分类： 《归心》

　　（学期最后一次聚会，桌上多了一盒不知道谁带来的月饼，大家都比平时坐得靠近一点）

一、我到底算哪边的人？

　　Jenny：（搅着奶茶，情绪有点低落）我最近老在想一件事，说不清楚哪里不对，就是心里空空的。我妈是华裔，我爸是欧裔，我在温哥华出生长大，中文说得磕磕巴巴。上次回国内见亲戚，我表姐直接说「你其实是外国人吧」，虽然是笑着说的，但我心里挺不是滋味。可在学校，我又不完全算「主流」白人小孩，我从小就知道自己「不一样」。这两边好像都不完全是我的地方，那种悬空的感觉，你们懂吗？

　　Jack：（点头）我懂一部分。我是留学生，虽然是二代基督徒，从小在教会长大，但我在这边永远是「国际生」，选课分组的时候，本地同学的小圈子我很难真正进去。暑假回国，老同学又说我「你现在讲话都有点洋腔了，跟我们不太一样了」。两边都有点格格不入，我甚至开始怀疑，是不是我这辈子就注定要一直这样漂着。

　　Peter：我是CBC，从小在这边长大，倒没有Jenny和Jack那种「两边都不属于」的感觉，但我有另一种——我身边很多同学根本不知道「团契」是什么，我上周五晚上说要去查经，我室友愣了一下，说「哦，你还信这个啊，挺特别的」，那种被当成异类打量的眼神，我也不太舒服，好像我突然从「正常人」变成了博物馆里的展品。

　　Tom：（插话）我更惨，我是CBC，但我还没受洗，我自己都不确定该怎么定义自己——说是基督徒吧，我很多方面跟教会的期待对不上；说不是吧，我从小到大又一直在教会里，跟不信的同学聊起来，人家觉得我是「圈内人」。我自己都搞不清自己算哪边的。

　　John：（认真听着）你们几个说的，其实是同一个更大问题的几种面貌——「我到底属于哪里」。我自己也算半个「哪儿都不完全属于」的活案例——中文说得一般，英文带口音，每次回国被说「你怎么这么加拿大」，在这边又时不时被问「你的英文名是不是你真名」，属于两边通吃地不上不下，你们这个感觉，我太熟悉了。这个问题，不只是文化认同的问题，圣经其实一直在正面回答这个问题，只是它给的答案，跟你们现在想的「哪个群体、哪个国家、哪种文化」不完全是一回事。

　　Jenny：那圣经怎么回答？

　　John：彼得前书里，使徒彼得写信给一群分散在小亚细亚各地、被称为「寄居的」信徒，直接称呼他们是「被拣选的族类，有君尊的祭司，圣洁的国度，属神的子民」。这些人，很多是被赶出家乡、流散各地，跟你们的处境不完全一样，但那种「不完全属于当地、也回不去原来的地方」的悬空感，跟你们描述的很像。彼得没有跟他们说「别难过，你们其实很快就会找到一个新的地上家乡」，他说的是——你们最根本的身份，不是靠地上任何一个群体来定义的，是神自己给你们的，一个超越地理、超越文化的身份。而且彼得讲的不是一个人单独拿到一张「属神」的身份卡就够了，他一连用了好几个群体性的词——族类、祭司、国度、子民——老普林斯顿的圣经神学家沃斯（Geerhardus Vos）特别强调过这一点，大意是，神的国从来不是让一个个孤立的个体各自安放身份，是把不同背景的人放进同一个身体里，用一种比地缘、比血缘更深的方式彼此联结。所以你们说的这种「哪儿都不完全属于」的感觉，最终的答案不只是「我心里知道自己属于神就好了」，是神也把你们放进了眼前这群人当中——这个团契，某个意义上，就是那个更深归属的一个具体、看得见的样子，虽然不完美，但是真实的。

　　Jack：那这个身份，能不能真的解决我那种「悬空」的感觉？听起来还是挺抽象的。我表姐那句话说完，我难受了一整天，不是听一句「你是属神的子民」就能立刻消化掉的。

　　John：我理解这种抽象感，这不是听一次就能立刻消化掉的。我想换个角度问——Jenny，你觉得，如果有一天你回国内，亲戚不再说你是「外国人」，或者在这边，大家都完全接纳你「够本地」，那种悬空感会不会就彻底消失？

　　Jenny：（想了想）……可能会好一点，但我猜不会完全消失，因为我认识一些看起来「完全融入」了的朋友，比如我有个朋友，父母都是本地人，从小在这边长大，完全没有我这种文化夹缝的问题，可她心里其实也有类似的不安，只是理由不一样——她焦虑的是她好像「太普通」，没有什么特别的身份标签，反而羡慕我「至少有故事可以讲」。

　　John：这正是我想指出的——那种悬空感，不完全是「文化归属」这个层面能解决的问题，因为就算你找到了一个「完美融入」的群体，人心里那份「我到底是谁、我最终归向哪里」的不安，还是会用别的形式冒出来。圣经说的是，这份悬空感，背后其实是在指向一个更深的事实——我们本来就是照着神的形象被造，本来就是要在祂里面找到最终的归属，任何地上的文化、群体，都没办法完全填满那个位置，不是它们不好，是它们从来没被设计来扛这个位置。

　　Peter：（这时提出自己的困惑）那我说的那种「被当成异类」呢？我不是文化归属的问题，是我发现，现在学校里一讨论性别、政治、公义这些话题，气氛特别撕裂，一不小心说错话就被贴标签。我上周Sociology的Tutorial，讨论一个跟移民政策有关的话题，我随口提了一句跟主流意见不太一样的角度，结果TA当场脸色就变了，虽然没直接骂我，但那种「你是不是有问题」的眼神，我到现在想起来都不舒服。

　　Tom：这个我也怕，我室友知道我信教之后，有次聊到一个社会议题，直接说「哦那你肯定是保守派、反对这个反对那个」，我都没来得及解释，就已经被贴上标签了，之后他跟我聊天都带着一种防备。

　　John：这个处境确实不容易，我不会假装有一个能让你「既表达立场又永远不被误解」的公式。我想先说一件事——你感受到的这种撕裂，很大程度上是因为，这个时代很多讨论已经不再是「就事论事地辩论谁的理由更站得住脚」，变成了「先看你站哪一边，再决定要不要听你说话」。这个环境本身有问题，不完全是你个人的问题。

