I Have My Doubts E-Book

Philip Graham Ryken

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 233

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

10 Bible Stories of Faith and Doubt to Encourage Believers through Uncertainty  Will God do what he says he promises? Can we trust his intentions? Is he even good? Without guidance, these doubt-filled questions can hinder spiritual progress and lead to discouragement. Thankfully, the Bible offers encouraging examples of men and women who remained faithful to God even through seasons of uncertainty.  Based on a series of Wheaton College chapel messages, this encouraging guide explores 10 Bible stories on the topic of faith and doubt to reassure readers that doubt is normal for Christians. These stories cover a wide range of questions and doubts that most Christians experience at some point in their faith journey—doubts about God's power, protection, justice, healing, and more. Ultimately, readers will better understand the dynamic of faith and doubt, helping them renew their faith in God even through times of uncertainty. - Encouraging: This book bolsters faith in God and his word amid inevitable times of doubt - Scriptural Study: Explores 10 stories of biblical believers who experienced doubt yet remained faithful to God  - Written by Philip Ryken: President of Wheaton College and author of Beauty Is Your Destiny; Is Jesus the Only Way?; and Loving the Way Jesus Loves.

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“As Christians, we talk a lot about faith but perhaps too little about doubt. This book reminds us that the Bible talks about both. With the warmth and honesty of a pastor and the wisdom and depth of a theologian, Ryken leads the reader to a renewed and refreshed hope in the truths of God without minimizing the dark challenges of our world. Read it and be encouraged. And then give it to a friend.”

Michael J. Kruger, President and Professor of New Testament, Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte

“Doubt, a common Christian experience, is sometimes stigmatized in the church. As a result, many believers feel ashamed of their doubts and struggle with them in secret. In this wise and pastoral book, Philip Ryken reminds us how many biblical heroes struggled with doubts. He gives helpful counsel for how we can work through our doubts to arrive at a more rugged and enduring faith. For anyone who struggles with doubt, this book will serve as not only a light to their path but a comfort and balm to their soul.”

Gavin Ortlund, President, Truth Unites; author, Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn’t

“One of the great victories of faith in the life of a believer is coming to an understanding that honest doubt represents opportunity, not defeat. Doubt can cause us to seek answers from God and his word that will ultimately strengthen our faith. In this compelling book, Philip Ryken encourages the reader not to run from doubt but instead to grow through it, just as the biblical characters he describes did.”

Ed Stetzer, Dean, Talbot School of Theology

“Do you experience suffering, intellectual doubt, moral confusion, or times when it seems God is not there or doesn’t care? Philip Ryken writes to believers who have doubts and even consider giving up on faith. As a pastoral scholar and spiritual mentor, Ryken is wise and honest, realistic and encouraging. Above all, he is powerfully biblical as he examines and learns from those in Scripture who faced the same doubts we do and came through them reaffirmed in and reawakened to God’s loving presence.”

Rick Richardson, Professor and Luis Palau Endowed Chair of Evangelism, Wheaton College; author, You Found Me

“Every person will eventually face the abyss of doubt—about God’s fairness, about miracles, about God’s plans. Philip Ryken’s I Have My Doubts is the flaming light we need in those dark, lonely times. It’s biblical. It’s insightful. And it will feed, nourish, and warm your soul.”

Sam Chan, head trainer and mentor, EvQ School of Evangelism, City Bible Forum; author, How to Talk about Jesus (without Being That Guy)

“Because we Christians don’t think we’re allowed to have doubts, the moment they arise, we panic. In I Have My Doubts, Philip Ryken shares ten stories of biblical characters whose doubts led to flourishing faith. He pastorally reminds us that we are not alone in our doubts, that our doubts do not diminish God, and that all we need to endure is enough faith to take the very next step in following Jesus. We can both believe and find help in our unbelief!”

Juan R. Sanchez, Senior Pastor, High Pointe Baptist Church, Austin, Texas; author, Seven Dangers Facing Your Church

“Doubt is everywhere—in politics, media, science, and, of course, the Christian faith. In these ten biblical vignettes about doubt, Ryken provides readers with a path to Christian confidence that refuses to minimize the reality of today’s spiritual uncertainties. Ryken does this, ultimately, by reminding us of the one who holds on to us even when we feel unable to hold on to him.”

