Living out our faith

When I was 7 years old my dad told me that the old Karangahake gorge tunnel near Paeroa was dug out by prisoners with spoons.  I believed him. We moved a year later, and that piece of history was filed into the recesses of my mind. When I first married Colleen, we went on a road trip and passed the site, for the first time since I had been a child.  Before I could stop myself, I began to confidently pass on that piece of history to Colleen, immediately regretting it even as it was coming out of my mouth.  That truth that had sat in my subconscious for decades was completely untrue!  Colleen’s response? Well, you can ask her yourself.

We have all had our faith formed in different ways and during different seasons of church history. If we are honest we all probably look back on them as the ‘good old days’.  There will be ways we look at things or beliefs we hold that we received in days gone by, but that could benefit from bringing out into the cold light of day and re-evaluating. For many of us, there will be things we held as truth ten, twenty, thirty years ago (or more) that were popular and relevant ways of doing things, but that were possibly based on more popular understanding.  In fact, leaders in the field of scriptural interpretation, theology, and church history may now have new ways of seeing things based on new research and understanding. 

We should all be on a journey of discovery and approach all things with a sense of humility, understanding that we all have our ‘prisoners with spoons’ where what we hold to be true may not be. And that’s why living out our faith in community is important!

Adam