Dear Friends,
This week one professor prayed with me according to the pattern of Luke 18:13 & Romans 10:9.
I received the following email from a Professor of Economics who teaches at a university in Spain.
The Subject line was entitled “evidence”.
Dear dr. I am writing in search of information about the scientific evidence that supports the resurrection of Jesus. Thank you very much for your work and please receive an affectionate hug.
I first verified that he did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus. Then, I offered to meet with him to give him the evidence regarding the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. His reply was:
Dear Jim, I want to believe. I know that nothing cannot create something. And I believe that a casual, unconscious universe creating life makes less sense than any God humanity wishes to imagine. Creation has to have meaning. Suffering and happiness have to have meaning. Even Jesus’ suffering has to have meaning. I seek the grace to believe in the meaning of all this that appears capricious and meaningless.
Thank You.
When I tried to set up a day and time, the professor wrote,
Dear Dr Tour, thank you for your kind response. I must be completely transparent with you. You are an academic, a researcher, an international speaker…I can’t help but wonder if you really have an hour of your valuable time to address the spiritual concerns of a stranger. I am overwhelmed by the possibility of interacting directly with you. However, I fear that my level of English is too poor to maintain a fluent conversation with you. Also I would feel guilty about distracting you from much more important activities for society, like advances in the prevention or cure of cancer.
I’m in Spain. I can read anything you send me or watch videos that you recommend. Even so, if it had to be in person, I would be delighted to hear you.
God bless you.
Then I set up the date with him. He followed that with pages of text stating all his concerns and disbeliefs. Frankly, I just skimmed the first page; I never read it since I had no intention of addressing any of it anyway. An apologist friend once told me the need to answer the many questions of the seeker. I have never agreed with that. First of all, I am not an apologist. I am a chemist. I do not know all those arguments of apologetics that, amazingly, like a philosopher, can disarm the skeptic by exposing the fallacies of their positions. Secondly, I only wish to preach the gospel and the resurrection because I have repeatedly seen its power. Thirdly, like the armor of Saul, philosophical-like apologetics is a suit of armor that does not fit me; I have “not tested them.”
1 Samuel 17:39 David girded his [Saul’s] sword over his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. So David said to Saul, “I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.” And David took them off.
I shared the gospel (my sling and five smooth stones, I Sam 17:40), and the professor believed, received, and prayed, with many tears. He said he could understand everything I said, but it was hard for him to express himself well in English. But that mattered little. Salvation came to that house. His tears spoke marvelously. He thanked me 10+ times. The professor is in daily reading, and I will set him up in Bible study with a Spanish-speaking friend as soon as I can reach that friend.
God bless,
Jim Tour
