Holiness – A Call to Credibility
Donald Shafer’s sermon on holiness reminds us that we are to be committed to God if we are to be holy, and secondly he says that the call to holiness is a call to credibility. And by this he means that the Christian faith is not just a pie-in-the-sky, thoughtless, silly religion, but that it is intellectually credible.
He writes this: “There has been a popular saying that ‘it doesn’t really matter what you believe, as long as you live right’. One of my former seminary professors, Dr. Normal Paullin, called this ‘the devil’s gospel’. He told us in class with real emphasis, ‘You can’t live right unless you believe right’.
Holiness Requires Credibility
He goes on: ‘Then there are those who say that if it’s beautiful and natural it must be right. I assume that most of us would reject that broad approach which endorses immorality ‘if it is natural’.”
So Shafer is saying that just because it looks right or feels right that doesn’t mean that it is holiness. True holiness is rooted in the Bible’s teachings about life and the way of the human heart, and we must be careful not to over-simplify things when the world is crying out for a rugged, well-thought out, intellectual religious experience.
After all, didn’t Jesus say that we are to love God with all our hearts… and minds? Our minds are incredible tools given to us by God so that we can reason and think and explore and figure out. Holiness, says Shafer, is not just a matter of feelings. It must be rooted in an understanding of the things God has revealed in the Bible – because wholeness is not just based on feelings, but it includes wholeness of the mind.
So this is what he means by a call to credibility. Our faith must be based on credible evidence. One of my favourite YouTube channels is called AskCliffe, which has videos of a powerful ministry of Cliff and Stuart Knechtle who engage with college students in America on issues of faith and doubt and reason. And Cliff always tells his listeners: don’t believe in Jesus because I say you should! Go and do your research. Analyze the historical evidence of Jesus Christ’s life, teachings, death and resurrection. An honest study of Jesus in this way led me to believe that he is credible, and I want to follow him!
Credibility in Christ
Jesus was credible, he was not some nutter with strange beliefs – his life and teaching were credible, showing God’s plan for the world, and if we can follow in Jesus’ footsteps by knowing his teaching and the teaching of his disciples, and living lives like they did – our credibility will also be certain.
So let’s not over-simplify our faith and say just believe! Let’s live credible lives based on Jesus’ own life, so that we may be holy and whole.
