- Matthew 22:37
- Deuteronomy 6:5
- Jesus seems to be intentionally changing this
- Christianity is not a blind faith religion
- 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21
- 1 John 4:1
- Romans 14:5
- 2 Timothy 3:14
- People who don't think sometimes fall away
- Jesus often supported His claims with miracles
- John 5:36
- John 10:25
- John 10:37-38
- John 14:11
- Acts 1:2-3
- Isaiah 35:4-6
- Jesus did this in keeping with the expectation of the Messiah being a miracle worker
- Luke 24:18-27
- There were many written evidences pointing to Jesus
- Matthew 11:2-3
- When John had doubts Jesus responded with evidence
- Matthew 11:4-6
- The same thing happened with Thomas
- John 20:24-29
- This is often taken to mean that it is better to believe blindly than have evidence
- However the next verses seem to contradict this idea
- John 20:30-31
- John 17:20-21
- In this prayer Jesus explains that future generations would believe in Jesus because they heard the evidence provided by the first disciples even though the future generations would not see it themselves they would have eyewitness testimony of convincing proof
- John 1:6-7
- Collaborating witness to who Jesus was
- Luke 24:44-49
- Jesus sent out eyewitnesses to share the Gospel
- Acts 1:6-8
- Peter's first sermon at Pentecost
- Acts 2:23-24,32
- Acts 3:15 (Peter)
- Acts 4:20 (Peter and John)
- Acts 4:33 (the Apostles)
- Acts 10:39-42 (Peter)
- Acts 17:2-3 (Paul)
- Acts 17:30-31 (Paul)
- The evidence that they had was a prerequisite for writing with authority about Jesus
- John 21:24-25
- Luke 1:1-4
- 1 Corinthians 15:3-8
- 1 Peter 5:1
- 2 Peter 1:16
- 1 John 1:1-3
- We are also to base our beliefs on facts and logic rather than blind faith
- 3 definitions of faith (adapted from Forensic Faith)
- Unreasonable faith
- Believing in something in spite of the evidence
- Blind faith
- Believing in something without any evidence
- Reasonable faith
- Believing in something because of the evidence
- Why call it faith if it is evidence based?
- Because although there is evidence for a lot of important things in the Bible there must be trust that the other things are also true
- Let's say that it has been proven that Jesus is God
- And then let's say that He says that Heaven is mostly purple
- We are not given evidence for what Heaven is so we have to have faith that it is purple because we have evidence that this idea came from God