Wednesday, May 30, 2018

How Do We Determine Truth?


John 4:24
Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Sylvia and I were studying with a woman who showed much interest in what the Bible teaches. She had a roly-poly little dog that was covered in long black curly hair. He would welcome us each time we came with the exuberance only a little dog can show. Then he would settle in her lap, and she would feed him chocolates while we talked. (Don’t believe all the stories about how bad chocolate is for dogs. It certainly wasn’t bad for this little dog. If you are older, you’ll remember that doctors used to say that chocolate was bad for us, too.) This woman liked and accepted everything as we went along.

Eventually, we reached the study of what day was the day of worship. We pointed out that Jesus kept his Sabbath on Saturday, the day the Jews went to the synagogue. We talked about how the disciples kept the Sabbath after Christ’s death and resurrection. We prayed about it and invited her to church on the next Sabbath. We also told her to think about the topic. Naturally she had an excuse for not joining us the next Sabbath.

The next time we met to study with her, the little dog danced and barked his excitement at seeing us again. His whole body wagged with his tail. We inquired about what thoughts she had about the Sabbath. She answered readily, “Let’s pray about it!” We concurred.

“Jesus, should I keep the Sabbath!” she demanded in a loud voice. Then even louder, “Answer me, Jesus! Do you want me to worship on Saturday?” She continued her pleading and demanding for well over five minutes.

Neither she, nor we, heard any response from Jesus or anyone else. Finally she turned to us and said decidedly, “See, Jesus didn’t answer me. He would have answered me if he really wanted me to keep your Sabbath.” We spent some time talking about how God speaks to us. Sometimes He does speak to people directly and openly. Much more often He chooses to let us reason from the Bible what course of action He expects us to pursue. To worship Him in spirit and truth we need to be open to both sources.

We visited a couple more times, but her spirit had cooled, and though she didn’t express any animosity towards us, it became evident that the Holy Spirit could no longer reach her through us. So we parted as friends and fellow Christians but not as fellow believers.

Lord, please help me to follow You as You reveal Yourself to me.



[i] https://www.thepointcommunity.net/2015/06/12/spirit-and-truth-frankfort-61415/