Pentecost 2018

Happy Pentecost!

Now that that is out of the way, I’ve been wondering: Why do people say things like, “I had questions,” by way of explaining why they don’t follow Christ? Often, when pressed, they don’t have questions, or they don’t have questions for me. What I do find, when delving into the issue, are half formed aspersions, usually dealing with some non-issue hardly articulated.

In a recent conversation with someone who “had questions,” a young woman revealed a strange, one-dimensional perspective of Christianity. I tried to draw her out, to understand what objections she had, but it never seemed to go past the, “I had questions,” explanation. Eventually, we somehow got onto dinosaurs, and yet I never understood how this was either a question, or why it cast doubt upon the Bible.

“The Bible doesn’t talk about dinosaurs,” she said.

“Why should it?” I wondered. “It’s not about dinosaurs.”

Yet there was a deeper problem here: For all of my love of the Bible, the Bible itself is not Christianity. It is the word of God, but to know the word of God is not to follow the word of God. Jesus never seemed to be the subject of our discourse, and yet He was the heart of the issue.

I highly doubt our conversation ever touched upon the real reason behind her quitting the church. Nobody rejects Christ because 2,000 years ago His apostles neglected to write down His moving discourse on the integration of a future scientific discovery and the Law of Moses.

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon Christ’s followers and prompted them to preach the gospel in languages they did not know. Those who heard knew, and wondered. There was a barrier of communication between my friend and me, but I hope The Spirit communicated, whether or not I understood the real import of what I said, Christ’s love.