　　Jack：那我们该怎么参与这些讨论，才算有智慧？

　　John：我想给几个方向，不是万能公式。第一，先问自己，我开口，是想「赢」这场辩论、证明自己对，还是真心想帮对方看见一些他可能没想过的东西？这两种动机，说出来的话，语气会完全不一样。

　　Peter：可有时候不是我想不想赢的问题，是我发现，我跟同学根本没有共同的出发点可以讲道理。比如那次讨论移民政策，我用的理由，他们完全不接受，因为他们的整个框架里，压根不认同「有一个客观的对错」这回事，他们的说法是「每个人的处境不同，谁也没资格评判谁」。我一开口讲「这样做是不对的」，他们第一反应就是「你凭什么定义什么是对的」。

　　John：这正是我想跟你们说的第二个方向，也是更根本的一个——你遇到的这个墙，不是「我这次的理由不够好」，是对方压根不承认，有一个大家都能站上去、共同讲道理的地基。这种时候，光是拿出更多的证据、更精巧的论证，往往没用，因为问题不在证据这一层，是在更底下——他到底相不相信，这个世界有一个不由他自己决定的、真实的对错标准。

　　Jenny：那怎么办，难道就没法沟通了？

　　John：不是没法沟通，是要先把这个更底层的问题摆出来，而不是绕着它打转。你可以老实问对方——你说「每个人的处境不同，谁也没资格评判谁」，那你自己刚才评判我「没资格评判」，这句话本身算不算也是一种评判？如果连「不该评判」这句话都要被当作一条普遍适用的规则来讲，那他其实已经在用一个「大家都该遵守」的标准，来反对「有大家都该遵守的标准」这件事，自己先绊倒了自己。

　　Tom：（挑刺）这听起来是个语言游戏，把人绕晕而已，能真的说服人吗？

　　John：不一定能当场说服人，说实话，很少有人会因为一次逻辑上被抓到破绽，就立刻改变立场，人不是这样运作的。我说这个，不是给你们一个「辩论必胜技巧」，是想让你们自己心里先站稳——不要因为对方说得斩钉截铁、气场很足，就开始怀疑「是不是真的没有客观对错，是我们基督徒太死板」。你们可以带着尊重、带着谦卑去听对方，同时心里清楚知道，对方那套「什么都相对」的说法，他自己其实也没有真的活出来，包括他反对你的那一刻，他心里其实也在用一个他自己不承认、却真实存在的标准。

　　Amy：（这时开口，带着自己观察到的困惑）我旁听你们聊这些，发现你们说话的方式，跟我在网上、在课堂上看到的很多「基督徒 vs 世俗」的辩论完全不一样，没有那种「我们才是对的，你们都错了」的架势。

　　John：这本来就该是这样，我们不是要「赢」这个世界，是要活出、也说出一个更真实、更完整的图景，那个图景，本身就该比这个时代任何一个简化的立场，都更能容纳复杂性、也更能承载对人的爱。

　　Grace：（想起自己的经历）我想到我事奉的时候遇到的一件类似的事。我带的一个查经小组里，有个姐妹是Political Science的，她说她在系里，一提到自己是基督徒，同学就默认她「一定支持某些立场、反对某些立场」，好像基督徒身份跟一整套政治光谱直接画等号，她说她一次次解释「圣经的教导没有完全对应任何一个现有的政治阵营」，但没什么人愿意听，太累了，她后来干脆在学校尽量不提自己的信仰。

　　John：这个处境我完全理解，而且我想说一句可能会让大家不太舒服的话——有时候，「基督徒 = 某个政治阵营」这个刻板印象，不完全是外面的人凭空捏造的，是过去这些年，确实有不少教会、不少基督徒，把福音和某一套政治立场绑得太紧，好像信耶稣就等于必须支持某个党派的全部主张，这也是教会需要反省的地方。圣经确实有清楚不能妥协的教导，但圣经的教导，从来不完全对应这个时代任何一个现成的政治阵营，两边阵营各自都有一些立场，是圣经会肯定的，也各自有一些立场，是圣经不会认同的。

　　Grace：那她该怎么办，总不能一直不提自己的信仰吧？

　　John：不用一直不提，但可以换个方式——不是一上来就宣告「我是基督徒，我的立场是这样」，是先在具体的问题上，认真讲道理、认真听对方，让人看到，你的思考不是套模板出来的，是真的经过思想的。慢慢地，「原来这个人不是我以为的那种人」，这个印象本身，比任何一次辩论赢了对方，更能松动那个刻板印象。

　　Sophia：（这时换个话题，声音带着现实的重量）我毕业之后，其实一直在纠结要留加拿大、回国、还是去美国。这个决定里有太多现实因素——工签好不好拿、房价、还有我爸妈年纪大了，身体也不像以前那么好。我该怎么把信仰放进这个决定里，而不只是纯粹算一笔利益账？

　　John：这个问题很实际，我不想假装信仰能给你一个「标准答案」告诉你该去哪个国家，圣经没有那样的清单。我想给一个思考的方向——不管你最后去哪里，先问自己，我去那个地方，是不是也愿意在那里，找到、也建造一个真实的信徒群体，继续被塑造、也去服事人？如果一个决定，纯粹只是「哪里对我最有利」，完全没有考虑「我在那里要怎么活出信仰、怎么参与神的国度」，那可能这笔账，只算了一半。工签、房价、家人，这些都是真实、需要认真考虑的因素，不是不重要，是不该是唯一的因素。

讨论：

这一场聊到了两边都不完全属于的悬空感、在撕裂的社会议题讨论里被贴标签的处境、「基督徒=某个政治阵营」的刻板印象、还有毕业去留决定背后的信仰考量。John说，那种悬空感背后，其实是在指向一个更深的事实——我们的最终归属，不是任何地上的群体能完全给出的。请讨论：

1) 你有没有过「两边都不完全属于」的悬空感，或者因为信仰、立场被人贴标签的经历？

2) 听完今天的讨论，你觉得彼得说的「属神的子民」这个身份，能不能真的安放你心里那份悬空感？

二、如果什么都散了，我还剩下什么？

　　Grace：（叹气）我想接着问一个更让我不安的问题。现在我有团契、有几个知心的朋友，我的信仰有人一起托着。可这些都是暂时的——毕业了，大家各奔东西，将来我一个人在陌生的城市、新的职场，如果连一个能说心里话的信徒朋友都没有，我的信仰靠什么撑住？

