Pie Buddy: Daniel Russ
Topic: An absolute truth
We approached the starting line for Round 2, and I had a
good feeling about this one right from the beginning. St Georges is an
award-winning bakery (Australian pie of the year 2011 or something like that),
and everything I had ever had from here has been top notch. Daniel, my special
guest for this bakery run, is a Melbourne boy who has recently moved over to
Adelaide. I couldn’t afford to take him somewhere sub-standard and give my
proud state a bad name. So, after a walk up Mount Lofty, it was time for a
well-earned feed.
And we certainly weren’t let down. My steak and pepper pie
was out of this world – impressive size, perfect flaky pastry, flavoursome,
lots of meat inside – everything you could ask for in a pie. The caramel slice
was delicious as well. At $8.30 for both, it was quite reasonably priced.
Daniel got the steak and mushroom pie, which he also raved about, and washed it
down with a Farmer’s Union (gotta love South Australia!). Excellent service, a
good range of pies and pastries, plenty of space – this was a bakery experience
that was going to be hard to top!
We had a seat outside (lots of available seating – another
definite bonus) and got chatting. “If there is such a thing as an absolute
truth,” Daniel asked, “how, as Christians, do we convince people of this? And
what stops people from acknowledging that truth?”
“And when you say an objective truth,” I asked, “ you mean
that the Christian message is true, that Jesus died for our sins and the only
way to salvation is through him?”
“Yeah that’s right,” Daniel replied. “Jesus is the absolute truth. But then so many
people today don’t accept that as an absolute truth like they recognise other
absolute truths. If I said the sky was blue, people can accept that as an
absolute truth, because it’s scientifically verifiable. You can back that up by
analysing how the light refracts to produce something in that range of the
colour spectrum. But with Christianity it’s not quite like that. I heard a talk
the other day where the speaker was defending Christianity based on science.
And his argument was good, but I don’t think you can prove Christianity beyond
reasonable doubt using science, because science is about observations, and
Christianity is based on faith, believing what isn’t seen.”
This is one of the difficulties of defending the Christian
faith. As assured as a Christian is in their own faith, presenting the
Christian message as an objective truth to people who don’t believe it – and,
moreover, convincing them of that truth – is another thing altogether. People
want absolute proof for the things they believe in. Where there is any doubt,
there is license to hold on to unbelief.
“I definitely think some people would deny Jesus even if he
was here today,” Daniel continued. “Look at what happened with the Pharisees in
the New Testament. They held that the Law was the only way to God, and then
they added extra stuff to that Law, even though they were forbidden from doing
so. That was their absolute truth. Jesus came along, made it clear who he
claimed to be, and challenged their absolute truth. Instead of following him,
they clung to their absolute truth.”
“And now we see the same thing happening in a sense today,”
I said. “People enjoy the things they have, and wouldn’t want to subscribe to
any worldview that would ask them to give these things up. And so they close
their eyes to the idea of Jesus being the absolute truth, because it would be
an inconvenience to them.”
“Yeah, and it’s really sad to see,” Daniel replied. “They’ve
been offered a free gift, and they’re not even interested. I think people also
dislike what the Christian message says about us as people. People think
they’re good, but Christianity says that we’re not good – we’re doomed unless
we truly know and trust in Jesus. Some people hear this message, take it on
board and radically change. Some people find it easier just to ignore.”
“The Christian message is really quite offensive isn’t it?”
I replied. “It’s essentially saying ‘you’re not good enough.’ And people resent
that.”
“And that’s such an immature perspective,” Daniel said.
“People think their way is the right way, whereas in reality God’s way is the
right way, and he offers to save us.”
From my point of view, what Daniel said has hit the nail on
the head, and highlighted one of the great difficulties of being a Christian in
a fallen world. It really is sad to see people offered the free gift of
salvation, eternal life in God’s presence and the fulfilment of what we were
created to be, but rejecting it because it will stop them enjoying things in
this lifetime. C.S. Lewis once likened it to a small child ignoring the offer
of a beach holiday because he was enjoying making mud castles in his backyard.
As a Christian, there is nothing you could give me that would come close to
matching the joy I have in knowing God.
The apostle Paul, writing while in prison, describes how
nothing the world has to offer could compare with what he has received through
his relationship with Jesus:
I consider everything
a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I might
gain Christ. (Philippians 3:8)
“So as Christians,” I asked Daniel, “how do we respond to
this do you think?”
“We have this knowledge,” he replied, “so why keep it to
ourselves. How could you discover something so life-changing and not tell
people?”
His response reminded me of a talk I had heard recently,
where the speaker likened being a Christian to being on a sinking boat with
other people who don’t know the boat is sinking. You know the boat is sinking,
you know where the life rafts are, surely no one would remain silent in those
circumstances. It’s a good analogy, I think, for the urgency of evangelism. And
it’s also important to remember that it’s not ultimately up to us to get the
people off the boat. All we can do is tell them that the boat is sinking and
show them the life rafts. Likewise with evangelism, we are called to give a
full, prayerful effort to point people to Jesus, but it will ultimately be
God’s strength, not ours, that gets them over the line. It’s a comforting
reminder.
“Christians can get caught up in traditions or whatever, and
leave God out of the picture,” Daniel continued. If we don’t have a constant
desire to see people come to faith, we’re not being loving, so we’re leaving
God out of the picture. Christianity isn’t a set of rules to be followed, it’s
about God’s love for us. We need to make that clear. We need to be able to tell
non-Christians that we don’t think we’re better than them. Following Jesus
doesn’t make you a good person. But it makes you forgiven and saved. That’s the
absolute truth.”
Like the pie, that conversation was quite meaty and very
satisfying. It’s important as Christians not only to understand God’s truth,
but to do all that we can to share this truth with those who don’t yet believe
it. How unloving would it be to know such good news but to not share it with
those who truly need it. Daniel had brilliantly pinpointed the sadness of
seeing people ignore God’s saving love for us. This sadness stems from our
desire to see God properly glorified and the love that God calls us to have for
each other. My prayer from today is that all people who know Jesus (myself
included) would constantly be motivated to do all that we can, in complete
dependence on God’s saving power, to point people towards him.
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