Intellectualizing Jesus
Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. Luke 1:3-4 NIV
As we said before, Luke was a medical doctor - a physician. He knew and believed in the importance of being thorough and accurate. It shows in his writings, both in the book of Luke and in Acts. He left no stone unturned in researching the facts about Jesus and later in the lives of His apostles. Luke was a true intellectual. But Luke was also a true believer.
I have known a number of people who are so busy "intellectualizing" Jesus, they never take time to believe. When a scriptural truth is presented to them, they respond with statements like, "You can prove anything with the
Bible, anything at all. Why should I believe what you're saying?" They will argue every point, down to the most minute detail - worrying over such vital points as whether God actually created the earth in seven days or
whether it took seven thousand or million years. They will throw in the argument that there are countless contradictions in scripture (I have yet to find one!), stating that there is no way to know what is true if God's "truth" contradicts itself. As yet (and I have read the entire Bible numerous times), I have found nothing contradictory in scripture. Not one verse! They will throw in the horrors of the world, asking how a loving God could allow such things to happen. One at a time, they take the truths about God and pick them into minute pieces, never failing to look at anything without a skeptical and unbelieving eye.
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If you run across such person, present to him Doctor Luke, one of the greatest intellectuals who ever lived. And present to him the apostle Paul, as highly educated a man as Luke and a one-time disbeliever who was so much against Jesus that - up until his one-on-one encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus - he spent his life persecuting and killing those who followed the Lord. Challenge the intellectual to study these men and the things that they wrote. Challenge this person to go ahead and study with his mind, but - like Paul and Luke - to open his heart to the truth of what he is studying.
Yes, it's good to believe with your mind. But the belief will not become a part of who you are unless you also believe with your heart.
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