Evidence for Faith. The phrase in itself is thought provoking, because in significant ways faith actually comes before evidence. If you assume that all things have a natural explanation, or if a natural explanation can be articulated then that must be what is most true, then it is likely that whatever evidence you find will be interpreted within that framework of thinking.
If you anticipate the involvement of a Divine Intelligence of some kind, or are open to the possibility, the same evidence might lead you to a different conclusion.
So maybe the better question to raise might have less to do with "evidence for faith" and more to do with "what kind of 'faith' do you bring to the evidence?"
It is challenging to think about all the possible perspectives and conclusions that can arise out of the same piece of evidence. It is also challenging to resist the temptation to simply discount those parts of the evidence that don't fit with our faith, rather than continue to think and ponder what we might be missing and how the picture we have might be made more complete. While some believers fear this, worried that if we think too much it might somehow lead us away from faith in God, there are also very intriguing stories of those who did not begin as believers, and who because they did just that, discovered that what actually makes the most sense is to believe. C.S. Lewis comments on this somewhere in his writings by saying, "A young atheist cannot be too careful what he reads." And more recent books like "There is a God," by Antony Flew, also chronicle how even one of the world's most notorious atheists can change their minds.
And so we find ourselves in the midst of "evidence." What do we see? What does it say to us? How do we know what the evidence has to say to us about God? In the passage that Pastor Chris explores this week, John's account of the feeding of the 5,000, we have an opportunity to think about this again as John describes Jesus as inviting humans into the midst of a problem where evidence emerges that is designed to tell us something important. What might that be?
Click Here to listen again to Pastor Chris' sermon
John 6:1-15 (TNIV)
1 Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), 2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. 3 Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. 4 The Jewish Passover Festival was near.
5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
7 Philip answered him, "It would take almost a year's wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!"
8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, 9 "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"
10 Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
14 After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, "Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world." 15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
As you listen carefully to the story
What kind of "evidence" do you find here that reinforces your faith?
Imagine yourself as one of the people who were there that day, experiencing all that happened. As you walk away, what is it really that impresses you the most and grounds your faith?
John records what Jesus hoped people would take away from their experience that day in the verses that follow (John 6:25 and on to the end of the chapter).
What, according to John, does it seem like Jesus most wants them to take away from the experience?
Is there a kind of evidence that they missed that Jesus most wanted them to notice?
Is there a way that we too can miss what God most wants us to notice by focusing on the wrong kind of evidence as being most important?
Thinking a bit more broadly at the moment, have you considered that when it comes to "sharing our faith" with people today, that what we might find "convincing" might be different from what they would? How willing are we to come to terms with the idea that we don't all think or even process information the same way? How important is it to try to make people think like us first, rather than understand how they think and find common ground to meet on?
4 Suggestions from Pastor Chris:
1. Remember we don't have all the evidence, but we have enough evidence
2. Our culture today is not the same as the culture was even a couple od decades ago. This means we need to take time to understand each other.
3. We need to understand how much our own faith perspective effects what we see and what we notice.
4. The most important thing we can do is learn to listen well before we speak.
There is more than one way to tell this story. In fact, in the New Testament alone, it is told four times (being one of a few stories that are told in all four gospels) Take a few moment to compare and contrast the way the other gospel writers tell the story.