　　Paul：（这个问题正好戳中他自己）我可以说说我的经验。我大学信仰其实挺热心的，天天参加团契。工作后前两年，真的是一个人硬扛，团契散了，新城市也没找教会，加上工作忙、时差乱，礼拜天累得爬不起来。那两年信仰淡得厉害，几乎快没了，不是哪一天决定不信了，是一点一点地，跟手机电量掉光一样，你根本没注意到具体哪一刻没电的。

　　Grace：那你现在觉得，「靠什么撑住」，答案是什么？

　　Paul：我现在觉得，不是靠「刚好有没有朋友陪着」这种运气，是要主动地、一次次地选择——去找教会、去建立新的关系，哪怕一开始很尴尬、很费力。信仰这件事，好像从来不是「一次建好了就永远稳」的，是要不断重新扎根的。而且我后来才想明白一件事——我那两年不只是「没聚会」，是我心里其实有个念头，觉得反正没人看着我了，一些以前我在团契里不敢做的事，我开始一件一件试着放开，喝酒喝多了、也开始跟不太合适的人交往，最后是那些事把我搞得一团糟，才逼我不得不重新面对神。

　　John：Paul说得很实在，也很诚实地把最难堪的部分说出来了，谢谢你。我想补充一点——圣经讲的信徒群体，从来不是一个「可有可无的情感支持团体」，是神设计来让我们的信仰能持续、能被建造起来的正常方式，希伯来书特别提醒「不可停止聚会」。所以Grace你的担心，不是杞人忧天，是很实际、也很该被重视的问题——不是说「反正神会顾念，你不用担心」，而是要提前预备，把「找到、建立新的信徒群体」这件事，当成毕业之后跟找工作一样重要、甚至更优先的事去对待。

　　Jack：那具体怎么预备？总不能到了新城市再手忙脚乱找。

　　John：可以现在就开始练习几件事——第一，练习不靠团契的活动，自己也能维持读经、祷告的习惯，这样将来环境变了，这个根不会一下子断掉。第二，多留意、多学习怎么主动认识人、怎么鼓起勇气走进一个陌生的教会，这个「主动」的能力，是可以现在就练的。

　　Peter：（想到什么）我室友的经历可能可以给大家提个醒。他不是基督徒，但他去年转学到多伦多，本来在这边有一群很好的死党，他说到了新学校，前三个月他一直告诉自己「反正我朋友都在网上」，天天跟以前的朋友视频、打游戏，完全没有主动认识新同学，结果三个月之后，他发现以前的朋友聚会的时间点，因为大家都各自忙起来，越来越对不上，慢慢就淡了，新的地方他也一个人都没认识，那段时间他说他整个人特别孤独，甚至有点抑郁的状态。后来他逼自己去参加了系里的一个社团，才慢慢好起来。

　　Jenny：那这跟我们信仰的事一模一样，靠「以前的」撑着，不主动往前走，最后两边都落空。

　　John：对，这正是我想说的。Paul那两年信仰的滑坡，跟Peter室友那种孤独，机制其实很像——都是以为「关系是自动维持的」，结果发现关系需要持续、主动地投入，信仰也是一样。

　　Tom：（换个话题，语气变得沉重）我想说件更大的事，可能有点跑题，但我最近真的被这个事困住。我看新闻看得挺丧的——到处是气候危机的报道、还在打仗的地方、社会一天比一天撕裂，AI又搞得人心惶惶。有时候我会想，这个世界好像真的在一点点崩坏，我们这代人是不是就是要眼睁睁看着它变得更糟？作为基督徒，我该怎么活在这样一个感觉正在崩坏的世界里？

　　Amy：（这次是真心认同）我完全没有信仰，但这个感觉我特别有共鸣，我经常刷完新闻，整个人都很无力，甚至有点不敢生小孩，觉得把一个人带到这么乱的世界里，太残忍了。我身边好几个朋友都这样想，我们私下聊起来，都有一种「船要沉了，大家都在假装没事」的感觉。

　　John：（认真地）你们说的这份沉重，我不想用几句轻飘飘的话打发掉。这个世界确实是破碎的，圣经从来没有说「一切都很好，别担心」，恰恰相反，圣经用「呻吟」这个词来形容整个受造界现在的状态——罗马书说，一切受造之物一同叹息、劳苦，直到如今。你们感受到的这份沉重，圣经不但没有否认，反而先一步替你们说出来了。

　　Amy：那这样说，不是更绝望吗？连圣经都承认世界很糟。

　　John：恰恰相反，正因为圣经诚实地承认这份破碎，它给的盼望才不是廉价的「往好处想」，是建立在一件更扎实的事上——同一段经文接着说，这个叹息、劳苦，不是没有方向的，是像产难一样，指向一个终将到来的更新——「等候得着儿子的名分，乃是我们的身体得赎」。基督教的盼望，从来不是「相信这个世界靠人类自己会慢慢变好」，是相信，那位造了这个世界、又亲自进入这个破碎世界、死而复活的主，有一天会亲自回来，彻底更新这一切，把所有的痛苦、不公义、破碎，都终结、都翻转。

　　Tom：可这听起来还是很遥远，我们现在还是得活在这个一天天在崩坏的世界里，这个盼望能改变我今天具体要怎么活吗？

　　John：能，而且我觉得这正是最实际的地方。如果我相信，最终的结局已经被那位掌权、又良善的神定了，祂会亲自来更新一切，那我今天面对气候危机、战争、撕裂，就不需要用两种极端的方式回应——一种是彻底躺平、觉得反正没救了、什么都不做；另一种是把「拯救世界」的整个重担，扛在自己一个人肩上，最后被压垮、被那份无力感吞掉。我可以在我能做的、具体的、微小的事上，认真、负责任地去做——节约、去爱身边具体的人、参与推动一点点公义，同时把最终的结局，交托给那位真正能掌管全局的神，不需要自己一个人扛住整个世界的重量。

　　Amy：（若有所思）所以你们的盼望，不是「相信世界会自己变好」，是相信「有一个更大的、来自外面的力量，会来收拾这一切」？

　　John：对，而且这个盼望不是让人对现在的破碎无动于衷，恰恰相反，正因为知道神在乎公义、在乎受苦的人，基督徒历史上常常是最积极投入照顾穷人、推动社会公义的一群人，因为我们知道，这些努力不是在做无用功，是在预尝那个终将到来的更新，哪怕做得再小、再不完美。

