ACCEPTING THE INVITATION

“Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” (Mat.4: 20 ESV)

            Peter and Andrew were already believers.  They had known Jesus for about a year before He walked up to them and said, “Follow Me”.  He was not a complete stranger.  But I still have to ask myself, why did they leave their nets and follow Him?  If I were in their sandals would I follow Jesus?

Jesus came preaching the Kingdom of God.  Part of what I think appealed to them was the opportunity to be part of something bigger, something significant.  I can see them looking at Him, and then looking at the nets in their hands and weighing the options – continuing on in the same simple, safe, well-known life with their nets, or a place at Jesus’ right hand as He ushered in the Kingdom of God.  And along with this there was the personal challenge to become something more, a fisher of men.  I’m sure they didn’t fully understand what this meant, but being fishermen it must have resonated with them.  It was an offer they couldn’t resist.  There was risk, but there was so much to gain.

There was more.  They had heard Jesus speak, and it was not just your everyday  teaching from the Torah,  Good Jewish men like Peter and Andrew had had plenty of religion, but this was something different.  His teaching moved them - it had a ring of truth and authority about it.  Then there was the day He turned water into wine at the wedding in Canaan. (John 2: 1-12 )  They had never seen anything like that before.  It was no trick, no sleight of hand, this was the power of God.  Jesus was so gentle and loving, especially to the poor and the weak, but the Spirit of God was in Him.

More than all this, when they looked into His eyes they thought, “What is it about this man?  Who is He?”  He was more than genuine.  He was more than good and kind.  He was more than a miracle worker.  It took a while yet to put it into words, but they sensed it, and somewhere deep inside they instinctively knew – He was God.  They couldn’t say no to His invitation to follow.  Can I?  Can you?

FOLLOW

“Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.  Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” (Mat.4: 19, 20 ESV) 

Jesus’ call to Peter and Andrew by the Sea of Galilee seems so abrupt, and their response so extreme. If a stranger walked up to you and said “follow me”, would you do it?  Even if he was Jesus?  In reality, this event occurred about one year into Jesus’ ministry, after the arrest of John the Baptist (Mat. 4:12).  Jesus was no stranger to Peter and Andrew.  They had heard him teach, they had seen him turn water into wine, and all this happened before Jesus issued this amazing command, “follow me.” (John 2:1-12, 3:24).  They were already believers.  This was not a call to believe in him, this was a call to leave their nets and follow him - and it was a call to become something, fishers of men.

I became a believer as a pre-teen.  I dedicated my life to serve God at age 17.  I think of myself as a follower of Jesus.  I’m not sure, however, that I’ve ever truly responded to Jesus’ call to. “Follow me and I will make you (a) fisher(s) of men.”  Frankly the thought scares me, but at the same time I feel excited and I’m drawn to obey.  Jesus does not make it easy.  Following him is not something we can do part time.  It is not something we can just squeeze into the corners of our life where we might have a few minutes for him here or there in our schedule.  To move beyond just believing to truly following him we must drop our nets (all the stuff that occupies us) and give him our full attention.  Jesus, then, takes it upon himself to change us, and make us fishers of men.  Unlike Peter and Andrew we don’t have to leave home, we have to do something that may be harder – follow Jesus and become fishers of men where we live.

The family at Rockside Church is taking April and May to learn together what it means to move beyond just believing to following Jesus.  Next fall we will take two months to complete the process and let Jesus make us fishers of men.  It won’t happen quickly or easily, but through Sunday services and Life Groups in homes we will take our first steps.  Will you join us?  For more information go to www.rocksidechurch.com  or call (216) 650 6780.

FULL DISCLOSURE

To sum up the last few entries, (1) I was awakened to God, (2) since then I have practiced the science of God by coming to know Him personally, and (3) I have benefited great in coming to know Him by studying the priceless record of God’s revelation to mankind.  This priceless record, the Bible, is composed of two main sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament.  The Old Testament was written before the birth of Christ, and its cannon (its list of accepted works), was largely set by the time of Christ.  It was spoken of by Christ and by the writers of the New Testament as being the authoritative record of God’s revelation to mankind.  The New Testament was written by the apostles (those who knew Christ personally and were witnesses of His life, death and resurrection), and others who were directly associated with the apostles.  The cannon of the New Testament was set within a few hundred years after Christ’s death.  

So, why, you may ask, are writings today not accepted as part of the Bible?  Why is the record set?  Learning continues in every other branch of science, and scientific literature is growing at a rapid rate, so again, why limit the Bible to just old literature, and why just this old literature?

The simple answer to this question is that God has made a full disclosure.  He did that by becoming a human being and living here on earth, in a flesh and blood form that we could see and directly learn from.  God fully disclosed Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ.  Everything written in the Old Testament prepared for His arrival, and everything in the New Testament is a record of God’s full disclosure in Christ Jesus.  The author of Hebrews, one of the New Testament books, describes God’s full disclosure in this way, “Going through a long line of prophets God has been addressing our ancestors in different ways for centuries.  Recently he spoke to us directly through His Son… this Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God’s nature.” (Heb. 1:1-5, The Message). 

Jesus perfectly mirrored God’s nature.  He perfectly and completely spoke the truth about who and what God is, what His purposes are for human beings, and what the future holds.  And then Jesus did something really amazing.  He, God in the flesh, freely gave His life for us on the cross.  God, in horrific agony and pain, bridged the gap that separates us from Him.  This act of love was the culmination of His full disclosure.  It is a clear window into the heart of God

A PRICELESS RECORD

            My last few blog entries beginning with An Awakening, speak of a very personal relationship with God.  I have found that God can be known, and it is a delight to know Him.  But is practicing the science of God confined to what I can learn by direct interaction with Him?  If others are practicing the science of God, then certainly I can learn from them, and I will be anxious to learn from them.  We are all getting to know the same God, and being the eternal, infinite God that He is, there is SO much to learn.

