A question (or objection) I hear regularly in my travels to college campuses is why God doesn’t make himself known to everyone, plainly and clearly.
One skeptical student put it this way:
“Your god sends billions of people to hell for not believing in him — but provides no clear evidence that he’s there at all. Why not just show up where everyone can see him? Why all the cat-and-mouse? Maybe it’s because he doesn’t actually exist.”
Indeed. Common sense says that a crystal clear revelation of God to humanity would stimulate belief in most everyone:
- Maybe sky-writing or a text scrolling across the moon would be helpful, such as: “Greetings. This is Jesus. I am your Creator and Savior . . .”
- Or at least one undeniable personal appearance to every human being in all history.
- Or perhaps a mountain temple where you could go to witness, first-hand, the face of God and hear his voice. A place to establish or reaffirm your faith.
Yet, in the ministry of Jesus it seems he rarely provides an indisputable case for the Christ. The case is always disputable. And what’s baffling to many is that Jesus seems to want it this way.
In Mark 4 he says that to those on the “outside,” that is, outside his close ring of disciples, “everything is in parables,” so that they will see but not perceive, hear but not understand — lest they turn and be forgiven.
These verses are head-scratchers for many Bible readers. I’ll say something about this in my next post.
Photo courtesy of Exsodus at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