　　Jack：（这时想起自己的挣扎）说到「无力感」，我想说件我自己一直很纠结的事。我知道我该「治死」那种遇事就逃避、遇到大问题就习惯性摆烂划手机的毛病，可我发现，我这个毛病不只是表现在刷手机上——面对气候变化这种大新闻我摆烂，面对自己成绩不好我也摆烂，好像是同一种「反正我也改变不了什么」的心态，从这件事漏到那件事上。

　　John：这个观察很准，而且跟我们前几次聚会提过的一样——不治死所有的罪，就不能治死任何一个罪，因为很多看起来不一样的表现，背后常常是同一个根。你说的这种「反正我也改变不了什么」的无力感，如果只单独处理「刷手机」这一个症状，很可能会从别的地方——比如面对世界的大问题时的冷漠、麻木——重新冒出来。真正要处理的，是那个更深的问题：我信不信，我做的这些小小的、看起来微不足道的努力，在一位掌管万有的神手里，是真的有分量的，不是白费的。

　　Grace：（这时把话题拉回到更个人的层面）那我想问最后一个问题。毕业几年后同学聚会，我心里其实希望，别人提起我，会觉得我「混得不错」——事业稳定、生活体面。但我也隐约知道，如果这就是我全部想要的，好像哪里不对。我到底想让别人记住我什么？

　　John：这个问题，跟我们过去几次聚会聊的很多东西，其实都汇到同一个点上——如果「混得不错」是你全部想要被记住的，那份认同，会跟AI焦虑、跟GPA比较、跟别人觉得你「厉害」一样，永远不够稳、永远要不断重新证明。我想反过来问你——如果十年后，有个学弟学妹提起你，说「我记得那个学姐，她不是最厉害、最风光的那个，但她是真诚的、是我难过的时候会想到的人」，这样的话，你会失望吗？

　　Grace：（想了想，眼眶有点湿）……不会，其实这样更让我想被人这样记住。

　　John：那这份渴望，比「混得不错」更接近圣经说的、真正值得追求的东西——不是要你放弃追求把事情做好、活得体面，是当你把「被爱、被真实地认识」放在「被认为厉害」前面的时候，你会发现，那份不安，慢慢会松开一些。这不是一次谈话就能彻底改变的，是要在接下来很多年里，一次次重新选择。

讨论：

这一场聊到了毕业后独自撑住信仰的挑战、Peter室友因为不主动而陷入孤独的故事、面对一个感觉正在崩坏的世界该怎么活、还有Grace对「被记住什么」的重新思考。John说，基督教的盼望不是相信世界会自己变好，是相信那位造了世界、又亲自进入破碎的主，终将回来更新这一切。请讨论：

1) 如果十年后有人提起你，你希望他们记得的，是你「混得怎么样」，还是别的什么？

2) 这份渴望，跟你今天正在过的生活，之间还有多远的距离？

Lesson 10: Where Do I Really Belong? — Identity, Culture, and Staying True to What I Believe

(The last gathering of the semester. There is an extra box of mooncakes on the table—no one knows who brought them. Everyone is sitting a little closer together than usual.)

1. Where Do I Really Belong?

Jenny: (Stirring her bubble tea, looking a little down) I’ve been thinking about something a lot lately. I can’t really explain what’s wrong, but I just feel kind of empty inside. My mom is Chinese Canadian, my dad is European, and I was born and raised in Vancouver, but my Chinese is pretty broken. The last time I went back to China and saw my relatives, my cousin straight-up said, “You’re actually a foreigner, aren’t you?” She was joking when she said it, but it really bothered me. But here at school, I don’t completely fit in with the “mainstream” white kids either. I’ve known since I was little that I’m “different.” Neither side feels completely like home. It’s like I’m just hanging in midair. You know what I mean?

Jack: (Nods) I get part of that. I’m an international student. Even though I’m a second-generation Christian and grew up in church, I’m always “the international student” here. When we pick courses or form groups, it’s hard for me to really get into the circles of local students. Then when I go back to China during the summer, my old classmates say, “You even have a bit of a foreign accent now. You’re not quite like us anymore.” I feel out of place on both sides too. Sometimes I even wonder if I’m just destined to spend my whole life drifting between places like this.

Peter: I’m a CBC. I grew up here, so I don’t really have the same “I don’t belong on either side” feeling that Jenny and Jack have. But I have another kind of experience. A lot of the people around me don’t even know what “fellowship” means. Last Friday night, I said I was going to Bible study, and my roommate paused and said, “Oh, you still believe in that stuff? That’s pretty unique.” I didn’t feel great about the way he looked at me, like I had suddenly gone from being a “normal person” to an exhibit in a museum.

Tom: (Interrupting) Mine is even worse. I’m a CBC, but I’m not baptized yet, and I’m not even sure how to define myself. If I say I’m a Christian, there are a lot of ways I don’t line up with what the church expects. But if I say I’m not, I’ve still been in church my whole life. When I talk to non-Christian classmates, they see me as “one of the insiders.” I honestly don’t even know which side I’m on.

John: (Listening carefully) What you guys are describing are really different versions of the same bigger question: “Where do I actually belong?” I’m kind of a half-example of the “I don’t completely belong anywhere” experience myself. My Chinese is average, my English has an accent, and every time I go back to China people tell me, “Why are you so Canadian?” Then here, I sometimes get asked, “Is your English name actually your real name?” So I’m stuck somewhere in the middle, getting it from both sides. I know this feeling really well. But this isn’t just a question of cultural identity. The Bible has actually been answering this question directly all along. Its answer, though, isn’t exactly the same as the “which group, which country, which culture” answer you might be looking for.

Jenny: So how does the Bible answer it?

