The following is taken from C.S. Lewis’ essay called “Why I am not a pacifist” written in 1940 and found now in a book called “Compelling Reason” published by Harper Collins in 1996.

“….. Reason – by which I do not mean some separate faculty but ……, the whole man judging, …… about truth and falsehood.

Now any concrete train of reasoning involves three elements:

Firstly, there is the reception of facts to reason about. These facts are received either from our own senses, or from the report of other minds; that is, either experience or authority supplies us with our material. But each man’s experience is so limited that the second source is the more usual; of every hundred facts upon which to reason, ninety-nine depend on authority.

Secondly, there is the direct, simple act of the mind perceiving self-evident truth, as when we see that if A and B both equal C, then they equal each other. This act I call intuition.

Thirdly, there is an art or skill of arranging the facts so as to yield a series of such intuitions which linked together produce a proof of the truth or falsehood of the proposition we are considering. Thus in a geometrical proof each step is seen by intuition, and to fail to see it is to be not a bad geometrician but an idiot. The skill comes in arranging the material into a series of intuitable ‘steps’. Failure to do this does not mean idiocy, but only lack of ingenuity or invention. Failure to follow it need not mean idiocy, but either inattention or defect of memory which forbids us to hold all the intuitions together.

Now all correction of errors in reasoning is really correction of the first or the third element. The second, the intuitional element, cannot be corrected if it is wrong, nor supplied if it is lacking. You can give the man new facts. You can invent a simpler proof, that is, a simple concatenation of intuitable truths. But when you come to an absolute inability to see any one of the self-evident steps out of which the proof is built, then you can do nothing. No doubt this absolute inability is much rarer than we suppose. Every teacher knows that people are constantly protesting that they ‘can’t see’ some self-evident inference, but the supposed inability is usually a refusal to see, resulting either from some passion which wants not to see the truth in question or else from sloth which does not want to think at all. But when the inability is real, argument is at an end. You cannot produce rational intuition by argument, because argument depends upon rational intuition. Proof rests upon the unprovable which has to be just ‘seen’. Hence faulty intuition is incorrigible. It does not follow that it cannot be trained by practice in attention and in the mortification of disturbing passions, or corrupted by the opposite habits. But it is not amenable to correction by argument.

Before leaving the subject of Reason, I must point out that authority not only combines with experience to produce the raw material, the ‘facts’, but also has to be frequently used instead of reasoning itself as a method of getting conclusions. For example, few of us have followed the reasoning on which even 10 per cent of the truths we believe are based. We accept them on authority from the experts and are wise to do so, for though we are thereby sometimes deceived, yet we should have to live like savages if we did not.”

It is worth reading the whole article and, indeed, all of C.S. Lewis’ essays and writings are worth reading. From the above we can see that – according to C.S. Lewis – every judgement about truth and falsehood depends on three elements: Facts, intuition and reasoning. C.S. Lewis goes onto argue that intuition is in-built and has to be learnt from childhood and cannot be argued against. It is the framework from which you start. For me that intuition is the Word of God. I start with believing what God has said in His Word and assess every fact and line of reasoning from that base.

The reason I wanted to highlight and reproduce the passage from C.S. Lewis is because of something that seems self-evident to me and I think many others: There is a crisis occurring in many people’s minds when it comes to all three of the elements: Facts, intuition and reasoning. The Internet is awash with “Facts” on everything. People’s intuition is not normally based nowadays on the Scriptures and many people cannot or will not reason.

One example is the moon landing that happened 50 years ago yesterday. I was 9 years old at the time and remember it well. There were thousands of people directly involved in engineering and building the rockets over 10 years. 13 massive Saturn V rockets took off from Cape Canaveral. The blast was so enormous that you had to stay at least 3.5 miles from the launchpad to be safe. 1 million people turned up to see the Apollo 11 launch alone. Over 100 million people watched the live pictures from the moon and saw and heard the astronauts talking and putting up the flag, etc. More recently a satellite called Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been sending back pictures of the places where the different moon missions landed. Despite all this evidence and facts, many people still believe that the moon landing was a faked Hollywood story.

