Conviction

I have been taking a class this semester entitled Letters of Paul, so far we've only had two classes but I am beginning to see the course take shape. Paul has always impressed me. One of my classmates described him as a jerk...I asked him why and he said because Paul is always so "this is how it is". I acknowledged that I saw this person's opinion and where it was coming from. However, I tucked this thought into my mind for later consideration.

It is obvious to me that it wasn't that Paul thought he was the ultimate man...there are many passages in which he acknowledges that hey, I don't have this all figured out. He knows who he was and the only reason he was in the place of apostleship was through God's grace. What I do think Paul had is something that many Christians lack today....conviction.

Paul was willing to break off what he'd been taught as he grew up (the Jewish Pharisee way of thinking about the Scripture) and let a new school of thought enter his mind (the gospel of Christ). Better yet, he was confident in his thinking, confident that is was consistent with what he had experienced (a personal transformation). I believe that some Christians today are content to go with the status quo. Whatever there pastors or parents or trusted friends say is what goes in there minds. Maybe they latch on to everything their favorite contemporary theologian says. I see this as almost a sickness. I don't believe God expect us to blindly obey his Bible. I would argue that while the Bible is inerrant and divinely inspired, God made it with the expectation that His people would question it and wrestle with the issues contained within it.

Now, I realize this may seem to contradict some of my previous posts, talking about finding the gray areas of the faith and how we all need to get along better (especially politically and find our middle ground). However, I believe that this idea of having strong convictions fits well into this. I believe that most people will simply latch onto another's thoughts without taking the time to process what they know. Basically, our society is full of closed minded people. How sad...I really believe that when we as Christians open our minds to consider new ideas about God and Jesus we can better understand who He is and how we can better relate. We must have our own strong convictions that lead us to question things...to refuse to just believe something, just 'cuz. Let us bring our questions to God and ask. I believe He will give us a greater understanding if we begin to break the mold and start to think about Him outside the box created by other believers.