Pastor's Corner: The lesson found in Thomas

In light of Easter and celebrating our resurrected Jesus, I was faced with the response of one of Jesus’ disciples named Thomas.

Thomas has been marked as “Doubting Thomas” by the Christian movement as a whole. But I believe we miss an amazing message found in the story of Thomas if we leave it there. John tells us about the response of Thomas to the stories of the risen Savior: “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it” (John 20:25b emphasis mine). Thomas like much of the Jewish culture had based much of their belief in the Lord God on what they saw. They remembered what God had done for them because of what they had seen (Deut. 7:17-18).

The response of Thomas made sense logically, although he had witnessed the miraculous resurrection that had to take place in the instance of Lazarus (John 11:38-44), Thomas still struggled to believe it. In our culture today, we are not much different, even as believers we find it easy to understand but like Thomas we have begun to allow faith to be something that is seen, even though we are told that it is unseen (Heb. 11). Faith should never be defined by our experience and feelings, but rather by the truth that founded it. “Now Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Heb. 11:1). Thomas had it wrong when instead of believing the words Jesus spoke about His resurrection, he based his faith upon what he had known, even then not remembering fully all that had taken place. The faith of Thomas was based on experience and feelings, not on truth and certainty. Jesus speaks directly to the issue when He tells Thomas that he believed because he saw but those who believed even though they did not see would be blessed (John 20:29).

Thomas the “Doubter” learned something that day about the importance of basing belief upon truth rather than what we have seen. Thomas according to Church tradition would go as far as India sharing the Gospel message and eventually give His life for Christ. Within each of us, we have the temptation to base our faith off of our experiences and feelings, but we misunderstand faith when we allow experience and feelings to precede the truth. Only following the truth will our experiences and feelings be correctly understood in light of our faith. Jesus teach us to live by truth and let the experiences and feelings we have magnify your truth.

The Rev. Joshua W. Seymour

Havre Assembly of God Associate Pastor