            As a scientist I do not work in a vacuum, alone and isolated in my lab.  This last week in a meeting with a few coworkers, someone made an observation about my experimental results that I had not thought of – it was a eureka moment.  In the last few days I have confirmed his observation, and it has led us to some new chemistry that is potentially very useful.  We work as a family, a team, a community of scientists, and that community is big.  There are hundreds of other chemists within our company that I interact with and learn from on a weekly basis, and there are thousands more in universities and other companies who also practice polymer chemistry.  I spend several hours each day learning from them by reading the scientific literature (articles, patents, and books), most of which is now available on the web.  And all of us are reading and building on the work of chemists who have practiced polymer chemistry in the past.  The scientific literature, current and historic, is a priceless record. 

            The science of chemistry as we know it has only been practiced for a few hundred years, but the science of God has been practiced for thousands of years.  As God revealed Himself to those who have come before us, they wrote down what they both heard and saw.  The literature of the science of God is compiled in the Bible.  It is a remarkable collection of works that include history, poetry, letters, and biographies.  More is being written about God every day, but the works contained in the Bible are unique in their authority.  God had something to say, and He made sure that it was said in a clear and complete form – for the sake of all of us who are practicing the science of God.  The Bible is a priceless record of the science of God.

HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW?

How do we know what we know?  I’ll try to avoid being too philosophical, but in order to know God, in order to practice the science of God, this is an important question, so here goes:  I know it is a clear day with sun and clouds as I look out the window of my office.  We have had a string of cloudy and cold late winter days in a row, so the clear weather is a refreshing change.  I’m sure none of you reading this statement doubt what I have said about the weather, but if you do it is easy to check a weather almanac (this observation was made in Strongsville, Ohio at 11:41 on Monday, February 25, 2013).  Easy enough when it comes to the weather, but how do we gain knowledge about God?  He, Himself, is of course the best source, but can we actually come to know the eternal God?  Yes.  I would contend that God is knowable, a personal being, much like us – the Bible states that we were made in His image,

I fell in love with my wife Barbara in July of 1964, but I really did not know her very well.  Now, more than forty years later I can say that I know her better than anyone else on this earth.  How did I gain that knowledge – by firsthand experience that came from constant observation, interaction, and conversation,  Through the birth and raising of four children, through all the trials and joys of life, through career changes, through financial ups and downs, through all that life brought our way over more than four decades together I have grown in my knowledge of Barb.  It is her person that it has taken a life time to come to know.  The color of her eyes and hair, her height and features can be known in a moment, but I didn't fall in love with them, I fell in love with her person, and it is the person of Barb that I have desired to know. 

The person of God can be known in much the same way.  I stated in an earlier entry entitled An Affair of the Heart that “Spiritual awakenings remain a mystery to me… God approaches us, we respond, and our hearts are engaged with his.”  It begins with an awareness that God exists, and His invitation that is extended to us to know Him.  He reveals Himself to us much like Barb over time revealed more of her inner person to me.  The knowledge of God begins with an awakening, and it grows as we pursue Him, and live our lives interactively with Him.  This is the science of God.  Books about God cannot give us this knowledge.  Practicing the science of God involves ongoing, up close, and personal interaction with Him.

THE SCIENCE OF GOD

            I have already stated that science is incapable of proving or disproving the existence of God,* so, it may appear that I am contradicting myself by writing an entry entitled, “The Science of God.”  Sorry – I just can’t resist, and I hope you will cut me a little slack with the title and read on.

            As I have stated, science is a tool for gaining knowledge.  The practice of science involves (1) gathering data in a systematic fashion, (2) formulating theories – mental constructs that fit the data, approximating reality to some degree, (3) designing and conducting more experiments to gather additional data, and (4) using this new data to perfect our theories or construct new theories.  Science is a powerful tool.  With it we have amassed enormous amounts of information about the universe, our earth, and life as we know it.  God, however, is not made of matter and energy as we know it.  He is transcendent, so science as we practice it – the natural sciences including astronomy, geology, biology, chemistry, and physics - are not capable of gathering data about God.  Simply put, He cannot be seen with a telescope or a microscope, He cannot be weighed or measured, and He certainly cannot be put into a test tube.

            But, if science is a tool for gathering information, then I do in a sense practice the science of God – and so do others.**  I have in fact made the science of God the most important field of study in my life.  No, I do not perform experiments on God.  It would be more correct to say that God performs experiments on me.  I stated in my previous entry, I live in two worlds.  I see God as truly as my eyes see this paper while I scribble out a draft of this blog entry.  As I seek a deeper knowledge of Him, He reveals Himself to me.  In practicing the science of God I do not gather data and formulate theories, I gain understanding about God as He reveals Himself to me.  My understanding about what He is like is constantly being refined.  He is what He is – calling Himself in the Old Testament “I am”.  I have not created a god to fit my needs or my expectations.  He is not what I want Him to be, and He is not what you want Him to be.  He is what He is, eternal and unchanging.  He can be known, and I am on a quest to know Him.  I am practicing the science of God.

*See my earlier entries entitled “The Artist”, “More on the Artist”, and “The Science of Biscuits”

**Karl Barth writes in his Evangelical Theology, “Theology is one among those human undertakings traditionally described as “sciences”.  Not only the natural sciences are sciences… The word “theology” seems to signify a special science, a very special science, whose task is to apprehend, understand, and speak of “God”.”