Assessing evidence

"The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, 'Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?' Some said, 'It is he.' Others said, 'No, but he is like him.' He kept saying, 'I am the man.' So they said to him, 'Then how were your eyes opened?' He answered, 'The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, "Go to Siloam and wash." So I went and washed and received my sight'" (John 9:8-11).

I am one of those people who got saved kicking and screaming through Francis Schaeffer's L'Abri in the Swiss Alps. But I want to clarify that the preaching was only one component. I met a guy named Bob who had changed on a dime from hard-hearted criminal to gentle and kind lover of Jesus, and my rationalistic mind had to contend with that evidence. In the end, I decided that it made more sense to accept Bob's own explanation of his transformation than my own theories.

I like Bob and this guy in John 9. They don't go beyond the evidence. They don't lie to make it more believable. How did you get your sight? Some man put mud on my eyes. How did you stop stealing and doing drugs, Bob? The Holy Spirit moved into my heart.

We would like to sound more intelligent in our explanations. The truth is so simple it's embarrassing. But the fact is we don't know much more than what we can state: The wind blows where it wills, and so does the Spirit. The beggar's interrogators keep pressing for a better story. It does not compute with them---it does not fit their theological paradigms---that a "sinner" like Jesus can heal a blind person.

But the man has nothing much to say: "Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see."

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.