Dale
November 1, 2019, 6:37pm
293
The New Testament is full of severe warnings to test yourself against scripture to see if you really are one of Father’s children. C.H. Spurgeon calls any in the church who is not a believer, but claims to be, a ‘mere professor’ – my term is ‘believist’. There were those even in the early church.
When I was a child, I freely accepted the testimony that that Japan existed. I was given it from trusted sources – my parents, teachers, pictures, books, maps and globes. I was a “believer” in the existence of Japan, or maybe more accurately a “believist”, a “Japanist”, making a somewhat esoteric and technical distinction. Now that I have been there and have seen it firsthand, I am not going to deny its existence, and I am a “believer” – a “Japaner”.
A Christian believer, then, being someone who has had something irrefutable happen in their life experience and which they will never deny as being legitimate evidence. That evidence can be as personal and intimate as a recognition of a change in heart and a change in their heart’s desires, or it can be events that can be documented. Either can certainly be denied as being evidence by others, as flat earthers deny any and all evidence that the earth is spherical, but denial does not constitute proof of the contrary fact. There are many who count themselves as believers, or say that they used to be believers, when in fact they are now or used to be merely “believists”.