Bev and I have still not been overtaken by the arrival of baby Jones no.3, so last night's evening on gender roles went ahead as planned. About 25 people from across the church gathered in Osney. We looked at the range of views that exist and at some of the relevant passages of Scripture, and there was lots of discussion!
But, for me, the best part of the evening was being grilled for about 45 minutes by a whole series of insightful questions. It may seem strange to others, but I really love being asked challenging questions! In fact, much of my day-to-day thinking is guided and stimulated by such questions.
When I read the Bible, I typically continue through the text until I find something that doesn't make sense to me, something that prompts a question, and there I stop. I figure that's the point about which I've got most to learn and which is therefore most likely to challenge and transform my thinking, if only I will dig around it a bit and meditate on it.
I also love things like Alpha and Café church, or any situation where people feel free to voice their questions and criticism of Christianity. I don't want to believe things that aren't true, and this kind of questioning is a great way to refine my beliefs.
In the days when a coin's value depended on how much gold it had in it, questions were often asked about whether coins were really as pure as they were claimed to be. To test it, some of the coin would be subjected to a very high heat, so that it melted. As it melted, the various impurities would float to the surface and form a scum, and the amount of scum revealed how pure it really was. However, at this point, the tester would also become the refiner. For, once the scum had formed, the obvious thing to do was to skim it off. With that done, the gold would be allowed to cool and solidify, and the resulting ingot would be purer than it was at first.
The hardest questions arise from suffering, and these do indeed test our faith. Yet, even such testing can serve both to prove the quality of our faith (1 Peter 1:6-7) and to develop its strength (James 1:3).