John: In 1 Peter, the apostle Peter writes to a group of believers scattered throughout different parts of Asia Minor, people who were described as “sojourners” and “exiles.” He directly calls them “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession.” Many of these people had been driven from their homes and scattered across different places. Their situation isn’t exactly the same as yours, but that feeling of “not completely belonging where I am, and not being able to go back to where I came from” sounds a lot like what you’ve been describing. Peter doesn’t tell them, “Don’t be sad. You’ll find a new earthly home soon.” What he says is that your deepest identity isn’t something defined by any earthly group. It’s an identity given to you by God Himself, one that goes beyond geography and culture. And Peter isn’t talking about each person individually getting a “belonging to God” identity card and calling it a day. He deliberately uses several collective terms—race, priesthood, nation, people. The biblical theologian Geerhardus Vos, from old Princeton, especially emphasized this point. In other words, God’s kingdom was never about isolated individuals each finding somewhere to place their identity. It is about bringing people from different backgrounds into one body and connecting them to each other in a way that goes deeper than geography or bloodline. So that feeling you’re describing of “not completely belonging anywhere” ultimately isn’t answered simply by saying, “I know in my heart that I belong to God.” God has also placed you among the people right in front of you. In that sense, this fellowship is one concrete, visible expression of that deeper belonging. It isn’t perfect, but it’s real.

Jack: But can that identity really solve that feeling of being suspended in midair? It still sounds pretty abstract. When my cousin said that to me, I felt awful for the whole day. Hearing “You’re one of God’s people” doesn’t just make that feeling disappear immediately.

John: I understand why that sounds abstract. This isn’t something you hear once and immediately digest. Let me ask it from another angle. Jenny, do you think that if one day you went back to China and your relatives stopped calling you a “foreigner,” or if everyone here completely accepted you as “local enough,” that feeling of being suspended in midair would completely disappear?

Jenny: (Thinking) …Maybe it would get better, but I don’t think it would completely disappear. I know some friends who seem completely “integrated.” For example, I have a friend whose parents are both from here, and she grew up here too. She doesn’t have the cultural in-between experience that I do at all. But she actually has a similar kind of insecurity inside. The reason is just different. She worries that she’s “too ordinary,” that she doesn’t have any special identity label. She actually envies me because “at least I have a story to tell.”

John: That’s exactly what I’m trying to point out. That feeling of being suspended in midair can’t be completely solved at the level of “cultural belonging.” Even if you find a group where you fit in perfectly, that deeper human anxiety of “Who am I, and where am I ultimately going?” will still come out in some other form. The Bible says that this feeling is actually pointing to something deeper. We were created in the image of God. We were made to find our ultimate belonging in Him. No earthly culture or community can completely fill that place. It’s not because those things are bad. It’s because they were never designed to carry that weight.

Peter: (Bringing up his own concern) What about the “being treated like an outsider” thing I mentioned? For me, it’s not really about cultural belonging. I’ve noticed that whenever people discuss gender, politics, justice, and things like that at school, the atmosphere gets really polarized. If you say the wrong thing, you can get labeled immediately. Last week in my Sociology tutorial, we were discussing an issue related to immigration policy. I casually brought up a perspective that was somewhat different from the mainstream view, and the TA’s expression changed immediately. They didn’t directly criticize me, but that look of “Is there something wrong with you?” still makes me uncomfortable when I think about it.

Tom: I’m afraid of that too. After my roommate found out I was religious, we were talking about a social issue once, and he immediately said, “Oh, then you must be conservative. You must be against this and against that.” I didn’t even have a chance to explain myself before I was already labeled. After that, whenever he talked to me, there was this sense of defensiveness.

John: That situation really isn’t easy. I’m not going to pretend there’s some formula that lets you “express your position without ever being misunderstood.” But I want to say one thing first. A lot of the polarization you’re experiencing comes from the fact that many discussions today are no longer about “debating which side actually has the stronger reasons.” Instead, people first look at which side you’re on, and then decide whether they even want to listen to you. There is something wrong with that environment itself. It isn’t entirely a problem with you personally.

Jack: So how should we participate in these discussions wisely?

John: I want to give you a few directions, not a magic formula. First, ask yourself: When I speak up, am I trying to “win” the argument and prove that I’m right, or do I genuinely want to help the other person see something they may not have considered? Those two motivations will sound completely different when they come out in the way you speak.

Peter: But sometimes it isn’t about whether I want to win. I’ve realized that my classmates and I don’t even have the same starting point for reasoning. For example, in that immigration policy discussion, the reasons I gave were completely unacceptable within their framework. They don’t even believe there’s such a thing as objective right and wrong. Their position was, “Everyone has different circumstances, so nobody has the right to judge anyone else.” As soon as I said, “That’s wrong,” their first reaction was, “Who are you to define what’s right?”

John: That’s exactly the second direction I want to talk about, and it’s a more fundamental one. The wall you’re running into isn’t necessarily that “my reasons weren’t good enough this time.” It’s that the other person doesn’t even acknowledge that there is a foundation that everyone can stand on and use to reason together. At that point, simply bringing more evidence or making a more sophisticated argument often doesn’t help, because the problem isn’t at the level of evidence. It’s underneath that. Does this person actually believe that there is a real standard of right and wrong that isn’t determined by them?

Jenny: Then what do we do? Does that mean there’s no way to communicate?

John: It doesn’t mean there’s no way to communicate. It means you need to bring that deeper question to the surface instead of going around it. You can honestly ask the other person: You say, “Everyone has different circumstances, and nobody has the right to judge anyone else.” But when you just judged me by saying that I “don’t have the right to judge,” isn’t that itself a kind of judgment? If “you shouldn’t judge” is being presented as a universal rule that everyone should follow, then you’re already using a standard that “everyone should follow” to argue against the existence of standards that “everyone should follow.” You’ve already contradicted yourself.

Tom: (Picking holes in the argument) That sounds like a language game that just confuses people. Can it actually persuade anyone?

John: It might not persuade someone on the spot. Honestly, very few people completely change their position just because someone catches a logical inconsistency in one conversation. That’s not how people work. I’m not giving you a “guaranteed debate-winning technique.” I want you to first have a firm foundation in your own mind. Don’t hear someone speak with absolute confidence and such strong conviction and immediately start wondering, “Maybe there really is no objective right and wrong, and maybe we Christians are just too rigid.” You can listen to the other person with respect and humility while also clearly recognizing that they don’t actually live consistently with their own “everything is relative” position. Even in the very moment when they oppose you, they are actually using some standard that they themselves don’t acknowledge but that is nevertheless real.

Amy: (Speaking up, puzzled by what she has observed) I’ve been listening to you guys talk, and I’ve noticed that the way you’re talking is completely different from a lot of the “Christians vs. secular people” debates I see online or in class. There’s none of that “we’re right and you’re all wrong” attitude.

John: That’s how it should be. We’re not trying to “win” against the world. We’re trying to live out and speak about a truer, more complete picture. That picture should be able to hold more complexity and carry more love for people than any simplified position our culture can offer.