Of course such scepticism is not unusual and considering the amount of falsehoods people have believed over the centuries en masse, it is wise to be sceptical. My first problem with unreasonable scepticism though is that it has its origin in a lie told by someone:

A false witness shall perish,
But the man who hears him will speak endlessly.

Proverbs 21:28 (NKJV)

If anyone causes one of these little ones–those who believe in me–to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Matthew 18:6 (NIV)

According to C.S. Lewis in the passage above, there are two main things that cause people to believe a lie about something: 1. they want to because of some passion or other; 2. they are too lazy to give the matter enough attention. In the second case people lazily accept the statements they read or hear without questioning the source, verifiability or motives behind the propagator of the statements.

But he also points out that probably fewer than 10% of the facts we believe have been reasoned out. Normally we just accept them on authority. Hence the joke that people make about “Well, if it is written on the Internet then it must be true.” The Internet becomes the authority usually for those who are not paying attention to why someone has said something. The initial lie, e.g. the flat earth hoax, gets picked up by thousands as truth. It is no wonder that the Scripture says:

Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death
¹⁹ is the man who deceives his neighbor
    and says, “I am only joking!”

Proverbs 26:18-19 (ESV)

Many people make the mistake of thinking they can deceive people and think that is harmless.

One of the complaints many people have about the Scripture is that God seems devoid of humour. If, by this, we mean that God doesn’t play tricks on people then, yes, He is devoid of that kind of humour. Practical jokes are not in His repertoire of ways of dealing with humans.

They shouldn’t be in ours either.

Few Christian doctrines have caused as much trouble and confusion down the centuries as has the doctrine of communion. On the one side you have those who take a very literal interpretation of the words of Jesus when He said: “This is My body” and on the other you have those that take an allegorical sense of those same words.

As is always the case with any Christian controversy, a true understanding can only come about by combining an understanding given by the Holy Spirit to the words of the inspired Bible. It is that combination of the Spirit and the written word that leads us to the Word of God or Christ Himself in whom dwells all the riches of knowledge and understanding (see Colossians).

If we are ignorant of either one of these – either the Holy Spirit or the Bible – things can get quite confusing. Take as an example Proverbs 9: 1-6 and compare it with the same chapter verses 13-18. In the first section Wisdom calls out to the “Simple” and those “without understanding” and in the second section a foolish woman (Folly) does the same. Both have houses and both offer food and drink. Wisdom offers bread and wine and Folly offers bread and water. Wisdoms food and drink is her own. Folly’s is stolen from somewhere else.

We know from Proverbs 8 that Wisdom is personified by Jesus. It is His own body and blood He offers us – not something stolen from someone else. He paid a high price to give us the spiritual food we so badly desire.

However Folly gives us far more insipid fare. Proverbs 20:17 tells us that her food will turn to gravel in our mouths. Those who try to be satisfied with anything other than the body and blood of Jesus will be disappointed.

But have you seen what I did there? Here is a spiritual truth revealed through physical simple elements. The reality is not in the bread and wine or the water for that matter. The reality is in what they represent.

O Lord, You have searched me and known.

You know my sitting down and my rising up.

You understand my thoughts afar off.

You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

For there is not a word on my tongue – behold O Lord, You know it altogether.

You have hedged me behind and before and laid Your hand upon me.

Knowledge too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot get it.

¹⁸ For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹ For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.”

²⁰ Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. ²² For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; ²³ but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, ²⁴ but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

²⁶ For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; ²⁷ but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, ²⁸ and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, ²⁹ so that no man may boast before God. ³⁰ But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, ³¹ so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

(1 Corinthians 1:18-31)

Watch out if you are not foolish, base or despised! God is not likely to use you much or for long.

