A Reasonable Faith

Many people believe that becoming a Christian requires blind faith. That could not be further from the truth. The Christian faith is a reasonable faith. That is, a Christian’s faith is based upon reason. God has given us a mind to be used to make reasonable decisions and judgments regarding His existence, the truth of the Gospel and the credibility of the Christian faith. All we have to do is follow the evidence and it will lead us to the truth.

Luke, a Gentile physician, historian and theologian, set out more than 2,000 years ago to carefully investigate every piece of information he could gather from credible eyewitnesses concerning the life and ministry of a man called Jesus. Notice that Luke informs us of the many who had undertaken the task of drawing up an account of the things that had been fulfilled among them. Drawing up an account refers to the act of writing a sequence of events as they happened. Luke refers to these events as fulfillment of prophecy. He was referring to the Old Testament which predicted hundreds of years earlier of One who would come who would be called the Son of God, the Messiah and the Savior of the world (Psalm 22; Isaiah 7:14; 9:6-7; 11:1-5; 53).

These accounts were handed down in both oral and written form by eyewitnesses. Credible eye-witness accounts are, in essence, a guarantee of the reliability of truth claims. 1 John 1:1-3 says, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us.”

Luke traveled with the Apostle Paul and Mark. He relied on their eyewitness accounts along with many others. Some of these eyewitnesses later were willing to, and did, die for what they believed to be true.

What motivated Luke and what was the purpose of his effort to research and write out this orderly account of the life of Christ? Luke wanted his friend Theophilus, as well as others who might have doubts, to know the certainty of the things they had been taught. John had the same purpose in mind in writing his gospel. John 20:31 says, “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” The Christian faith is a reasonable faith; it is also a sure and certain faith. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

Do you have a sure and certain faith? If not, yet you desire to be certain, this is what you should do. Read Luke’s gospel. Spend time in God’s Word. Ask the Lord to give you more and more faith until your faith becomes more and more certain. Paul writes in Romans 10:17, “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”

The more time you spend in God’s Word, the surer and more certain your faith will become.