Grace: (Remembering something from her own experience) This reminds me of something similar that happened when I was serving in ministry. There was a woman in one of the Bible study groups I led who was studying Political Science. She said that whenever she mentioned being a Christian in her department, her classmates automatically assumed she “must support certain positions and oppose certain positions,” as if being a Christian automatically meant belonging to an entire political spectrum. She said she explained over and over that “the teachings of the Bible don’t completely line up with any existing political camp,” but hardly anyone was willing to listen. She got so tired of it that she eventually just stopped talking about her faith at school whenever possible.

John: I completely understand that situation. And I want to say something that might make some of us uncomfortable. Sometimes the stereotype that “Christians = one particular political camp” isn’t something outsiders simply made up out of nowhere. Over the past several years, there really have been churches and Christians who have tied the gospel too closely to particular political positions, as if believing in Jesus automatically means supporting everything one particular party stands for. That’s also something the church needs to reflect on. The Bible does have clear teachings that Christians cannot compromise on. But those teachings never map perfectly onto any existing political camp in our current culture. Both sides have positions that the Bible would affirm, and both sides have positions that the Bible would not affirm.

Grace: Then what should she do? She can’t just avoid mentioning her faith forever, right?

John: She doesn’t have to avoid mentioning it forever, but she can approach it differently. Instead of immediately announcing, “I’m a Christian, and this is my position,” she can first engage seriously with the specific issue, reason carefully, and listen seriously to the other person. Let people see that her thinking isn’t just coming from a template, but has actually been thought through. Over time, the impression of “Oh, this person isn’t who I thought she was” can loosen that stereotype more effectively than winning any single debate.

Sophia: (Changing the subject, her voice carrying the weight of real life) After I graduate, I’ve actually been struggling with whether to stay in Canada, go back to China, or move to the U.S. There are so many practical factors involved—the difficulty of getting a work permit, housing prices, and the fact that my parents are getting older and aren’t as healthy as they used to be. How do I bring my faith into this decision instead of just treating it like a calculation of which option benefits me most?

John: That’s a very practical question. I don’t want to pretend that faith gives you a “standard answer” telling you which country to go to. The Bible doesn’t give us a checklist like that. I want to suggest one way of thinking about it. Wherever you ultimately go, first ask yourself: Am I willing, in that place, to find and also help build a real community of believers, to continue being shaped, and to serve other people? If a decision is purely about “Where is it most advantageous for me?” without considering “How am I going to live out my faith there, and how am I going to participate in God’s kingdom?” then maybe you’re only doing half the calculation. Work permits, housing prices, and family are all real factors that need to be seriously considered. They aren’t unimportant. They just shouldn’t be the only factors.

Discussion:

This conversation touched on the feeling of being suspended between two places because you don’t completely belong to either, the experience of being labeled in polarized discussions about social issues, the stereotype that “Christians = one particular political camp,” and the faith considerations behind decisions about where to go after graduation. John said that the feeling of being suspended in midair is actually pointing to something deeper: our ultimate belonging cannot be completely provided by any earthly group. Discuss:

1) Have you ever experienced that feeling of “not completely belonging on either side,” or been labeled because of your faith or your position on an issue?

2) After today’s discussion, do you think Peter’s identity as a “person of God” can really give a place for that feeling of being suspended in midair inside you?

2. If Everything Falls Apart, What Will I Have Left?

Grace: (Sighing) I want to ask about something that makes me even more uneasy. Right now I have fellowship, and I have a few close friends. There are people helping carry me in my faith. But all of this is temporary. After graduation, everyone will go their separate ways. What happens when I’m alone in an unfamiliar city, starting a new job, and I don’t even have a Christian friend I can talk honestly with? What will keep my faith going?

Paul: (This question hits close to home) I can share my experience. When I was in university, I was actually pretty passionate about my faith. I went to fellowship almost every day. But during my first two years of working, I really had to carry everything by myself. My fellowship group fell apart, I hadn’t found a church in the new city, and on top of that, I was busy with work and my schedule was all over the place. By Sunday, I was so exhausted I could barely get out of bed. During those two years, my faith faded badly, almost to the point of disappearing. It wasn’t that one day I decided I didn’t believe anymore. It happened little by little, like your phone battery slowly dying. You don’t even notice exactly when it reaches zero.

Grace: So now, what do you think the answer is to “What will keep it going?”

Paul: Now I think it isn’t about luck, like whether you happen to have friends around you. It’s about actively choosing, again and again, to find a church and build new relationships, even if it’s awkward and takes a lot of effort at first. Faith seems like something that is never “built once and permanently secured.” You have to keep putting down roots again. And later I realized something else. During those two years, it wasn’t just that I “stopped attending gatherings.” There was actually a thought in my heart that went, “Well, no one is watching me anymore.” So some of the things I had been afraid to do when I was in fellowship, I started trying one by one. I drank too much, and I started getting involved with people who weren’t good for me. Eventually those things made a complete mess of my life, and that forced me to face God again.

John: Paul put that very honestly, including the most embarrassing parts, so thank you. I want to add one thing. The community of believers described in the Bible was never meant to be an “optional emotional support group.” It is the normal way God designed for our faith to be sustained and built up. Hebrews specifically warns us not to give up meeting together. So Grace, your concern isn’t unnecessary worry. It’s a very practical issue, and it deserves to be taken seriously. It’s not about saying, “God will take care of you anyway, so you don’t need to worry.” It means preparing in advance and treating “finding and building a new community of believers” as something as important as finding a job after graduation, or even something that should take higher priority.

Jack: So how do we prepare specifically? We can’t just wait until we get to a new city and then scramble to figure everything out.

John: You can start practicing a few things now. First, practice maintaining habits of Bible reading and prayer even without relying on fellowship activities. Then when your environment changes, your roots won’t suddenly be cut off. Second, pay attention to and learn how to take the initiative in meeting people and how to find the courage to walk into an unfamiliar church. That ability to take initiative is something you can practice now.

Peter: (Thinking of something) My roommate’s experience might be a good warning for everyone. He isn’t a Christian, but he transferred to a school in Toronto last year. He had a really good group of close friends back home. He told me that when he arrived at the new school, for the first three months he kept telling himself, “My friends are all online anyway.” He video-called and played games with his old friends every day and made no effort to meet new classmates. But after three months, he realized that because everyone was getting busy with their own lives, the times when his old friends were free were becoming harder and harder to line up, and the friendships gradually faded. At the new school, he hadn’t made a single friend either. During that period, he felt incredibly lonely and was even in a pretty depressed state. Eventually he forced himself to join a club in his department, and slowly things started getting better.

