Sunday, March 29, 2009

Bereans - Open Mind and Open Heart

Over the years, I've found that having an "open mind" is challenging, even very difficult. We all approach a subject with foundational subconscious assumptions and values that we rarely question. We accept certain things as "facts" and can even get angry at anyone who questions these "facts".

In Acts 17:11, Paul says that the Bereans were more "noble" than the Thessolonians, why? People who are familiar with this scripture will quickly recall that the Bereans were more noble because they diligently studied scripture. However, diligently studying scripture is only half the reason for them being called noble! And in fact, I dare to note that without the other half, the other condition, diligently studying scripture does very little good. What was this other element that is so important? --- Being "open minded".

Notice that scripture says that the Bereans were more noble than the Thessolonians because they both 1) eagerly recieved Paul's radical message and 2) were diligent to study scripture to verify it was true. Sadly, it seems like we Christians are among the most "closed minded" people in the world. And many times our faith is in what we believe, in how we interpret the Bible, instead of being in the person Jesus Christ. Thus if someone questions what we believe or how we interpret the Bible it calls into question our "faith". However, if our faith is in Christ, then we are free to question everything that we believe, every doctrine, every assumption because we trust Him to lead us into all truth.

A foundational element of being open minded is humility, not thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought. If I recognize that, hey, I could be wrong, then I'm willing to listen to evidence that counters what I've always believed; and I'm willing to change my beliefs is I'm shown to be in error.

May the Lord help us all be more open minded towards new-to-us concepts and open hearted towards one another!