Smart People–No Faith?
Living in
New England, in particularly New Hampshire, has given me the dubious
distinction of being in the region that has the fewest people attending church
in the nation. The greater Boston area, I believe, has the most colleges and
universities in a given area in the country, with the highest number of college
students. National surveys have indicated that the higher the education level,
the less likely a person is of being a follower of Jesus.
I enjoy the
intelligent people in our church. I definitely do not understand some of the things
they talk about. It gets into the stratosphere of comprehension pretty quickly with
some of the engineers who have PhD’s and talk physics and electronics. Fortunately,
they also are some of the ones who love God deeply and have a strong faith. And
I admire their intelligence and their faith and glad to call them my friends
and brothers in Christ.
But I have
also had discussions with other intelligent people in the community where it
seems like their intellect become a hindrance for them to understand the simple
good news of Jesus. And there does seem to be a correlation between higher IQ and
lower faith. So what do we do?
Do we
simply write off intellectual people from our list of whom we pray for and seek
to witness to? Do we give up on anyone that has an IQ of 125 or more? If our
child scores in the highly gifted category of one of the IQ tests they use in school,
should we feel doomed that our child is less likely to become a follower of Christ?
Or do we commit to pray twice as hard for them to overcome a potential to
become more skeptical of the faith?
Jesus did
spend more time with people who were not college educated, but that was because
of the world in Jesus’ time. Most people were farmers, shepherds, fishermen and
common folk. Women rarely got the chance to go to school and develop their
mental potential. But Jesus did not hesitate to talk to intelligent people. It
is probably true that then, as now, fewer of the educated people believed in
Jesus. Some of Jesus’ fiercest critics were the educated religious leaders. But
that didn’t stop Jesus from reaching out to them. In fact, in the early church,
it says that a large number of priests became followers of Jesus (Acts 6:7).
Their education and training didn’t stop them from understanding the truth.
But it is
probably true that the smarter a person is, the more we can become intimidated
by their learning. They may ask harder questions about why we believe Jesus is
the only true Son of God; why Jesus is supposedly the only way to God; why
there is evil in the world, and so forth. They may ask those questions, but not
always. And those same questions often come from people who would not be
classified as intellectuals.
Jesus had a
discussion one night with a towering intellectual. His name was Nicodemus. Nic
was one of the leading teachers of his day. He was a Pharisee, which meant he
was a part of an elite group of religious zealots, who lived to figure out how
to keep God’s laws and never come close to breaking any of them. Think Green
Beret of priests. He was also a member of the Sanhedrin, which was like
Parliament in England. It was a group of 70 people who governed the religious show
in all of Israel. If anyone would be a skeptic, it would be Nic.
Jesus had
an interesting conversation with him that night. And how Jesus interacted with
him will help us know how we can interact with those in our circles who are
intelligent. That night conversation is going to be the focus of my sermon this
Sunday as we look at Jesus and Nicodemus. You’ll come away with the confidence
that God can use you to talk to anyone, even those who might be smarter than
you.
Building Update
Close. City
inspectors arrived this week to inspect the plumbing, electrical, and construction
parts of the building. They have liked what they have seen, and we are getting close
to the final approval. So, we look ahead to next and say, Maybe next week we’ll
get the final OK.
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