Jenny: That’s exactly the same as what happens with our faith. If you keep relying on what you had “before” and never take the initiative to move forward, eventually you end up losing both.

John: Exactly. That’s what I’m trying to say. The way Paul’s faith declined during those two years and the way Peter’s roommate became lonely are actually very similar. Both assumed that “relationships maintain themselves automatically,” and then discovered that relationships require ongoing, intentional investment. Faith is the same way.

Tom: (Changing the subject, his tone becoming heavier) I want to bring up something bigger. It might be a little off-topic, but I’ve really been struggling with this lately. I’ve been feeling pretty depressed reading the news. There are reports of climate crises everywhere, places that are still at war, society becoming more polarized every day, and now AI is making people anxious too. Sometimes I feel like the world really is slowly falling apart. Are our generation just supposed to sit there and watch it get worse and worse? As Christians, how are we supposed to live in a world that feels like it’s falling apart?

Amy: (This time genuinely relating) I don’t have any faith at all, but I really relate to this feeling. I often finish scrolling through the news and just feel completely powerless. Sometimes I’m even afraid to have children because I think bringing someone into such a chaotic world would be cruel. Several of my friends feel the same way. When we talk privately, there’s this feeling that “the ship is sinking, and everyone is pretending everything is fine.”

John: (Seriously) I don’t want to brush aside the heaviness you’re describing with a few shallow words. This world really is broken. The Bible never says, “Everything is fine, so don’t worry.” Quite the opposite. The Bible uses the word “groaning” to describe the state of all creation right now. Romans says that the whole creation has been groaning and suffering together until now. The heaviness you’re feeling isn’t something the Bible denies. In fact, the Bible gives words to it before we even do.

Amy: Doesn’t that make it even more hopeless? Even the Bible admits that the world is terrible.

John: Quite the opposite. Precisely because the Bible honestly acknowledges this brokenness, the hope it offers isn’t some cheap “look on the bright side” message. It is grounded in something much more solid. The same passage goes on to say that this groaning and suffering isn’t directionless. It is like the pain of childbirth, pointing toward a renewal that is ultimately coming—“waiting for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Christian hope has never been about “believing that humanity will gradually make the world better by itself.” It is about believing that the Lord who created this world, who Himself entered this broken world, died, and rose again, will one day return personally and renew all things, bringing an end to and reversing all suffering, injustice, and brokenness.

Tom: But that still sounds so far away. We still have to live in this world that seems to be getting worse every day. Can this hope actually change how I live today?

John: It can, and I think this is where it becomes most practical. If I believe that the final outcome has already been determined by a God who is sovereign and good, and that He will personally come to renew everything, then when I face climate change, war, and polarization today, I don’t have to respond in either of two extreme ways. One is to completely give up, thinking, “There’s no hope anyway, so why bother doing anything?” The other is to put the entire burden of “saving the world” on my own shoulders until I’m crushed by it and swallowed up by my sense of helplessness. I can seriously and responsibly do the concrete, small things that are within my reach—use resources wisely, love the specific people around me, participate in pursuing a little more justice—and at the same time entrust the final outcome to the God who truly has the whole picture in His hands. I don’t have to carry the weight of the entire world by myself.

Amy: (Thoughtfully) So your hope isn’t “believing the world will get better on its own.” It’s believing that “a greater power from outside us will come and set things right”?

John: Yes. And that hope doesn’t make people indifferent to the brokenness of the present. Quite the opposite. Precisely because we know God cares about justice and about people who are suffering, Christians throughout history have often been deeply involved in caring for the poor and pursuing social justice. We know these efforts aren’t meaningless. They are a foretaste of the renewal that is ultimately coming, even if what we do is small and imperfect.

Jack: (Thinking of his own struggle) Speaking of “feeling powerless,” I want to share something I’ve been struggling with for a long time. I know I’m supposed to “put to death” my habit of avoiding problems and mindlessly scrolling on my phone whenever I face something difficult. But I’ve realized that this problem isn’t just about scrolling. I give up when I see big news about climate change. I give up when my grades aren’t good. It seems like the same “There’s nothing I can change anyway” attitude keeps spilling from one area of my life into another.

John: That’s a very accurate observation, and it’s connected to what we talked about in our previous gatherings. If you don’t put all sin to death, you can’t really put any one sin to death, because many behaviors that look different on the surface often have the same root underneath. The kind of helplessness you’re describing—“There’s nothing I can change anyway”—if you only deal with the symptom of “scrolling on my phone,” may simply come back in another form, like indifference or numbness when you face the world’s bigger problems. The deeper issue we need to deal with is this: Do I really believe that the small, seemingly insignificant things I do have real weight in the hands of a God who is sovereign over all things? Do I believe they are not in vain?

Grace: (Bringing the conversation back to a more personal level) Then I want to ask one final question. When I have a class reunion a few years after graduation, part of me honestly hopes that when people talk about me, they’ll think I “did pretty well”—that I have a stable career and a respectable life. But I also know, somewhere inside, that if that’s all I want, something feels off. What do I actually want people to remember about me?

John: This question actually brings together a lot of what we’ve talked about over the past few gatherings. If “doing well” is all you want people to remember about you, that kind of recognition will never be secure enough. It will be like AI anxiety, comparing GPAs, or wanting other people to think you’re “impressive.” You’ll always need to prove yourself again. Let me turn the question around. Ten years from now, if a younger student talks about you and says, “I remember that older student. She wasn’t the most impressive or successful person, but she was genuine. She was someone I thought of when I was going through a hard time,” would you be disappointed?

Grace: (Thinking, her eyes slightly moist) …No. Honestly, that’s actually more like how I want people to remember me.

John: Then that desire is closer to what the Bible says is truly worth pursuing than simply “doing well.” That doesn’t mean you should stop trying to do things well or living a respectable life. It means that when you put “being loved and truly known” ahead of “being seen as impressive,” you may find that some of that anxiety slowly begins to loosen. This isn’t something one conversation can completely change. It’s something you have to keep choosing again and again over the years to come.