John Dickson, Jean Kvamme Distinguished Professor of Biblical Studies and Public Christianity, Wheaton College; Host, Undeceptions podcast

“In I Have My Doubts, Philip Ryken thoughtfully reminds us that uncertainty is not antithetical to faith and, moreover, can be fruitfully constitutive of a faithful life. Drawing from a variety of biblical narratives, he reflects on uncertainties that have accompanied Christian pilgrimage throughout the ages. Encouraging readers to ‘doubt their doubts,’ this book is a refreshing reminder that the flourishing life of a Christ follower materializes not by eschewing all skepticism but by focusing on Christ in the midst of our doubt.”

Kevin Brown, President, Asbury University

I Have My Doubts

Other Crossway Books by Philip Ryken

Beauty Is Your Destiny: How the Promise of Splendor Changes Everything

Christian Worldview: A Student’s Guide

The Doctrines of Grace: Rediscovering the Evangelical Gospel (with James Montgomery Boice)

Ecclesiastes: Why Everything Matters

Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory

Grace Transforming

Is Jesus the Only Way?

Jeremiah and Lamentations: From Sorrow to Hope

Kingdom, Come!

King Solomon: The Temptations of Money, Sex, and Power

Liberal Arts for the Christian Life

Love of Loves in the Song of Songs

Loving Jesus More

Loving the Way Jesus Loves

Our Triune God: Living in the Love of the Three-in-One (with Michael LeFebvre)

The Prayer of Our Lord

When Trouble Comes

I Have My Doubts

How God Can Use Your Uncertainty to Reawaken Your Faith

Philip Ryken

I Have My Doubts: How God Can Use Your Uncertainty to Reawaken Your Faith

© 2024 by Philip Graham Ryken

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Crystal Courtnay

First printing 2024

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.

Scripture quotation marked MSG is from The Message, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-9339-0 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-9341-3 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-9340-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ryken, Philip Graham, 1966– author.

Title: I have my doubts : how God can use your uncertainty to reawaken your faith / Philip Ryken.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2024. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023042466 (print) | LCCN 2023042467 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433593390 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433593413 (epub) | ISBN 9781433593406 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Trust in God—Christianity. | Trust—Religious aspects. | Belief and doubt—Biblical teaching.

Classification: LCC BV4637 .R77 2024 (print) | LCC BV4637 (ebook) | DDC 231—dc23/eng/20240308

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023042466

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023042467

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2025-05-06 09:56:25 AM

To Anna June Ryken,

with the prayer that growing faith

will triumph over troubling doubts

in your walk with Jesus

Contents

Preface

1  Doubting God’s Trustworthy Word

Eve in the Garden of Eden

2  Doubting God’s Saving Promise

Sarah under the Oak Trees

3  Doubting God’s Missional Call

Moses at the Burning Bush

4  Doubting God’s Supernatural Protection

Elisha’s Servant at Dothan

5  Doubting God’s Abundant Generosity

Naomi on the Road to Bethlehem

6  Doubting God’s Basic Fairness

Asaph outside God’s Temple

7  Doubting God’s Loving Care

Jeremiah in Prison

8  Doubting God’s Miraculous Healing

The Father in the Crowd

9  Doubting God’s Resurrection Power

Thomas in the Upper Room

10  Doubting Your Doubts

Peter on the Sea of Galilee

General Index

Scripture Index

Preface

If we were sitting together right now—just the two of us, you and I—I would lean forward and say: “Can I tell you something? I need to confide in someone.”

You might lean forward a little, too, and say: “Sure. Tell me anything.”

Then I would share my secret, speaking barely above a whisper: “Sometimes I have my doubts.”

There, I said it. And if you raised your eyebrow in the shape of a question mark, I would say it again, only this time I would be more explicit: “What I mean to tell you is that sometimes I have my spiritual doubts.”

What would you do next? And what would you say? Maybe you would slump back in your chair and say, “Yeah, me too; I have some doubts of my own.”

As a lifelong follower of Jesus Christ, I have many days when my mind and heart are filled with faith. Of course I do! I know that God is there—my Creator. I experience the loving presence of his Holy Spirit. I am convinced that the Bible is the living word of God. I believe that Jesus died for my sins and rose again. I have full confidence that I am forgiven. My heart’s desire is to give God the glory he deserves. I know that the one true and living God is fair and just. His promises are certain and secure. He has a good plan for my life. He will keep me safe. He loves me! One day very soon, God will heal my heartbreak, and I will live forever in his beautiful house. This is what I believe, and I hope you believe it too.