The following is not a statement from some obscure man from long ago. It is a command from God that we would do well to heed:

“I must decrease, He must increase.” (John 3:30)

When Paul was following Christ around Asia and being used by the Holy Spirit to plant churches he was particularly foolish. If you want to build anything in this world apart from Christ you don’t just go along to a place for a few weeks, appoint some obscure people as elders and then go off and abandon them. But Paul didn’t see things that way. He was just doing what the Spirit of Jesus was telling him to do and leaving the rest of it to Him. Sure, he prayed and wrote letters, all significant. But we don’t know who the elders are that he appointed in most of the churches. The emphasis wasn’t on the pastors or any individuals. The Holy Spirit was in control.

Paul said to some members of the church at Corinth that in effect “some of you are boasting as if you had power when you do not. The Kingdom of God is not in word but in power.” (1 Cor. 4:18-20).

It should be a matter of concern to us that our churches are so lacking in power.

Jesus wants us to be like He was on the earth. The church should collectively be out in the streets and public places speaking like Jesus and doing the things that he did: healing the sick (a lot), raising the dead (on at least a couple of occasions) and addressing the powers and authorities, especially religious ones, and calling out their hypocrisy. This needs to be done fearlessly but also in the Spirit of overwhelming, reckless love that Jesus passionately poured forth as our example.

Paul’s whole work was to establish local churches that could prepare and bring about this. It was his inspired answer to how to “make disciples of every nation, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you” (Matt.28:20). It is a study in itself of how Paul understood this but just reading his letter to the Ephesians would give you enough to be excited about. In that letter Paul describes how the whole body is involved in church, each member doing its part in building it up until we all become like a mature Christ. He also describes there the role and authorities of what is commonly known as the five fold ministries, all of which should be operating: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. In 1 Corinthians 14: 26-40 he describes a format for a church meeting which enables these ministries to function in the church.

The goal of local churches should not be to reproduce themselves in some kind of pyramid scheme that in the end actually delivers nothing of any relevance to the nation they are in.

The goal of a church should be to ensure that Christ’s promise that “Greater things than these will you do.” (John 14:12) is fulfilled for all the disciples in their care.

(It is hard to imagine greater things than raising the dead but that only considers the word “greater” in the sense of “mightier”. I believe that at least one way Jesus intended the word “greater” to mean was in quantity and geographical spread. What Jesus did in Galilee and Judea, He wants His disciples to do all over the world.)

If all local churches produced disciples that were truly like Christ in every way (including with His power) then it is in this sense that “greater things” would be achieved. Being like Christ is to grow up in a local church and under its authority but eventually, at the right time, to be let loose on the world and behave like Christ did in the streets and villages of Galilee. This is not individuals being released one at a time to be devoured by the wolves of the world. This is flocks being released at once. This is sometimes called revival, or a move of God. In practice it should be an ongoing phenomenon.

And it is not as if this has not happened in the past. The Methodist movements of the late 18th century carried many of the signs of the church impacting the communities with Jesus manifest in all sorts of signs and wonders. The legacy was community changing and we feel its effects to this day. The reformation of the early 16th century showed similar Christ like people saying and doing similar things to Jesus in their communities. It arose spontaneously in at least 3 countries, affected thousands and changed the course of nations. The whole world is still benefitting from the reforms that the Spirit of God introduced at that time and under its influence through godly men and women into both churches and civil society. More recently Asian countries like Indonesia and China have seen Jesus move in power through His people. And those are only the ones we know about.

We are thinking in very small terms about our Almighty God if we think what we have seen in Ireland in the Evangelical / Pentecostal churches is all there is to being a disciple or to His Church “Awesome as an army with banners.” (Songs 6:4).

The best is yet to come.

The middle of the night is a good time to hear things it seems. I woke up this morning remembering Elisha’s incident with the women of Shunem:

One day Elisha went to the town of Shunem. A wealthy woman lived there, and she urged him to come to her home for a meal. After that, whenever he passed that way, he would stop there for something to eat.

⁹ She said to her husband, “I am sure this man who stops in from time to time is a holy man of God. ¹⁰ Let’s build a small room for him on the roof and furnish it with a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp. Then he will have a place to stay whenever he comes by.”

