I genuinely enjoyed reading Kant's, "What is enlightenment?". I think I enjoyed it because it got me thinking about not only the culture Kant was referring to, but taking that and trying to apply it to today and the culture we live in. This one sentence particularly stuck out to me. "As things now stand, much is lacking which prevents men from being, or easily becoming, capable of correctly using their own reason in religious matters with assurance and free from outside direction."
I had a different take on the meaning of this sentence then I feel it is probably meant to have, but hey what's new? I take this sentence and bring it into today's culture, our world. Growing up in the western world you are presented with so many different types of world views, opinions, and religious beliefs. The Christian faith is sadly lacking in our world right now. It's not as simple as hey, here is the truth and you should believe it. At the point that you have the opportunity to present the gospel to someone, five other people have already had conversations about many other types of world views and beliefs which has complicated things for the person listening. But that should not discourage us. To us, it seems really simple. We know the gospel and the Bible is the one truth but for someone who has never heard that before, they don't know what is true or not and it's not easy. For me, it encourages me to know my stuff and know why I believe what I claim to believe because so I can effectively explain it with assurance. There are many outside beliefs trying to distract from the one truth that there is. But we can have hope that Jesus has already won the final battle! We need to continue to be faithful in what He has commanded us to preach. It may not always be easy to understand certain things about our God or to explain different topics to people but we are called to do that for the greater good of the kingdom.
I commented on Luke's post and Cade's post!! :)
I had a different take on the meaning of this sentence then I feel it is probably meant to have, but hey what's new? I take this sentence and bring it into today's culture, our world. Growing up in the western world you are presented with so many different types of world views, opinions, and religious beliefs. The Christian faith is sadly lacking in our world right now. It's not as simple as hey, here is the truth and you should believe it. At the point that you have the opportunity to present the gospel to someone, five other people have already had conversations about many other types of world views and beliefs which has complicated things for the person listening. But that should not discourage us. To us, it seems really simple. We know the gospel and the Bible is the one truth but for someone who has never heard that before, they don't know what is true or not and it's not easy. For me, it encourages me to know my stuff and know why I believe what I claim to believe because so I can effectively explain it with assurance. There are many outside beliefs trying to distract from the one truth that there is. But we can have hope that Jesus has already won the final battle! We need to continue to be faithful in what He has commanded us to preach. It may not always be easy to understand certain things about our God or to explain different topics to people but we are called to do that for the greater good of the kingdom.
I commented on Luke's post and Cade's post!! :)
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