These are the notes for a recent Alpha Course session, based on the corresponding chapter from Nicky Gumbel's study book "Questions For Life" but adapted for the more open theological context of a typical parish church. The session lasted just over an hour and a half including time for prayer at the beginning and end.
I value Alpha, but feel that the material as it stands is too heavily oriented to the needs of middle class urban Evangelical churches (not unlike HTB itself). I personally think that the following approach offers enquirers and new believers a more accessible and encouraging action plan than sticking closely to the original.
Setting the Scene
·
Brainstorm
Think of a one-word synonym – a different word as close as possible in
meaning – for faith.
Come back here at the end of the study, and see if
you have changed your mind.
·
Silent
reflection
Let me stress right away that there’s no right or wrong answer to this next
question, but here goes: Can you say that there was a certain moment in your
life when you started to be a Christian? You may not be able to remember
the specific date and time, but was there some moment in the past before
which you didn't see yourself as a Christian, and after which you did?
Of course, you may be one of those people who can’t remember a time in
their life when they weren’t Christian. Or perhaps you know for sure that you
are not a Christian. Then again, you may be one of the countless people who are
unsure whether the word Christian applies to them or not.
Either way, think about your answer and in particular think how you feel
about it. As I said before, there’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer, but is your
answer reassuring to you personally, or does it cause you some kind of
discomfort. Don’t be afraid to discuss your thoughts with someone trustworthy.
Puzzled With Faith
(a personal testimony)
What I’m going to say may sound strange, because we
encounter so many church-people who are assertive about their beliefs to the
point where they can make us feel uncomfortable. But I think one of the biggest
problems facing the Church is that it is crammed with people who are uncertain
as to whether they’re really Christians at all.
Let me introduce you to Gladys (an imaginary person). She goes
to church regularly. She reads the Bible. She prays. And she has a desperate
urge to belong. But then every Sunday she looks around St. Ethelburga’s or
wherever it is she goes, and she sees others who are so much more involved than
she is, so much more on fire with their faith, seemingly so confident and assured
and at peace. And every week she thinks, “Am I really a Christian? Am I really
saved? Do I really believe enough of the right stuff? Am I doing enough of the right stuff?” The problem is, Gladys has never
heard anyone else express the same doubts and questions that go through her mind,
and as long as she thinks she’s the odd one out she’s never going to step out
in faith.
This was very much my own early experience of faith. There
was definitely a time before which I wasn’t a Christian at all, at least not what
I now think of as a Christian. But even after my conversion experience, I simply
didn’t feel as if I had any real faith. I wanted to believe all the
supernatural stuff. Sometimes I almost convinced myself that I did; more often
I didn’t. But I never let on because no one around me seemed to share my doubts
or questions.
·
Can you
identify with that feeling? Or can you remember being made to feel that way in
the past?
The question for this study is, “How Can I Have Faith?” And
that’s a critically important question,
because the church is crammed with people struggling to feel as if they really
belong. And being assured that we belong to God and one another is the
birthright of every Christian.
·
Read 1
John 5:13 – then see if you can state John’s reason for writing this letter in
everyday English.
We should aim to go away from this discussion with a clearer
idea of what real faith looks like and feels like. Then we should be able to recognise
and give thanks for the faith we already have, and also have a clearer idea of
what to aim for in the months and years ahead. We need to have some idea of the
strategies for growing our faith. And our starting point has to be thinking
about what faith really is. That’s the cue for a thinking question:
·
The great
religious reformer Martin Luther intensely disliked one particular book of the
Bible: the Letter of James (to be found near the end of the New Testament).
Indeed, he went so far as to question whether it should ever have been included
in the Bible. And most of his dislike came down to one particular verse.
By way of explanation, Luther had
single-handedly rediscovered the great doctrine that salvation is based on faith
rather than on being a good person. He’d taken massive personal risks to spread
his teaching. The political repercussions of his work were so devastating,
there were calls for him to be put to death on sight. He could not afford for
his protectors and patrons to waver in their support for him. And yet there in
the Bible was a passage that seemed to directly contradict his teaching.
Have a look at the two short passages from the
NT attached as an appendix (one from Ephesians which sums up Luther’s view, and
one from James) and see if you think there is really a contradiction.
