I had two interesting experiences this last week.
The first one was an hour spent standing in the vegetable section of the grocery store talking religion with an atheist friend of mine. It was interesting in two ways. First of all I was surprised at his depth of belief in "chaos theory." It shouldn't have surprised me, since I found out he did his doctoral thesis on it. In brief chaos theory believes that all things are connected, not through God, but just through chance. The most popular statement of it is that if a butterfly waves its wings in the Amazon basin the results can be a typhoon in Japan. At least that is my understanding of it, but since I never completed my Master's thesis, I may be wrong. The main thrust of our conversation was that he doesn't believe in an almighty God Who created the universe(s) and I do. I'm not sure that I moved him from his stance, and I know he didn't move me from my faith. However, he did bring me two popular books written by and about atheists. I'm reading one right now. Very interesting, if you ignore the statements that don't take the context into account and miss the actual meanings of the words. But then there have been many supposed Christians who have taken the bits and pieces out of the Bible that they wanted and ignored the rest, so I guess it works just as well for those that profess to be atheists. The interesting thing about the hour we spent was not so much the topic, but the fact that I stood there quietly and rationally disagreed with his statements, even offering statements of my own that refuted what he said. There was a time in my life when I would have stood there at a loss for words. What a wonderful feeling.
The second interesting thing occurred after Bible Study Wednesday night. We were talking about the study we had gone over that night, and how we could present the Word of God to others. One of the ladies said that I could spend all of my time preaching about "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." If I did that, she said, then I would be able to preach the same message every Sunday, and people would still listen. It reminded me of an interview with Billy Graham. The interviewer asked Mr. Graham what he was going to preach on that night, and he answered, “The same thing I always preach on, John 3:16.”
Any comments from anyone out there in cyber world?