But this does not mean that I never have my doubts—we all do. Sometimes I wonder if God is there; I scarcely feel his presence. I wonder whether certain parts of the Bible are true. I am not completely convinced that someone like me can ever be forgiven. Nor am I totally sure that I can trust God to do what he says. Is he good? Does he love me? Will he heal me and protect me? Is there really a heaven after all?

Sometimes the questions come faster than the answers. And then I wonder how to live with my doubts. Can a believer who is sometimes skeptical still walk with God? Is there a God-honoring way to follow the advice that famed journalist Eric Sevareid gave in his memorable final CBS Evening News commentary in 1977 and “retain the courage of one’s doubts as well as one’s convictions”?1

To help answer these questions, this short book tells ten stories about doubt that also prove to be stories of credible faith. The men and women who carried these normal, everyday doubts never gave up on God, and he never gave up on them either. Listening to, learning from, and then living out the lessons of their stories can strengthen our faith. Their experiences can serve as a guide to help us work through the wide range of doubts that most of us experience at some point in our earthly pilgrimage—doubts about God that lead to discouragement and hinder our spiritual progress. The experiences of these biblical doubter-believers can also help us care well for the souls of other skeptics by putting Jude verse 22 into practice: “Have mercy on those who doubt.” When we show one another this mercy—and learn to hold our beliefs humbly as well as courageously—our faith rises and joy comes again.

My own faith has been strengthened by writing this book. It was a joy to collaborate during the editorial process with Thomas Boehm, David Downing, Jared Falkanger, Becki Henderson, and Jonathan Rockey, who shared wise insights and made careful corrections. Many partners at Crossway also helped to make this book possible. But I owe the greatest debt to Lisa Maxwell Ryken for her faithful support and to the students of Wheaton College, who remain a constant encouragement as they inspire me to do the very best thinking, writing, and preaching that I can.

1  “Sevareid Gives His Valedictory,” New York Times, December 1, 1977, https://www.nytimes.com/.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

Genesis 3:1

1

Doubting God’s Trustworthy Word

Eve in the Garden of Eden

Is the Bible really true? Is God trustworthy enough for us to take him at his word? Sometimes we have our doubts.

In his novel entitled In the Beauty of the Lilies, John Updike describes a Presbyterian minister who falls under the influence of critical, skeptical scholarship and abandons his commitment to Christ. Little by little, the Reverend Clarence Arthur Wilmot questioned the central doctrines of the Christian faith. One day, as he sat “in the rectory of the Fourth Presbyterian Church at the corner of Straight Street and Broadway,” Wilmot

felt the last particles of his faith leave him. The sensation was distinct—a visceral surrender, a set of dark sparkling bubbles escaping upward. . . . His thoughts had slipped with quicksilver momentum into the recognition, which he had long withstood, that . . . there is no . . . God, nor should there be.

Clarence’s mind was like a many-legged, wingless insect that had long and tediously been struggling to climb up the walls of a slick-walled porcelain basin; and now a sudden impatient wash of water swept it down into the drain. There is no God.1

Wilmot’s spiritual struggle and ultimate surrender resulted directly from his doubts about the word of God. Maybe this is true of all our doubts: if we trace them back far enough, we discover that in one way or another they all begin with our skepticism about the Scriptures.

If the Bible is trustworthy, then we have a solid place to stand. We know who made us: the God who in the beginning created the heavens and the earth, and first breathed life into Adam and Eve. We know that despite the evil we bring into the world, God is working all things for good. We know that through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ there is forgiveness for our sin and shame. We know that we have a purpose: to glorify God and proclaim his gospel to the world. We know that God will guide us and protect us as he leads us to glory. We know all this for the simple reason that the Bible tells us so.

Without the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, we would only be hoping and guessing. In a book called The Certainty of Faith, Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck wrote:

In essence, all truths of the Christian faith come to man from the outside. They are known to him only through revelation, and they become his possession only when he accepts them like a child in faith. . . . Not a knowledge gained through personal investigation, argument and proof, through observation and experiment. But a knowledge gained from a reliable witness.2

But what if the Bible is unreliable? What if it is a false witness? What if Jesus never said some or all of the things attributed to him in Scripture? Where would we stand?

