It's really quite astonishing how much of the information that's on the internet is just plain false. It reminds me of the old telephone game (where information gets distorted with each new person it's passed to) amplified a billion times over. Last night Robin Williams passed away. When I first read the news, I didn't believe it because I'm so used to seeing fake celebrity death announcements on my news feed. Social media has made me into a skeptic, and I suspect I'm not the only one.
Yet the skepticism it goes deeper than social media.
We've become skeptical of history because it has been so often revised. We've become skeptical of certain foods because, after years of eating them, we find out what's actually in them. We've become skeptical of government because of the empty promises of generations of politicians. We've become skeptical of church ministers because so many have been found to lack integrity.
The West has bred a culture of skepticism. Our motto has become: "Trust no one; trust nothing."
Now even Christians find themselves questioning whether or not they can really trust the Book (and in turn the God) on which their faith is based.
It's not my purpose today to present an apologetic for the reliability of the Bible. There are others much more equipped for that task than me; rather, I simply desire to remind Christians of Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 13:12: "we see as in a mirror dimly... we know in part."
I think that we all instinctively know this.
The religious man creates rules and rituals, he puts on self-defined piety along with his robe and hat. And whether it's the religion of ancient pagans or of institutionalized Christianity... or of the academy - they all still put on their self-defined piety, their robe, and their hat. There's just something inside us that seeks to justify ourselves - to claim moral and intellectual superiority.
While the religious man goes his own way, the frustrated man embraces skepticism as a way of life.
Maybe it's possible that some people try to live both religiously and skeptically at the same time... Maybe I struggle daily against becoming one of those people.
The bottom line is that Paul's words here in 1 Cor. 13 should be self-evident to anyone who's gone on the search for truth. We are looking at reality through a mirror which reflects and refracts, which disorients and distracts; and the only two responses which make any sense to us are (1) to give up searching for truth by embracing skepticism or (2) to whittle down truth to a manageable size by embracing religion.
But I think Paul is offering us a better way.
He continues in verse 13, "So now faith, hope, and love abide."
We can wallow in uncertainty, or we can have faith in the One who is sovereign.
We can give up on the future, or we can hope in the One who holds past, present, and future.
We can hold everyone and everything at arms length so as to avoid being misunderstood or belittled or hurt, or we we can love.
We can be humble enough to say that we don't have all the answers... or even many of the answers, while at the same time trusting that God's Word and Spirit has given us and will give us those answer which are necessary. We can admit when we are wrong, while holding to the truth that there is such a thing as right and wrong and that God has told us exactly what the difference is in His Word. We blind and deaf men can hold the hand of the Creator and Sustainer of our lives and trust Him to lead us in the right direction.
We all know that we are looking at reality through a fogged-up lenses.
The question we have to ask is: Will we give up on the idea that there is such a thing as clarity, or will we shrink reality down to size through human religion, or will we let go of our delusion of control and trust in the One True God?
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