What is ‘Faith’
really about?
In the Alpha course book, “Questions of Life”, Nicky Gumbel
takes care to explain that being assured in our faith is like a tripod – a
tripod whose three legs are the three members of the Trinity: God the Father,
God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
Firstly, the work of God
the Father.
Nicky explains that if you were to ask him for evidence that
he’s married, he would show you the documentation, i.e. his marriage
certificate. And if you asked him for evidence that he was a Christian, he
would similarly reach for documentary evidence – in this case the Bible. He goes on to remind us that our knowledge of
God is based not on feelings but on facts. And the key facts are God’s promises
scattered throughout Scripture. Our feelings are deceptive, treacherous even; they
go up and down according to our moods and all the things going on in our lives.
In contrast, the promises of God are unchanging from day to day and from age to
age. We can spend a lifetime exploring and claiming God’s promises in the
Bible, but Nicky points to one famous quotation as really summing up what they
are all about.
·
Read Revelation
3:20 – what is being promised here?
Once you know you’ve said Yes to God, you can be sure that
you’ve have inherited all God’s promises regardless of whether your feelings
back you up.
Secondly, the work of
Jesus, God the Son.
What is Jesus’ role in giving us faith and assurance? Going
back to the marriage illustration, Nicky says that if his marriage certificate
wasn’t good enough for you, he’d refer you to the historical events of his
wedding day. In my case that would be the
25th May 1991, when several dozen people witnessed Kate and me
saying ‘I Will’. Several of those people recorded the event in photos, videos and
written messages at the time. And most of them are still around to act as
witnesses to what actually happened.
Similarly, our faith is based on actual events that took
place in the past. Like our wedding, those events were witnessed by real
people, some of whom were still around decades later to answer questions and
correct any misunderstandings. Christianity
is an historical faith, based on historical facts. And one verse above all sums
up what was going on.
·
Read John
3:16 – what is being stated here?
What it boils down to is that God offers peace and belonging
as a free gift to anyone who will accept it. The central truth about Jesus is
that in Him, God himself was coming down to experience human life and absorb the
consequences of human rebellion. Faith properly understood is not struggling to
believe unbelievable stories as a way of trying to earn a place in Heaven. Rather, faith begins when we accept that Christ
has already done everything necessary
and we choose to live our lives in a fitting way.
That’s the importance of what James writes in the Bible.
Just believing something doesn’t necessarily change our behaviour or our
relationships or our status in God’s eyes. One of the Bible authors points out
that demons have no trouble believing the truth about God, but it doesn’t do
anything for them – it simply makes them shudder.
Yes, believing the claims Jesus made for himself is important. But learning to believe is
part of our journey of faith. And getting us demoralised over the parts we
can’t believe at this point in time… that’s one of the ways in which the Devil tries
hardest to undermine our faith. The confusion that so many people experience is
due on a mis-understanding of what the
Bible authors meant by belief, and we’ll come onto it in a minute.
Thirdly and finally,
the work of God the Holy Spirit. In talking about the evidence that he’s
married, Nicky Gumbel referred firstly to the documentation and then to the historic
events of his wedding day. And finally, for anyone demanding yet further
evidence, he talks about his experience
of being married, of living with his wife and being in a special relationship
with her. And the final pillar of faith and assurance is similar: the experience
shared by countless Christians of knowing God personally through the Holy
Spirit living inside us.
In simple terms, from the moment we say Yes to Jesus, we
carry a spark of the divine right within us. And according to St. Paul we can
be certain that we have that seal placed upon us because no one can say yes to
Jesus without the Spirit’s prompting.
The Holy Spirit makes his presence felt in two particularly
important ways:
1.
He transforms us from the inside, making us grow
more and more like Jesus.
o
Read
Galatians 5:22-23 and think about this: Why are these ‘fruits of the Spirit’ such
reliable evidence of faith?
We should start seeing some of the fruits of the Spirit as soon as we
place trust in Jesus. It doesn’t mean that
we immediately stop doing wrong, but as time goes on we experience a growing
appetite to learn more about God and get more involved in his work. And in a
similar way the Spirit will prompt us to take more interest in other people for
their own sake; to seek peace, to relieve suffering and challenge oppression
and injustice. If you see any of this happening to you, even in a modest way like
coming along to a study group, you can be sure that it’s the Holy Spirit
working in your life.
