In my last post I used my faith in the doctors' diagnosis of cancer and their prescription for health as an illustration of the gospel and saving faith. In writing that post I recognized that there are certain religious people who would say that trusting doctors is not trusting God. There are many, from various religious traditions, who teach that faith in God is antithetical to faith in doctors. It is not only faith in doctors which is often cast as unbelief in God but there are lots of religious people who suspect that when a person is trusting in some man-made knoweldge or skill or technology that person is automatically not trsuting in God. Last week I watched about a half hour of the PBS TV documentary on the Amish. At one point they were discussing the numerous conflicts with building codes that Amish people regularly encounter. As an example they cited the unwillingness of Amish people to put smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in their homes as most building codes now require. The logic of the Amish is that to install these detectors is to trust them rather than God. If God wants to send a fire through a home and they all die, they will go to heaven and so they will trust God to save them rather than a smoke detector to save them.
It is is possible to trust doctors or smoke detectors or insurance policies or police departments or any number of human beings and their technologies and not God. Psalm 20:7 says, "Some trust in chariots and some in horses but we trust in the name of the Lord our God." However, the biblical way of life is that we trust God by trusting the human instruments God has provided to protect and heal us. First of all, all lawful human institutions and technologies are God's gift to us. Acts 17:25, "God is not served by human hands as if he needed anything. He gives all men, life and breath and everything." What is inculded in the word "everything"? Skill, intelligence, resources, insight, wisdom, concern for others, social institutions, physical ability, knowledge...everything is given to us by God. This fact is repeated all over the Bible.
Just think about this one thing. We are commanded to thank God for our food (1 Timothy 4:4-5). Let's say you have a plate of spaghetti and meatballs with a nice salad for dinner, along with a glass of wine and a piece of chocolate cake for dessert. Before you eat, you thank God for giving you this food. So how did God give you that plate of food? The complex web of human beings and human technology that brought that food to your plate would take lots of pages to fully describe. All the way from the agricultural research that took place to grow all the ingredients to the machinery used to till, plant and cultivate to the technology used to proces it and transport it. All the busniess acumen needed to bring it to the store you bought it from at an affordable price. All the research and development and then manufacturing of the utensils used to prepare it and serve. Finally the person who cooked the meal itself. So, who provided you with that great meal? You thanked God, not all the people involved, thus you must believe that God gave and worked in and through all those human beings, institutions and technologies to provide your food. Every time you eat a meal for which you give thanks you show you are trusting God by trusting all these intermediary human processes and tools. So I would ask, how is that different from trusting a smoke detector or a doctor and thanking God for each?
The Bible regularly describes God's people praying and asking him to act and then immediately these same people do something to deal with the problem. They trust God by trusting human work and technology. My family and I are reading through 2 Samuel right now. We just read chapter 15 which recounts how David's son Abasalom fomented a rebellion against King David. When David found out that Abasalom was marching on Jerusalem he and his household and friends had to flee for their lives. As they are fleeing he is told that his most trusted advisor, Ahithophel, is part of the conspiracy. So David prays, "O Lord, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness." So David trusts God to protect him from Ahithophel. However, in the very next verses David tells a trusted friend, Hushai, to return to Jerusalem and to go to Abasolom and tell him that as he served David so he will now serve Abasolom as the new king. He wants him to do this so that he will "defeat for me the counsel of Ahithophel." What's the deal? Is David trusting God or man, God or his own strategy? He is trusting God by trusting his friend Hushai. I would encourage you to see how God answers David's prayer in the chapter 17. This is not an isolated example.
Thus we trust God by trusting God's gifts to us in the human beings and human institutions and human technologies which he provides to us for our welfare. I am trusting God to heal me through the knowledge and wisdom he has given to us through medical research and the resultant technology.
1 comment:
I pray my trust in God grows to rest upon trusting without compromise His sovereignty to accomplish His will for my life, whether it be through human effort or weather or mountains or angels or anything in His creation.
I could never place on equal footing trust in anything else; however, should God inform me through His Word or by way of revelation or by any form He so chooses, to "trust" something within His creation, then so be it.
I pray God would allow me to understand His Will in all things.
Personally I find nothing wrong in an Amish man purposely eliminating something like a smoke detector based on the truth that God is sovereign, for I do not know God's communication with that man.
Neither can or do I find anything wrong with your outlook and conclusions based on God's living Word, John, as contradictory as that may seem.
I am convinced God works with each of us in accordance with what He teaches through His written Word in relation to where He knows we are in understanding and obedience and willingness, as He decides for the purposes only He fully comprehends.
Most of the time it seems we can't see nor do we believe even if told the complex and mighty workings He undertakes in any and all occurrences in all of creation.
Our God can heal or not heal by His own power, or through any means. We will be His instruments to heal, to cast out demons, and to lead people through the wilderness.
As conditions change, the potter may reshape the pot, or he may not.
God help us, help ME, hear your voice and will this day, that I may love and encourage your faithful and more mature saints like brother and pastor John, and carry forth in trusting and obeying you Father, first and foremost.
Forgive me Father if I have offended Your Truth.
In Jesus' name, amen.
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