When I became a Christian and started living out my life for Christ, I was very excited to share it with everyone I knew, including some of my professors. I am pursuing a minor in philosophy and have gotten very close to one of my professors. The first semester of my junior year I was in Ethical Theory with this professor. As a new Christian I was still young and immature in my understanding of what it meant to live a Christian life, so I sought the answers in philosophy. I wondered, what is my ethical theory? This professor provided many readings on different ethical/moral theories including Christian ones. We read a paper written by a Christian philosopher who said that if you are a Christian, then your ethical/moral theory is to obey God. It clicked for me, but also made me realize that my professor was open to and respected Christianity. This revelation was very interesting to me because my professor is an atheist and a well known one in the philosophical community. He has written books on why we do not need God to live a moral life or to have moral values in life, but he also loves C.S. Lewis and Alvin Plantinga, and even has some knowledge of Scripture – go figure.
For some reason, I opened up to him once after class and shared my faith with him. I told him about how Christ had renewed my life, how I was being sanctified daily, and how much of a struggle that was. He listened openly and even offered encouraging remarks. I guess God put it in my heart to continue talking to him, because every week I would have an hour long conversation with him. It started off as just getting to know each other or discussing philosophy, but started heading in a different direction as time progressed. This semester I have another philosophy class, Philosophy of Religion with this professor and I continue to see him and talk with him weekly. God has worked a lot in my life in one semester. I am more bold with my faith and talk about it openly and am not ashamed. Paul says in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (ESV).
We have a duty to fulfill the great commission left to us by Christ, boasting in nothing but the cross, and sharing life with everyone who will accept it. This class should be called Philosophy of Christianity and is probably the closest thing I can get to a theology course as an undergraduate. We talk about the Judeo-Christian God and Christian thought. About a month ago, I started directing our conversations to faith and started challenging my professor. A month, ago I asked him if he was worried. And he asked, worried about what, to which I replied, “What I believe has serious consequences for what you believe.” It was funny because it wasn’t uncomfortable and we spoke about condemnation for a while.
Three weeks ago I asked him why he was teaching a class on Christianity, why he respected and loved C.S. Lewis so much, and why he was so open and respectful towards Christianity. I asked him if he was searching for anything to which he told me that he wanted to keep his options open and make sure he had all the evidence available to him. Two weeks ago, being in a bad mood, I unloaded on my professor. I told him how I was having a bad day, how I hadn’t read my Bible yet today, how I needed the word to fill me daily, how I needed Jesus to give my life meaning, how the answers to all his questions are found in Scripture. I told him that my problem with atheists is that they have these questions and make these arguments, but don’t read the word of God, which contains all the answers. I told him to read the Bible.
He opened up to me and told me that he’s been trying to make a connection to God, but has not felt anything. At that moment I saw my professor for who he was. He’s this really calm and intelligent guy who seems to have it all together, but he is lost and broken. He needs Jesus and I was really moved to pity and compassion for my friend. I told him that I believe that Jesus died for my sins out of the abundant love that God has for us, and I told him that Jesus died for his sins and that grace is open to him. I told him to read the Bible. He asked me where to start, to which I said Romans. I told him to e-mail with any questions that he has about Romans and that I would read through it with him. God put this man in my heart, and I care about my professor. He’s my friend and I want to see God save him through Christ. We must be bold with our faith.
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The Greek IV story was shared by Noé Flores Author Website: http://www.depauw.edu/student/greek/PhiGammaDelta.asp Author Email: Contact Author Author Bio: Noé is a Phi Gamma Delta at DePauw University where he is actively involved with Greek InterVarsity. More Stories by Noé Flores |
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This post is tagged Academics, Evangelism, Fraternity, Philosophy