Did God Really Say . . . ?

Essentially, this is the same doubt that Satan sowed in the heart and mind of Eve when he spied her alone in the garden of Eden. With malicious intent, the crafty devil said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” (Gen. 3:1).

What Satan said to Eve demands careful scrutiny. Although there is such a thing as an honest doubt, notice that the first theological question anyone asked was a deliberate deception. God did not say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden.” As the devil knew full well, what God said was this: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:16–17). Satan cleverly turned what was primarily a permission into exclusively a prohibition. When we have questions about something in the Bible, it is vitally important for us to make sure that we are reading it carefully and know what it really says!

The first part of Eve’s reply shows that she had been listening carefully to her Creator. “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,” she said (Gen. 3:2). Yet the rest of her answer went beyond the plain word of God. According to Eve, God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden”—so far, so good—“neither shall you touch it, lest you die” (Gen. 3:3). Here Eve went too far. God had only forbidden our first parents from eating this particular fruit, not from touching it. By saying more than God said, Eve put herself in spiritual danger. If we want to stay safe from theological error, we should be careful neither to add to nor subtract from the word of God, but to hold to the line of Scripture.

When his first attack failed, Satan decided to attempt a less subtle stratagem. This time, instead of a deliberate distortion, he uttered an outright contradiction. “You will not surely die,” he said. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:4–5). With these unholy words, the liar called God a liar and made him out to be a miser. By forbidding this fruit, God was not protecting Eve from death, Satan alleged, but preventing her from knowing something she had a right to know.

This accusation assumes there is some place where Eve can stand outside of God’s moral authority—a neutral vantage point from which she can critique his character and evaluate his instructions. But if God is God, there is no higher standard. When we claim the right to assess the Almighty on our own terms, we are not simply on shaky ground; we are standing nowhere, in a place that simply does not exist.

Sadly, Eve believed the devil’s lie. Doubting the truth of God’s trustworthy word and believing instead “that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate” (Gen. 3:6). Eve regretted this moment for the rest of her life. We all do, living as we do in a fallen world. Unfortunately, we see the same story of undue skepticism repeated far too often. People who know what God says start raising some questions—“honest questions,” they may call them. But before long they are in open denial, especially about biblical ethics. Thus, a discussion that starts with “Did God actually say?” and “Do I really have to?” ends with “No, he didn’t” and “No, I don’t!”

We see a decline of biblical confidence happening today in the United States. According to The State of Theology survey published in 2022, growing numbers of Americans in general (from 41 percent to 53 percent) and of evangelicals in particular (from 17 percent to 26 percent) believe that “the Bible, like all sacred writing, contains helpful accounts of ancient myths but is not literally true.”3 Given these beliefs, it is hardly surprising that immorality of all kinds also seems to be on the rise. The State of Theology documents this as well. For example, when asked whether “the Bible’s condemnation of homosexual behavior” still applies today, fewer Americans and fewer evangelicals say yes. According to the prevailing cultural logic, if we do not believe that what God says is true, then we do not have to do what he says.

We have so much to learn by looking carefully at the dialogue in Genesis 3. From the story of naive Eve and the sly serpent, we learn that when doubts arise, the person who is most desperate for us to disbelieve the truth of God’s word—including, perhaps, the truth of his own existence—is the devil. We learn that when doubts are dishonest—when, for example, we are not genuinely open to changing our minds about God—they usually have disobedience somewhere on their agenda. We also learn that when doubt expresses itself as disobedience—as it sometimes (but not always) does—we are headed for destruction. Eating the forbidden fruit did indeed lead to death, just as God said.

When We Have Doubts of Our Own

If we are honest, we have to admit that what happened to Eve is a temptation for us as well. Sometimes we have our doubts about the stories we read in the word of God, about its moral convictions and the promises it makes.

We know how truly human the Bible is, and we wonder if it is also fully divine. We question whether Adam and Eve were the parents of the entire human race. Can we square biblical teaching with scientific evidence? Our culture struggles with the Bible’s sexual ethics, and maybe we do as well: two sexes, two genders, and one definition of marriage, in which a man and a woman are united in a lifelong covenant. Is the Bible right about the sanctity of life inside and outside the womb? Is it for or against women? Does it have a righteous view of justice, including racial justice? Does it give us a true perspective on the fundamental unity and the eternal diversity of humanity? Is it really true that our bodies will rise again and that we will all stand before God’s throne for judgment?

