{"id":8743,"date":"2012-08-04T15:55:20","date_gmt":"2012-08-04T19:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=8743"},"modified":"2012-08-04T15:55:20","modified_gmt":"2012-08-04T19:55:20","slug":"biblical-faith-is-not-avoiding-doubt-nor-is-it-feeling-certain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/08\/biblical-faith-is-not-avoiding-doubt-nor-is-it-feeling-certain.html","title":{"rendered":"Biblical Faith is not Avoiding Doubt, nor is it Feeling Certain"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both;text-align: left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2012\/08\/wpid-Photo-Aug-4-2012-1044-AM.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2012\/08\/wpid-Photo-Aug-4-2012-1044-AM.jpg\" class=\"alignleft\" alt=\"\" width=\"259\" height=\"194\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>The Bible itself raises challenges to the way conservative Christians in our time tend to understand what the Bible is, as supposedly an inerrant text that can eliminate doubt from one's life. The Bible itself tells story after story about people for whom doubt was part of their spiritual life. <\/p>\n<p>There is something profoundly ironic taking place, when <a href=\"http:\/\/bible.cc\/matthew\/28-17.htm\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Matthew 28:17<\/a> tells us that some who shared in the resurrection experiences referred to as \u201cseeing Jesus\u201d nevertheless doubted, and yet so many of today's Christians think that from their perspective 2,000 years later, they can avoid doubt and uncertainty. <\/p>\n<p>I think that for many today, faith is about seeking a feeling of certainty \u2013 and such feelings do not guarantee that there is a legitimate ground for feeling certain \u2013 when in fact faith is supposed to be trust in God and God alone, in the midst of life's uncertainties.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Bible itself raises challenges to the way conservative Christians in our time tend to understand what the Bible is, as supposedly an inerrant text that can eliminate doubt from one&#8217;s life. The Bible itself tells story after story about people for whom doubt was part of their spiritual life. There is something profoundly ironic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,131,139,34,43,101],"tags":[1697,2819,3329,5677,7130,10276,13092],"class_list":["post-8743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-christianity-religion","category-fundamentalism-religion","category-gospel-of-matthew","category-inerrancy","category-theology","tag-certainty","tag-doubt","tag-faith","tag-jesus","tag-matthew-28","tag-resurrection","tag-uncertainty"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Biblical Faith is not Avoiding Doubt, nor is it Feeling Certain<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Bible itself raises challenges to the way conservative Christians in our time tend to understand what the Bible is, as supposedly an inerrant text\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/08\/biblical-faith-is-not-avoiding-doubt-nor-is-it-feeling-certain.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Biblical Faith is not Avoiding Doubt, nor is it Feeling Certain\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Bible itself raises challenges to the way conservative Christians in our time tend to understand what the Bible is, as supposedly an inerrant text\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/08\/biblical-faith-is-not-avoiding-doubt-nor-is-it-feeling-certain.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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