn”. Like Nicodemus, we must allow ourselves to see and embrace the spiritual realities as well as the physical. When we become open to learning through the body, mind, and spirit, we gain insights that would be impossible when using only a portion of who we are.
Vern