Faith Like a Child
What was Jesus saying when He said "whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all." (Luke 18:17)?
Many times we look at this passage and ones similar to and say that God wants us to have a faith that is simply accepting without question. It is almost as if we think God wants us to have a blind faith. This really is not what Jesus is talking about. God wants us to approach our faith like scientist approach their work.
Current research from MIT has shown that pre-schoolers look at the world in much the same way that adult scientist do. In essence, children are more likely to accept an unobserved cause for something than random chance. They want to know the cause for events yet they are ok with simply accepting the idea that they may not be able to find. This how God wants us to have faith.
Faith, as defined in Hebrews 11, is the assurance and conviction of things not seen. Coupled with this research one could say that children have faith that there is a cause for every action in this world. Jesus calls us to this same kind of faith. He desires us to seek the reasons for why things happen while all the while accepting, through faith, that we may never understand or see the reason.
This faith though should go beyond what we see happening in our own lives. We are called to come to the Scriptures and the lives of others with the understanding that there are no random events or places. There is no such thing as a isolated event. Our task(s) is to seek the connections and learn from them.
What was Jesus saying when He said "whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all." (Luke 18:17)?
Many times we look at this passage and ones similar to and say that God wants us to have a faith that is simply accepting without question. It is almost as if we think God wants us to have a blind faith. This really is not what Jesus is talking about. God wants us to approach our faith like scientist approach their work.
Current research from MIT has shown that pre-schoolers look at the world in much the same way that adult scientist do. In essence, children are more likely to accept an unobserved cause for something than random chance. They want to know the cause for events yet they are ok with simply accepting the idea that they may not be able to find. This how God wants us to have faith.
Faith, as defined in Hebrews 11, is the assurance and conviction of things not seen. Coupled with this research one could say that children have faith that there is a cause for every action in this world. Jesus calls us to this same kind of faith. He desires us to seek the reasons for why things happen while all the while accepting, through faith, that we may never understand or see the reason.
This faith though should go beyond what we see happening in our own lives. We are called to come to the Scriptures and the lives of others with the understanding that there are no random events or places. There is no such thing as a isolated event. Our task(s) is to seek the connections and learn from them.
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