Bible Studies
BACK DOORS TO FAITH
Read Bible passages as noted
How does faith begin?
Christians often naively assume that faith develops in a smooth and reasonable process of nurture and safety. The Bible suggests otherwise as it chronicles the ancient giants of faith. Most of the main characters featured in the scriptural narrative entered their experience of God through the back doors of family, career, health or relational crises. Our bondage to sin and evil is not easily broken. Lost people usually need to hit a wall in order to consider entering into a different life. The possibility of a new way of thinking, feeling and living is often triggered by the rhythms of life being severely interrupted.
Very few men and women of Biblical fame had smooth entries into lives centered in godliness and service to the kingdom of God. Like many of us, their routines had to be disrupted in order for them to consider God’s invitation to focus their journey on kingdom service, witness and righteousness. They entered through the back door of the household of God, not the main door usually reserved for respected guests and honored friends.
Here are a few of the people featured in scripture whose story is messy, filled with trouble and pain, but awkwardly encouraging to those of us who struggle with our own troubled faith journeys.
Moses was snatched out of his people’s enslavement in Egypt to be raised in privilege and wealth in the home of the leading family of the oppressors. But his entry into personal faith did not happen until he murdered a slave manager in a fit of self righteous anger, and then had to flee to the desert. It was in this isolation that he was challenged by God to return to his people and liberate them. (Exodus 2:1-4:23)
Joseph was rejected by his older siblings as a spoiled baby brother, sold into slavery, then dismissed from his privileged position as aide to the ruler through the false accusations of his boss’s wife, only to rise from prison to become the second most powerful leader of the nation, where he could reconcile with his birth family as he rescued them from starvation. (Genesis 37:12 – 50:22)
Ruth married out of her race into a hated people, was suddenly widowed, and then chose to follow her mother-in-law back to a homeland of foreigners. She was then rescued from poverty through marriage to another in-law relative which positioned her to become an ancestor in Jesus’ family tree. (Book of Ruth)
David surprised his older brothers and the national rulers by defeating an imposing enemy, was drafted to be king only to fall to sexual temptation and murder while leading the nation to dominate the world of that day, and then watch his family self destruct. When he faced his own brokenness, he found forgiveness from God and became “a man after God’s own heart.” (1st Samuel 17; 2nd Samuel 2, 5, 11)
Esther rose from the anonymity of being a member of the king’s harem to replace his wife as queen, and then intervened to foil an evil plot of genocide against her minority race. (Book of Esther)
Job lost everything— agribusiness, children, health and community respect - and found faith at the bottom of this pain-filled displacement. (Job 1-3 and 32:1- 42:17)
Daniel was one of many captive Hebrew slaves in the neighboring super power nation. He who resisted assimilation, was imprisoned, threatened with execution, but emerged to be the advisor to the ruler, and then had to challenge his boss with warnings about his demise. (Daniel 1-6)
Peter was interrupted at his family seafood business job by his younger brother and taken to hear a traveling teacher. He then left work and family to go on the road with the leader of this new crowd, only to become one of its second generation leaders, teachers and authors. (Matthew 4:18, 2:1-5:42, and 1st and 2nd Peter)
Saul was blinded and knocked off his horse while working as a government contract hit-man to destroy a new religious cult among his Jewish people in the Roman Empire, leading to his conversion and his rise to become the movement’s top leader, with a new name—Paul. (Acts: 9:1-31, 22:6-16, and 26:12-18)
Matthew was running his tax scam, which included bilking his own Jewish people for personal gain in his role as a Roman IRS agent, when he was invited to follow an itinerant teacher who was disturbing the local status quo. When Matthew heard the new teaching, he threw a party for his peers and their girlfriends to introduce them to his new leader and the surprising invitation to learn “mercy.” (Matthew 9:9-13)
Lydia was busy running her upscale clothing business among retired military families while quietly hungering for something more significant. This pursuit led her to a Jewish scrub-ladies prayer meeting at the river, where she heard about a new faith movement whose leader was in jail in town. Upon his miraculous midnight release, she invited him and his associates into her home, and the first church in Europe began in her home around her new faith. (Acts 16:11-40)
Onesimus fled from his slave owner master to the anonymity of the big city of Rome where he encountered an imprisoned spiritual leader, only to be sent back to his master to face possible execution as the first act of obedience in his new faith. Years later, tradition hints that he became the bishop of the capital city church in Ephesus. (Philemon 8-21)
Difficult times can be doors to new life if we accept them as opportunities to break out of our own routines and consider what God offers to those whom he loves and longs to restore to faith, love and hope. We cannot rise to godly living on our own. Letting go of our agenda, difficulties and self absorption opens a new way to living in God’s house of recovery.
Knock, and he will open whatever door you try, front, back or otherwise.
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