1 John 4:1-4 “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this, you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.2”(ESV)
Science is a structured method of discovering truth: forming hypotheses, testing them through repeatable experiments, analyzing evidence, and refining conclusions based on results. This process reveals how things work in our world but leaves a gaping hole in why they exist. Through rigorous observation, science continually reframes its assumptions. Yet even the sharpest microscope cannot examine the soul.
John doesn’t ask you to abandon reason. He sharpens it. He writes as an eyewitness who physically saw Christ’s ministry, death, burial, and the ultimate test of Jesus’ own prophetic words: that He would rise again three days later. John watched the hypothesis confirmed with his own eyes. Later in life, his faith would be put to the test with death itself on the line.
No one willingly dies for what he knows to be false.
John gives us the simplest and most decisive test of truth the world has ever been offered: measure every spirit against the only One who walked out of a grave.
In God in the Dock, C. S. Lewis writes, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
The complementary use of our mind’s ability to reason is nothing short of divine.
How are you testing what you hear, what you see, and what you claim to know?
Stay on Mission
Leave a Reply