Discussion questions at the end of each chapter are designed to help leaders of small groups. Also available when purchasing the book is access to a free video trailer and an audio recording of the author's sermons as another way to experience the weekly message.
Discussion questions at the end of each chapter are designed to help leaders of small groups. Also available when purchasing the book is access to a free video trailer and an audio recording of the author's sermons as another way to experience the weekly message.
eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Discussion questions at the end of each chapter are designed to help leaders of small groups. Also available when purchasing the book is access to a free video trailer and an audio recording of the author's sermons as another way to experience the weekly message.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781501804342 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Abingdon Press |
| Publication date: | 09/15/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 112 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Shadow of a Doubt
Confronting Challenges to Faith
By Talbot Davis
Abingdon Press
Copyright © 2015 Abingdon PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5018-0434-2
CHAPTER 1
BELIEVE IT AND NOT
"I have faith; help my lack of faith!" (Mark 9:24)
I conducted a little experiment in getting ready for this series called The Shadow of a Doubt. I anticipated the series so much that as I prepared for it, I did something I've never done before: I took an online poll. On the Good Shepherd Church Facebook page, I posted a simple question about faith and doubt and asked people to respond. I asked the online community, which includes both Christians and non-Christians, "What is the source of your doubts? When it comes to your faith, what doubts do you bring to the table?" This open- ended, two-part question invited people to share any and all doubts they had about God, or Jesus, or the church, or heaven and hell, or themselves, or anything else that might relate to their faith. I knew that I would get a lot of responses, and I did. Here are some of the answers I received:
Whenever a young life is taken, or stolen, especially in a violent manner, I always ask, "Why?" If everything on earth belongs to God, including the children, why does he allow those things to happen?
I get to the point where I feel helpless ... there are so many poor and suffering people ... I feel like we aren't making a dent.
I doubted my faith and his love when I lost my best friend to cancer.
Wonder why some babies are born with deficiencies when they haven't had a chance yet and the mother did all the right things during pregnancy.
Sometimes when prayer goes unanswered or the outcome is bad I doubt if praying makes a difference.
I don't think there's room on Facebook for all mine. ...
Some of those doubts may be your doubts; you might even feel like that last person, the one whose doubts would fill Facebook. And the answers that came in privately, which I can't share, were even more painful and poignant than the ones printed above.
IN THE GAP, THE SHADOW OF DOUBT MAKES ITS HOME.
But the reason I did that survey about doubt — and the reason I'm doing this series — is that I have them too. I have doubts. Doubts about God, and Jesus, and the Bible. I proclaim a gospel of faith, and I too live in doubt's shadow. Is God real, or am I perpetuating some kind of heavenly pyramid scheme on the poor people of Good Shepherd? And if God does exist, is God real for me? If I can struggle through that first doubt to believe that God exists and all those smart atheists are wrong, what's it like to believe God exists for me? Is the God out there at all concerned or involved with my life? There are other doubts, too: What happens to the souls of people who've never heard of Jesus? Why did blood have to be shed for sins to be forgiven? Why did God allow acne and male pattern baldness? I have important and trivial doubts about all sorts of things related to my Christian faith.
I'm willing to bet that I'm not the only one who has ever considered these and other issues and, through it all, wondered if it wouldn't just be easier to stop believing. I don't care what that song by Journey ("Don't Stop Believin'") says, sometimes I think that if I can just stop believing, it would make things better. It's hard to live in tension, where the faith I have and the faith I want to have are not the same. There's this faith and confidence we all wish we had, and then there's the faith that we actually do have. There's a gap between the two — sometimes spanning a great distance — and in that gap, the shadow of doubt makes its home.
In that gap is where the father we find in Mark 9 makes his home as well. As we will see, he is surrounded by the shadow of doubt. This is one of my favorite stories in Scripture, and it has one of the greatest lines the whole Bible. We'll get to that line shortly; but to fully grasp its power, we have to read the whole story leading up to it. The account of this father with a demon-possessed son takes place in Mark 9:14-29:
14 When Jesus, Peter, James, and John approached the other disciples, they saw a large crowd surrounding them and legal experts arguing with them. 15 Suddenly the whole crowd caught sight of Jesus. They ran to greet him, overcome with excitement. 16 Jesus asked them, "What are you arguing about?"
17 Someone from the crowd responded, "Teacher, I brought my son to you, since he has a spirit that doesn't allow him to speak. 18 Wherever it overpowers him, it throws him into a fit. He foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and stiffens up. So I spoke to your disciples to see if they could throw it out, but they couldn't."
19 Jesus answered them, "You faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I put up with you? Bring him to me."
20 They brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a fit. He fell on the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. 21 Jesus asked his father, "How long has this been going on?"
He said, "Since he was a child. 22 It has often thrown him into a fire or into water trying to kill him. If you can do anything, help us! Show us compassion!"
