First Baptist Church

Webster’s defines a “paradox” as “a statement or proposition seemingly self contradictory or absurd but in reality expressing a possible truth.” Most people have been taught the various laws of science which generally lay out what is possible and what is not possible. The Bible is not a science book, but rather, transcends science. Any law of science which does exist, exists because God willed it to be so. Still, when human beings approach the scripture knowing what they know, they are mystified, even baffled, at what they find.

Paradox is the realm in which pastors and all believers labor. Consider these seeming contradictions straight from the pages of God’s Word concerning the reality believers face:

• We see unseen things.
• We conquer by yielding.
• We find rest under a yoke.
• We reign by serving.
• We are made great by becoming small.
• We are exalted when we are humble.
• We become wise by being fools for Christ’s sake.
• We are made free by becoming bondservants.
• We gain strength when we are weak.
• We triumph through defeat.
• We find victory by glorying in our infirmities.
• We live by dying.

• (Copied from an article entitled, Making the Most of Biblical Paradox, by Richard P. Hanson)

Have you ever wondered why the world just does not get Christianity and Christians? Well this list perhaps goes a long way toward helping us understand. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians in chapter 2 and verse 14 of his first letter to them, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.”

When the world hears the gospel, they hear it much like the Pharisee Nicodemus heard it, as it is recorded in John 3. When Jesus told him he must be born again, his natural, earthly, scientific response was, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (vs. 4) What Jesus meant in spiritual terms, Nicodemus naturally processed in earthly terms. Anyone who attempts to figure out all the answers apart from the spiritual will find more questions than answers. There is a preponderance of evidence pointing people toward the God of the Bible, but there remains a certain element which must be taken by faith. Faith in God must be genuine in order to be profitable. In spite of the many paradoxes one may find in the Bible, it continues to point sinful human beings to the truth of a loving God who sent His only begotten Son to pay the penalty for our sins and give us hope, where we previously had none!

In Christ,

Pastor Allen Raynor