Being Rational

rational

adjective

Acts 17:2, 16-21

And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,

Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

 Christians are reasonable, rational people

After several months listening to the arguments of an atheist and a Christian I found both to be well reasoned and logical although neither could, and I suspect would, convince the other.  However, I began to think that the Christian hypothesis was slightly more convincingt and that I should put it to the test. When I worked a few things out I then came to discover that Jesus Christ is, as he claimed, the way, the truth and the life and that acknowledging him as God and Saviour is the only way to come to know God the Father. This is detailed here. Romans 12:1,2

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

 In the previous 11 chapters of Romans Paul had argued God’s right to rule, that men know he has that right yet reject him with the foolishness of a pot arguing with the potter over how things should work. He explained that despite this God had sent his son, Jesus, to be crucified on our behalf yet rise from the dead fully qualified to be the Saviour and Lord or King. So Paul appeals to us, in the light of these truths, in the light of what God has done for us in Jesus, to do the logical, reasonable, sensible thing and respond by ceasing to try to run things ourselves and do what we should have done all along and “present our bodies as a living sacrifice” to God. see Duality