More on God Saving Those Who Haven't Heard, and Interpreting Scripture

In my four-part blog project titled "Where Does Jesus Get His Authority?" one subject was why God doesn't make a big announcement to the world convincing everyone. Part 2 specifically touched on that, with this shorter post adding on to it, and the conclusion quoting Scripture supporting the idea below.

I have defined being an "intellectual" as someone who believes in what they can know, not what they don't. This really considers subjective experience, as what is going on in someone's head isn't necessarily the easiest to tell, if it even can be figured out, and someone isn't putting on a false front. 

See, you could get honest, nice, very down-to-earth and intelligent people telling me they had experiences where they knew God had a plan for their life, but I wouldn't take this as proof. Since they are speaking of a personal experience they still could be lying, or subconsciously overinterpreted something because they want to believe it instead of considering other possibilities, or who knows what. 

But the thing with them is you can't know if they are lying or not, if their experience was true or not. As an "intellectual," objective argument is my grounding anchor, and reported experiences with Jesus, if they are evidenced as not being just what someone wants to believe, I therefore accept as genuine.

A Christian evangelist I know comes from a place where Buddha was a big part of the local religion. But, growing up, she knew that Buddha and other gods weren't the one true God. She could tell. 

Then is an instance I haven't read in years, but remember a few details of. It comes from Lee Strobel's The Case for Grace. Some kid was drawn to the cross and wore it as a necklace, even though he didn't even know about Jesus at all. (At least I think he hadn't heard the Gospel yet.) He came from a place of eastern religion too, but was attracted to Jesus.

I believe God sees those who are willing to come to Him, and decides to "save them for Himself." That's a phrase from the Bible, somewhere (probably multiple wheres). Others might be willing to believe in Jesus later in life and so like these examples don't get such an experience, but here God knew it was best to speak to them as children. 

Another issue in the blog project was interpreting scripture. I brought up how while there are many Christian denominations, there is only one Christianity -- the core doctrines are who Jesus is, His sacrificial death in our place, His resurrection, and faith in Him as an atonement for sin. That is the one true Gospel.

See, people are still getting saved, despite disagreements on less important issues. Unbelievers still are led by the Spirit to walk up to the stage and accept Christ. Some still are (somewhere, I haven't met any) seeing the truth in a Christian sharing apologetics with them. People are seeking deeper meaning in pain, now specifically the coronavirus, learning from Billy Graham ministries, and crying out to the one true God. 

What's more, every church I have ever been in had a worship room, and everyone knows we are supposed to care for others because Jesus did (Ephesians 4:32-5:2; Colossians 3:12, 4:5-6). 

Finally, Christian apologist Frank Turek said (I think it was him), "Just because truth is prescribed doesn't mean it's perceived." I believe God has left enough evidence to objectively prove interpretations of the Bible other than the core saving belief. What believers need to be able to do, though, is study the Bible and be able to support their side, overturning others. Ironically, this is the same issue with deciding which religion to follow. One has to be proven over the other. 

I thought of this statement which I firmly believe in: "Church leaders are liable to be wrong." What I mean by this is just because some church leader is an expert doesn't mean they are right. (Is it true for one church that everyone saved once will always be saved, but for another that everyone in the congregation must die believing?)

 Now, at least according to Google, "liable" means someone is likely to be wrong. But I don't think this is fair, and therefore accurate, to church leaders. They very well might be right, just like an expert Christian among experts of other beliefs could definitely be right. The fact that someone is an expert raises no certainty of the validity of their worldview, but it doesn't question it either. This is what I mean by liable. I was attracted to the word because I wanted to emphasize someone's expertise raising no security itself. I as a Christian try to think for myself and will need to consider someone's argument. 

Therefore, an "intellectual" shouldn't see different interpretations of Scripture as outweighing the validity of Christianity. Disagreements between "God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved" (Col. 3:12) who are "dearly loved children" (Eph. 5:1), don't outweigh the evidence for Christianity in general. Then, because they are skeptically minded (as opposed to cynically minded, which isn't willing to follow the evidence where it leads), they will reason from the Biblical text on the issues Christians deal with after accepting Jesus. Before an "intellectual" believes something, they will question it for themselves.