Foolishness

Earlier today Sarrah and I were listening to one of John Piper's sermons, titled Fearlessness as a Sign of Destruction and Salvation. In a couple of sentences, it's about how we Christians shouldn't be afraid of labels like extremist or irrational. Not that we should embody these traits; we just shouldn't be afraid of being labeled as such by unbelievers.

I was thinking about that. I don't always speak out about my faith. I tell people I'm Christian or that I go to church and whatnot, or that I'm going to a Bible study later in the day. I can do that like it's an everyday thing, which for me it is.

But then I suddenly thought of something. When I'm on the internet, I don't always speak out about my beliefs. I know a lot of guys who go way deep into theology and philosophy. I'm learning about theology and philosophy, which these guys are too. But I don't always join in on these conversations/arguments about beliefs. When I thought of this I initially said, I just don't want to misrepresent the Christian faith or teach people wrong.

Then I realized something.

That's not it at all.

What it really is, what really keeps me from talking about specifics about my beliefs to these other Christian guys is not my wanting to be absolutely sure I'm representing the Christian faith as best as a fallen sinner can, but my unwillingness to appear foolish to my peers.

Take, for example, infant baptism. I don't know much about it. Right now I'm not convinced of it. But I'm the last person in the world who would get into a conversation with people who are talking about it. It's not simply because I don't know how to back up my belief that it's not a valid Christian doctrine. It's because I don't know how to counter the argument for it. That lack of knowledge keeps me from bringing it up at all because I don't want to look like a fool to my brothers. Oh, how selfish I am!

I also, as I'm writing this, realized one other thing. I want to learn about the Bible. I've been reading it as best I can every day since just before August. Yes, it is about a desire to know what God says about Himself. Yes, I want to know where to stand in my beliefs and why. No, it is not totally and utterly motivated by that.

There is a small part of me - a foolish, evil, selfish, sinful part - that wants to be able to defend myself in a group of people who believe differently than I do. On one hand that's great. One should be able to argue for Christianity. But that's not all there is to it. On the other hand I want to not appear foolish when talking to the multitude of theological Christian guys I know who all know everything about eschatology (end times study), Christology (the study of Christ), ecclesiology (the study of the church and the spelling of which I just now looked up so I wouldn't get it wrong and thus appear foolish), soteriology (the study of salvation doctrine), theodicy (the study of how God either permits or causes evil), and so forth. For the record, I just now looked up several of those terms and what they mean. I'm not actually so deeply theological so as to know those terms and their meanings off the top of my head. Thank you, Wikipedia.

Oh, sinful, wicked man that I am! My studying and learning about God have taught me how much I need God, and I need Him far more than I'll ever understand.