23 Jesus said to him, "'If you can do anything'? All things are possible for the one who has faith."
24 At that the boy's father cried out, "I have faith; help my lack of faith!"
25 Noticing that the crowd had surged together, Jesus spoke harshly to the unclean spirit, "Mute and deaf spirit, I command you to come out of him and never enter him again." 26 After screaming and shaking the boy horribly, the spirit came out. The boy seemed to be dead; in fact, several people said that he had died. 27 But Jesus took his hand, lifted him up, and he arose.
28 After Jesus went into a house, his disciples asked him privately, "Why couldn't we throw this spirit out?"
29 Jesus answered, "Throwing this kind of spirit out requires prayer."
Look at how it starts in 9:14-15: "When Jesus, Peter, James, and John approached the other disciples. ..." Peter, James, and John have been with Jesus. These are some of the more well-known disciples, something like Jesus' own inner circle. You might think of them as the "A-Team" among the disciples. These three disciples have just been on top of a mountain with Jesus, as we read earlier in Mark 9:2-13. And while they were on this mountain, they saw Jesus become transfigured. That's the language church folk use to describe what happened to Jesus on the mountain, in front of Peter, James, and John. Another word for it is transformed. It was as if he turned inside out, revealing his true, inner self to his most trusted disciples. When he did, Jesus' inner self appeared as a brilliant, blinding light, with his clothes becoming purely, radiantly white. Through this and a series of other events on the mountain top, Jesus demonstrates to the awestruck Peter, James, and John that he is not godly; he is God. There is a difference. Jesus is not holy; he is holiness itself. He does not have light; he is light. He is not godly; he is God. At Good Shepherd, we sing a song ("Jesus, Only Jesus") that says, "You stand alone, and I stand amazed." That is what happens on the mountain as Peter, James, and John witness Jesus transfigured to reveal his true glory. As they descend from that literal mountaintop, a crowd at the bottom of the mountain rushes to greet Jesus, "overcome with excitement" (9:15). It appears that some of that radiant glory still rests on Jesus.
THE LIFE-GIVER VERSUS THE LIFE-STEALER.
As Jesus and his A-Team disciples, Peter, James, and John, come down from the mountain, he finds the rest of his followers arguing (verse 14). The B-Team disciples (what else would you call the group that includes Judas?) are surrounded by a crowd and caught in an argument with legal experts. While Peter, James, and John went up on the mountain for a holy light show, the rest of the disciples stayed back and had gotten themselves into a religious fight.
In verses 17-18, someone from the crowd steps out and tells Jesus the source of the argument: "Teacher, I brought my son to you, since he has a spirit that doesn't allow him to speak. Whenever it overpowers him, it throws him into a fit. He foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and stiffens up. So I spoke to your disciples to see if they could throw it out, but they couldn't." Notice all the violent verbs in that description of the demon and the boy: overpowers, throws, foams, grinds. The author of Mark knows exactly what he is doing here. With this vivid, violent imagery, he consciously sets up an incredible conflict between the force of light and life and the forces of darkness and death. Jesus has just been revealed as the light- and life-giver up on the mountain, and he comes down to a violent encounter with the forces of darkness. The verbs Mark uses clue us in to it, depicting the demon as a life-stealing force. It even tries to kill the boy directly through water or fire (verse 22). And this boy, the man's son, has been the victim of all that violence. It sounds to modern ears like epilepsy or something similar, but the man and the crowd — and the author of Mark — attribute it to demonic powers. Whatever it is, we know that it stems from a life-stealing force at work. Mark creates a battleground between the radiant Jesus and the repugnant forces of sickness and violence.
For years, Dad has had a front-row seat to this violent battleground. The boy's father has witnessed his son's trauma "since he was a child" (verse 21), watching helplessly as seizure after seizure has ripped at the boy. Violent, body- crushing, soul-quenching seizures happen right before the father's very eyes. And that's where Dad's been living for a long time. Some of us know exactly what that's like. Some of us have experienced at least a little bit of what the father is going through. Some of you have felt the sheer powerlessness of watching a child suffer when there's nothing you can do to prevent it. A child, or a grandchild, or a friend's son or daughter has battled life-stealing illness for a long time, perhaps even from birth; and you have a front-row seat to the struggle. Others have watched a similar battle at the other end of life, seeing a spouse or a parent slowly but surely waste away. Even though it wasn't as violent as what we see in Mark 9, it was unmistakable and unstoppable. For many of us, this is a place we've lived. And the front-row seat to the forces stealing life from loved ones is surrounded by the shadow of doubt. This dad in Mark 9, in an act of great faith, brings his son to Jesus for healing. Except when he arrives, where's Jesus? On the mountain with the A-Team. So the B-Team attempts to heal the boy — with B-Team results (verse 18).
That's when Jesus, in one of his harshest statements anywhere in the Gospels, gives this rebuke: "You faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I put up with you? Bring him to me" (verse 19). Jesus' frustration there is in part with his disciples, but it's also with the simple fact that his time left on earth is limited. He has the urgent task to bring his followers up to speed on who he is and what he is about, and to surround himself with companions who get it. And Jesus expresses frustration that even some of his twelve disciples seem unable to act in his name.
I HAVE FAITH; HELP MY LACK OF FAITH!