¹¹ One day Elisha returned to Shunem, and he went up to this upper room to rest. ¹² He said to his servant Gehazi, “Tell the woman from Shunem I want to speak to her.” When she appeared, ¹³ Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tell her, ‘We appreciate the kind concern you have shown us. What can we do for you? Can we put in a good word for you to the king or to the commander of the army?’”

“No,” she replied, “my family takes good care of me.”

¹⁴ Later Elisha asked Gehazi, “What can we do for her?”

Gehazi replied, “She doesn’t have a son, and her husband is an old man.”

¹⁵ “Call her back again,” Elisha told him. When the woman returned, Elisha said to her as she stood in the doorway, ¹⁶ “Next year at this time you will be holding a son in your arms!”

“No, my lord!” she cried. “O man of God, don’t deceive me and get my hopes up like that.”

¹⁷ But sure enough, the woman soon became pregnant. And at that time the following year she had a son, just as Elisha had said.

¹⁸ One day when her child was older, he went out to help his father, who was working with the harvesters. ¹⁹ Suddenly he cried out, “My head hurts! My head hurts!”

His father said to one of the servants, “Carry him home to his mother.”

²⁰ So the servant took him home, and his mother held him on her lap. But around noontime he died. ²¹ She carried him up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and left him there. ²² She sent a message to her husband: “Send one of the servants and a donkey so that I can hurry to the man of God and come right back.”

²³ “Why go today?” he asked. “It is neither a new moon festival nor a Sabbath.”

But she said, “It will be all right.”

²⁴ So she saddled the donkey and said to the servant, “Hurry! Don’t slow down unless I tell you to.”

²⁵ As she approached the man of God at Mount Carmel, Elisha saw her in the distance. He said to Gehazi, “Look, the woman from Shunem is coming. ²⁶ Run out to meet her and ask her, ‘Is everything all right with you, your husband, and your child?’”

“Yes,” the woman told Gehazi, “everything is fine.”

²⁷ But when she came to the man of God at the mountain, she fell to the ground before him and caught hold of his feet. Gehazi began to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone. She is deeply troubled, but the Lord has not told me what it is.”

(2 Kings 4:8 – 27)

One of the traps of any ministry is that you think you have to always perform, know all things, always be able to carry out the ministry. But that is not God’s way. Not only did Elisha not know what was wrong with his friend but even when he did, he entrusted the miracle to a corrupt man who couldn’t help her. The woman knew better than Elisha in this case: she didn’t trust Gehazi though Elisha apparently did.

²⁸ Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? And didn’t I say, ‘Don’t deceive me and get my hopes up’?”

²⁹ Then Elisha said to Gehazi, “Get ready to travel^[a]; take my staff and go! Don’t talk to anyone along the way. Go quickly and lay the staff on the child’s face.”

³⁰ But the boy’s mother said, “As surely as the Lord lives and you yourself live, I won’t go home unless you go with me.” So Elisha returned with her.

³¹ Gehazi hurried on ahead and laid the staff on the child’s face, but nothing happened. There was no sign of life. He returned to meet Elisha and told him, “The child is still dead.”

³² When Elisha arrived, the child was indeed dead, lying there on the prophet’s bed. ³³ He went in alone and shut the door behind him and prayed to the Lord. ³⁴ Then he lay down on the child’s body, placing his mouth on the child’s mouth, his eyes on the child’s eyes, and his hands on the child’s hands. And as he stretched out on him, the child’s body began to grow warm again! ³⁵ Elisha got up, walked back and forth across the room once, and then stretched himself out again on the child. This time the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes!

³⁶ Then Elisha summoned Gehazi. “Call the child’s mother!” he said. And when she came in, Elisha said, “Here, take your son!” ³⁷ She fell at his feet and bowed before him, overwhelmed with gratitude. Then she took her son in her arms and carried him downstairs.

Elisha was used in astonishing ways. This account of him raising someone from the dead is the first of two, the second raising from the dead occurred after Elisha died!

But the lesson from this passage is that Elisha was very fallible and not a good judge of people it would seem. When we start being used by God it would be good to remember what we are.