2.
The Holy Spirit brings us an inner experience of
God. He allows us to directly experience his presence, and gives us fresh insights
into areas that would once have been closed to us. Sometimes he endows us with
gifts and skills that we were never aware of having in the past.
To give a personal example, I was a Christian for decades before I had
the slightest inkling that I could stand up and speak in front of an audience.
I was too self-conscious, too tongue-tied to even consider it. Then, just as Kate
and I were settling down together and looking for a new direction in our lives,
I was sent on a long management course at the end of which we would each have
to give a forty minute presentation judged by a director of the company. I was
anxious for weeks leading up to the big event, but on the day I just found
myself in the zone, and nobody was more surprised than I was when mine emerged
as one of the slickest performances of the whole two-day event.
This wasn’t just a new skill; it was part of a conversation in which God
answered my questions as to what I should be doing with my life. I began exploring Christian vocations, and
that process has eventually led both Kate and me to where we are now. Most
importantly of all, it was the point at which I finally accepted that God
really did have a purpose for my life. That was assurance. That was faith. But
by that time the most important question was no longer “Does God really exist?”
but “What does He want me to do?”
Is Faith the Same as Belief?
Nicky
Gumbel is very keen to drive home one particular point: There is nothing
arrogant about being sure that we belong to God and his church. Assurance is no
more than a humble recognition of what God has promised, what Jesus died to
achieve, and what the Spirit is doing in our lives.
But
in spite of all these sources of assurance, we can still get hung up on that
issue I mentioned earlier. If salvation is for those who believe, what does it mean to believe. I’ve known people
certain that there’s a God but tormented with the fear that they don’t believe firmly
enough to be saved. In contrast, I’ve known people desperate to follow Jesus, who despaired of
ever being able to accept the reality of anything invisible or supernatural,
much less a God or an afterlife.
And
the problem people face is precisely this: The 19th and 20th
centuries have conditioned us to use the word belief in a sense that would have been unfamiliar to the Bible
writers and the great Christian thinkers of history. To the modern scientific
mindset, we can only know something if we have physical evidence for it. And in
the absence of physical evidence there is no such thing as half-knowledge, no
such thing as a safe assumption. Faith and belief are increasingly dismissed by
our society as primitive, immature, even irrational, even to some people (e.g.
Richard Dawkins) actually immoral.
But
the Bible writers rarely if ever stopped to ask, “Is this true? If so, what’s
the evidence for it?” Of course they experienced times of questioning and doubt
– the Psalms are full of it. But when the Bible authors talk about believing in Jesus, when they call on
people to have faith, they’re addressing a completely different issue: not one
of evidence but one of commitment and trust. Not “How can you eliminate doubts
and questions?” but rather this: “How do you show your commitment to the truths
you have decided to live by?” or this: “What does trusting that Jesus has done
everything necessary mean for the way you should live your life?”
Do
you see how this take on belief and faith is profoundly challenging but at the
same time profoundly reassuring?
It’s
challenging because it doesn’t leave us free to sit on our backsides ignoring
the needs of others while we take refuge in our so-called religious beliefs. As
the epistle of James so shrewdly puts it, it calls us to action.
But
at the same time it’s reassuring, because it doesn’t require that we sit
agonising over which bits of theology we accept as factually true – the very
issue that’s the biggest stumbling block for most modern people. It simply
says, accept that you’re a Christian and get on with acting like one. And the
beautiful thing is that the more you act like a Christian, the more you get
involved in his work, the more you step out in trust that God has a purpose for
your life, the more you find yourself believing.
·
Imagine
someone who is in the position I was a few years ago: wanting to be a Christian
in the fullest sense of the word, but struggling to believe all the details in
order to feel certain of being saved.
Come up with three practical suggestions that will help their faith to
grow.
APPENDIX: MARTIN LUTHER AND THE LETTER
OF JAMES
“For it is by grace
you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the
gift of God—
not by works, so that no one can boast.”
(Ephesians 2:8-9)
“What
good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no
deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without
clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and
well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the
same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
(James
2:14-17)