If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. — James 1:5–8 (NKJV)
He who doubts? Doubts what?
That it’s all true—that Jesus is who He claimed to be.
And for the first-century Christian (and for us), this all hinges on one thing—that He rose from the dead.
While Jesus was in the grave, His disciples were confused and depressed. They were, for a few days, like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.
Then the risen Jesus showed up.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall.
Ha! Yeah, that must have been a moment for the ages—literally.
Yesterday’s lesson was on the value of trials. There is no better example of this than the back-breaking trial the disciples went through while Jesus was in the grave.
Imagine the confusion. Imagine the pain. Imagine the questions they asked each other as they looked for answers to impossible questions.
And it was all a set-up. When Jesus showed up and flipped the script, the release of pressure would have killed a weak heart.
So, the disciples went from total doubt to total certainty in the blink of an eye.
Actually, no they didn’t, and that’s the lesson. When Thomas refused to accept what his eyes were telling him, he was acting normally. What he said that day was what many of the other disciples could have been thinking.
The mind does not switch gears easily. Humans are wired to have a consistent, coherent view of reality (sometimes called a worldview). This keeps us sane. We process everything through the lens of our worldview.
Any major disruption is not easily processed. In fact, we often outright ignore anything that contradicts our worldview. It “doesn’t make sense,” so it’s quickly forgotten.
You’re saying that everyone is, in a sense, closed-minded. That’s pretty strong. Can you give me an example?
Well, we all believe that the past is fixed. We can lie about, or forget about, the past, but we cannot change it. If something were to come up that challenged this view, we wouldn’t just go, “Oh, I see,” and change our minds. This new idea would be a super hard sell. Doubt would rule.
I can’t even picture that. Try again.
Okay, how about my earlier lesson how crucifixion kills. The idea that people suffocate has been well known—and believed—for many decades. You have even heard of it. Even though you had no stake in that point of view, how easy was it for you to change your mind?
And what about someone who had previously taught the suffocation theory? Having a stake in, or a significant history with, a particular point of view increases that effect. Zugibe’s evidence is solid, yet his theory has been slow to catch on.
I guess I can see that.
Maybe a more general case is how slow Einstein’s Theory of Relativity was to catch on in the early 1900’s. It didn’t exactly contradict anything; it was just so mind-bendingly different that people just couldn’t adjust. You could call it an acquired taste.
Come to think of it, the whole concept of acquired tastes might explain this better than anything else.
And there’s another deeper example. This is how optical illusions work. What you “see” is what your mind thinks is there based on prior experience. Thus, it’s subject to error.
Okay. Let’s get off this tangent and return to your point.
So it was with Jesus’s resurrection. Death is, by definition, irreversible. If your condition is reversable, you’re not dead. The disciples couldn’t just instantly process and accept the new reality of resurrection. The human mind just doesn’t work that way.
That makes sense.
This is connected to James’s point about doubt leading to instability. The same psychological effect that we call closed-mindedness, we could also describe as stability.
You’re resistant to things you are confident can’t be right and/or real. That’s usually a good thing, though it can be wrong if your confidence isn’t well placed.
I see that generally. How does that apply to James’s point?
One has to have fully incorporated the resurrection into their worldview or they’re in a state of confusion.
Got it. On to tomorrow!