In verse 20, they bring the boy to Jesus, as he commanded. And when they do, the demon throws the boy into a convulsion; and we encounter another round of violent verbs: threw, fell, rolled, foaming. Just as before, Mark's choice of words and imagery heightens the conflict between the kingdom of God and the demonic powers of the world. There is a battle raging between the life- giver and the life-stealer, and the poor father and son are stuck in the middle of the war zone. Father and son have been at ground zero for years. Again, some of you know what that's like. You've been there to witness children suffer or parents slowly slip away. And you know what those circumstances can do to your faith. Whether it's a violent battleground or a more subtle, ongoing struggle, these are the arenas where the shadows of doubt so easily dwell. It's no coincidence that so many responses to my Facebook poll recalled suffering — especially innocent suffering — as a source of doubt. You can sit right there with it. "If God is, why am I ...?" Or "If God is good, why are we ...?" Some are living among these shadows right now, and a lot of others have lived there before. I certainly have.
Then, in 9:22, the father meekly asks Jesus to help "if" he can: "If you can do anything, help us!" That sets Jesus off again to the point that what he says next appears to put a lot of power and authority in the father's own hands: " 'If you can do anything'? All things are possible for the one who has faith" (verse 23). Now, if we take that verse out of context, it sounds as though Jesus is saying that the father needs to have more faith. It sounds as though Jesus is saying that his level of involvement depends on the father's belief: "Believe harder, pray longer, dig deeper, and all your dreams will come true!" If you only looked at that one verse, you could preach that and teach that. Except, that's not how the verse works in context; that's not how Jesus' statement reads within the rest of the story. Because Jesus' words to the man set up the father's response, which is the heart of the whole story. After hearing that "all things are possible for the one who has faith," the man cries out in verse 24: "I have faith; help my lack of faith!"
I love that response. I have faith and I have no faith. I believe and I don't. I trust and I don't. I'm with Jesus and I'm not — all at the same time. It's ambivalent, as if to say he's right-handed and left-handed, Democrat and Republican, Tea Party and progressive, Methodist and Baptist all at once. "I have faith; help my lack of faith!" The response is double-minded and ambiguous. It's so very human. It's so very real. It's so very me. Believe it ... and not.
Remember where Dad is. He is in the vortex of a battle between the radiant and the repugnant, between the life-giver and life-stealer. And at the moment, the life-stealer is a lot more obvious, a lot more front and center. The father has had a front-row seat to this ongoing battle. What he's saying is: Jesus, I wish I were with you. Part of me really wants to be with you, to believe you and trust you; but I've gone through too much. There's been too much pain; and I'm not with you all the way, Jesus. And some of us are in that exact place right now. We know this dad. We've been this dad. I believe in Jesus until I don't anymore. I know that God is good; I just don't know that God is good to me. We believe. And not.
Which is why Jesus' response here is such a big deal. Now, he has just said in 9:23 that you have to believe to get everything, right? "All things are possible for the one who has faith." So by that rule, this believing and believing-not dad shouldn't get anything. Except, that's not how it goes. The man's doubts don't affect Jesus at all. Instead, Jesus heals the boy. He commands the unclean spirit to leave the child and to never return. And with a horrible convulsion that leaves the child looking dead, the spirit comes out. When Jesus lifts him up, the boy rises, healed and free (9:25-27). Jesus could have spoken harshly to the man who has faith but lacks faith. But instead, Jesus speaks harshly to the evil spirit (verse 25). The father isn't punished for lacking faith; he is rewarded for what little faith he has.
This whole scene is a battle for authority. Jesus stands in the middle of a battleground, and he takes this opportunity to assert his authority. It's radiant versus repugnant, life-giver versus life-stealer; and Jesus is the one in charge. He demonstrates his authority by ordering the spirit to leave, and it obeys him. And Jesus' authority goes beyond even that. Mark includes the detail in verse 26 that the crowd thought that the boy was dead. But Jesus lifts him up alive (verse 27). Mark is no literary novice; his choice of words matters. By including this detail, he demonstrates that Jesus has authority even over death. Mark foreshadows the very resurrection of the dead in this act of healing. And it all comes about in spite of this father's lack of faith.
WHEN YOU ARE HONEST ABOUT WHERE YOU ARE, JESUS IS FAITHFUL TO SHOW WHO HE IS.
Remember, the dad is us. He is you and me, having faith and lacking faith at the same time. We've all been there. The father does not receive punishment for his doubts. He receives a blessing for his honesty about them. He believes it and not. And his son is healed. Here's what I take away from that: When you are honest about where you are, Jesus is faithful to show who he is.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Shadow of a Doubt by Talbot Davis. Copyright © 2015 Abingdon Press. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction Shadows of Doubt,Chapter One Believe It and Not (Mark 9:14-29),
Chapter Two What's the Alternative? (John 6:53-69),
Chapter Three No Laughing Matter (Genesis 18:1-15),
Chapter Four Life After Loss (Job 1:1-22),
Chapter Five Doubt's Big Bang (Psalm 14:1-7),