The Big Game-Week 4

Reverse Engineering the Faith

When I was freshly saved, newly bowled over by the peace of the Gospel, I immediately began to explore why “it worked”!  The question plaguing me was something like this:  did it work (to bring me peace with God, to fill me with an overwhelming sense of being reconciled, sins forgiven and a hope for heaven) because it was true, or was it merely “true” only because it “worked”?

In this way you could say I was suddenly interested in reverse engineering the Gospel. 

Which reminds me of the B-29 Super Fortress Bomber the US developed in WWII.  That plane was a game changer for world powers because it was the only weapon in the world that could deliver atomic bombs anywhere in the world.  Seeing its powers at the end of WWII, the Russians were worried and jealous.  They had no such tech and didn’t seem close to developing it.

Then, they received what they called (ironically in an atheist country) a “gift from God.”  In 1945, 3 B-29’s that were in trouble in the South China sea had to land in (then fellow Allied power) Russia.  International law gave Russia the right to seize the military equipment but return the combatants – which they did.  America considered the planes a loss.

2 years later, an American delegation showed up in Russia for one of their gaudy public displays of military hardware.  At the end, they were stunned to look up and see not one, not two, but three B-29’s fly overhead!!  At first they assumed these were the three confiscated planes, but then a 4th flew.  And eventually 300 Tu-4’s would fly!!  The Russians had reversed engineered the B-29 down to the last rivet, making a perfect copy of the superweapon.

With that kind of zeal, I wanted to know HOW the Gospel worked, WHY the Gospel worked, and so I needed to investigate (after I had accepted it) all its inner workings.

Sometimes the questions people ask about Christianity, come BEFORE they accept Jesus, and they can’t accept Him until those questions get answered, until the plausibly of Christianity is established.  That’s why apologetics and Ask Anything series matter. 

Other times, the questions people ask come AFTER.  And this doesn’t make them any less important.  For if we ever want to reproduce faith in Jesus in others, we need to understand, not just THAT it works, but WHY it works.

And finally the careful investigator finds that it works, because it’s true!  And truth can always handles the hardest questions.

-Written by Rick Thiessen