In the face of such questions and objections, many skeptics believe (!) that the Bible is “scientifically impossible, historically unreliable, and culturally regressive.”4 Most of us can relate. If we read the Bible carefully, eventually we encounter something we find hard to accept, and maybe difficult to believe at all. The question is this: What should we do when this happens?

By way of answer, here are several practical steps we can take to give us growing confidence in the word of God.

First, we can confess that we are not neutral observers but are predisposed not to believe what God says. This is one of the sad results of humanity’s first, morally fatal transgression. As soon as Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they hid from God—a clear sign that they were no longer aligned with his divine holiness. God called to Adam and said, “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:9). This showed that the first man had ended up far from God. Adam’s sin has noetic effects on all of us; in other words, it distorts our spiritual ability to reason. Spiritual doubt comes more naturally to the fallen human heart than genuine faith does. Missiologist Lesslie Newbigin reminds us: “We are not honest inquirers seeking the truth. We are alienated from truth and are enemies of it.”5 If this is true, then we need to doubt our doubts and stay skeptical about our skepticism.

Second, we can keep studying the Scriptures. When we do, we will find out how reliable they are. The Bible is easily the best-attested text from the ancient world. We have—by far—more well-preserved manuscripts of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments than we do of any other history book or sacred text from antiquity. We know what the Bible says.

Furthermore, the general trajectory of biblical scholarship is to confirm rather than to deny biblical history. To cite one notable example, some scholars used to cast doubt on the historicity of David, despite all the biblical evidence to the contrary. Those aspersions were set aside for good when archaeologists discovered a stone artifact at Tel Dan in 1993 and saw “the house of David” among its inscriptions. This proved that David’s reign was engraved in stone as well as written in Scripture. Or consider Luke’s assertion that Jesus was born “when Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Luke 2:2). Certain scholars used to claim that Luke’s timetable was inaccurate. But as more information became available, it turned out that Doctor Luke knew more than these scholars did about the governorship of Quirinius and his census-taking in the Roman world.6

When we have our doubts, we need to study the Bible more, not less. We need to open it up, not set it aside. The overall direction of biblical interpretation encourages us to keep searching for the answers, so that in time we too may come to a better understanding of the truth. If we are wise, we will accept the mysteries, wrestle with the difficulties, live with the questions, and wait for the answers while we keep studying the word of God.

Third, we can recognize that the Bible contains the faithful ring of truth. When we have our doubts, it is easy to focus so much on what we think are problems that we miss the unmistakable signs of authenticity.

There are many things we would never expect to see in the Bible unless they were true. For example, we would not expect so many heroes of the faith—nearly all of them, in fact—to expose so many of their failings in its pages. It is really difficult to imagine an important leader like Peter coming off so badly in the church’s sacred texts unless he himself had insisted on its accurate record of his ignorance, cowardice, and betrayal.7 The best explanation for this unrivalled candor is that the authors of Scripture were telling the truth about themselves because they wanted us to know the truth about the mercy and grace that God showed them.

We could say something similar about Jesus of Nazareth—not about his sins, of course, because he committed no sin, but about some of the troubling facts in his biography. Why would the Bible ever speak of his spiritual struggle in the garden of Gethsemane, or proclaim that he was crucified as a common criminal, or record his words of dereliction from the cross unless these things actually happened? Even if we still have our doubts about certain parts of Scripture, we should recognize that its primary historical claims are true beyond any reasonable objection.

C. S. Lewis found a realism and attention to detail in the Bible that was unlike anything else in the literature of the ancient world, and this convinced him that its writers were telling the truth. Lewis wrote:

I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends, and myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know none of them are like this. Of this text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage . . . or else, some unknown writer . . . without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern novelistic, realistic narrative.8

Fourth, we can do what the Bible says, which of course is a lifelong challenge for us all. Some doubters and skeptics want to determine whether the Bible is true first, and then perhaps they will start to obey its teachings. But the first thing Jesus said to Andrew, Peter, and the other disciples was “Follow me!” (Matt. 4:19). Then he sat down to teach them what they needed to know (see Matt. 5:2ff.). Doing and believing go together. Indeed, we do not truly believe in Jesus