Discussion:

This conversation touched on the challenge of sustaining your faith on your own after graduation, the story of Peter’s roommate becoming lonely because he didn’t take the initiative to build new relationships, how to live in a world that feels like it is falling apart, and Grace’s reconsideration of what she wants to be remembered for. John said that Christian hope isn’t about believing the world will get better on its own. It is about believing that the Lord who created the world and personally entered into its brokenness will ultimately return and renew everything. Discuss:

1) If someone talks about you ten years from now, do you want them to remember how “well you were doing,” or something else?

2) How far is that desire from the way you are living today?

　　（期中周刚过，几个人顶着黑眼圈进来，桌上是打包回来的外卖盒）

一、我每天到底在忙什么？

　　Peter：（一边刷手机一边叹气）我室友昨天转发了一篇文章给我，说AI已经能写出比大部分Junior Dev更干净的代码了。我学CS的，本来觉得这专业挺稳，现在越看越慌——我拼命刷题、赶project、卷GPA，可能四年之后，我学的这些东西根本用不上，会不会毕业就等于失业？

　　Jack：（苦笑）你还算好的，至少CS还算「跟得上时代」。我是Business，我们班上一半人都在讨论要不要转专业，说以后连做PPT、写商业分析报告这种事AI都能干，招聘的岗位只会越来越少。

　　Tom：温哥华生活成本又这么贵，工签、PR一年比一年难，我们这一代留学生，感觉是在为一个越来越不确定的未来拼命，说白了就是不知道图什么。

　　Jenny：（小声）我倒不是特别焦虑「有没有工作」，我更常问自己——我每天刷题、写Paper、卷履历，这些事本身，除了「换一份工作」，到底还有什么意义？会不会我这几年做的，全部都只是为了一张能兑换成薪水的入场券，跟「我是谁」「我为什么活着」这些问题一点关系都没有？

　　John：（放下咖啡）你们提的这些，其实是两层不太一样的焦虑。我插一句题外话——我读书的时候还没有AI这个说法，我们那时候担心的是外包，「你学的东西会不会被印度的团队用三分之一的工资做掉」，跟你们现在的焦虑，本质上是同一种恐慌换了个马甲。Peter和Jack说的，更接近「我的专业会不会被淘汰」；Jenny问的更深一层——「就算专业没被淘汰，这一切忙碌本身有没有意义」。我们先说第一层。

　　Peter：好，那第一层，你怎么看AI这个事？你会不会觉得我在杞人忧天？

　　John：我不会说你在杞人忧天，这是个真实的处境，我没办法向你保证「你的专业绝对不会被冲击」，那样说不负责任。但我想先请你们看一件更根本的事——从工业革命开始，每一次重大的技术变革，都会有人问「我学的东西还有用吗」，纺织工人这样问过，会计师、翻译，这些年也这样问过。历史告诉我们的，不是「某个具体技能永远安全」，是人需要不断适应、学习，这本身从来不是新鲜事。AI这次可能来得更快、更猛，但焦虑的性质，其实不是全新的。

　　Jack：（挑刺）可这次不一样吧，以前是「某个行业」被冲击，这次听起来是「几乎所有脑力劳动」都可能被冲击，包括我们现在拼命学的这些「软技能」。

　　John：这个担心有道理，我不想轻描淡写。但我想先请你们退一步想一个问题——你们刚才描述自己每天的状态，「拼命刷题」「卷GPA」「卷履历」，这些词本身，透露出一种什么样的心态？

　　Tom：……就是怕落后吧，怕比不上别人。

　　John：对，那个「怕」字，才是我更想跟你们一起看清楚的东西。如果我每天学习、工作的意义，最终建立在「我能不能比别人更有竞争力、能不能保住一份好工作」上，那不管AI来不来，这个地基本身就是会晃的——因为总有比你更厉害、更年轻、更便宜的人，AI只是把这个真相，提前、更猛烈地摆在你面前而已。

　　Jenny：那意思是，AI这件事，其实是在逼我们面对一个本来就存在、只是被暂时掩盖住的问题？

　　John：我觉得是这样。圣经对「工作」这件事的理解，跟这套「工作=证明我的价值、换取安全感」的逻辑，从根上就不一样。创世记一开始，神造人，就吩咐人要耕种看守伊甸园——工作不是罪进入世界之后才有的惩罚，是神从起初就赐给人的、有尊严的呼召，是人被造去反映神、去有创造力地治理这个世界的一部分。

　　Jack：那工作到底是什么，如果不是「赚钱吃饭的工具」？

　　John：不只是工具，但也不用把它讲得太玄——工作首先是神给你的一个具体的场域，让你活出「你是照神的形象被造的」这件事：用你的头脑、双手、恩赐，去创造有价值的东西、服事别人、供应家庭。你今天写代码、做报表，如果那个工作本身是诚实的、对别人有益的，这本身就是有意义的，不需要靠「这份工作永远不会被取代」才有价值。约翰·傅瑞姆写基督徒生活的伦理学时，反复强调一个观点，大意是——基督的主权不是只管你礼拜天在教会里做什么，是管你整个礼拜、每一个领域，写代码、做报表，跟主日敬拜，不是分成「属灵」和「世俗」两块，而是同一位主在不同的场域里，都要求你忠心、都能被你用来敬拜祂。工作不是信仰之外的另一件事，是信仰活出来的地方之一。

　　Jenny：那是不是意味着，工作干得好不好、有没有果效，跟我信仰好不好也挂钩？

　　John：不完全是「挂钩」，是「同一件事的不同侧面」。你诚实地把一份工作做好，本身就是在活出信仰，不需要额外加一层「宗教意义」才算数。

　　Peter：可这样说还是没解决我最实际的焦虑——如果AI真的取代了我学的这些技能，我该怎么办，是不是就白学了？

　　John：我想诚实地说——某些具体的技能，确实有可能被取代，这是真实的风险，我不会假装它不存在。但我想邀请你们，把「我学的东西有没有用」这个问题，从「能不能换到工作」，往下挖一层——你在学习这些东西的过程里，锻炼出来的思考方式、解决问题的能力、跟人合作的能力，这些不是那么容易被一夜之间「淘汰」的，而且更重要的是，就算某一份具体的工作没了，神对你的呼召——用你的恩赐服事人、诚实地劳动、在群体中承担责任——这个更根本的呼召，不会因为某个岗位消失就跟着消失。

　　Jenny：（这时插话，语气认真起来）我想接着往下问。我这几年的困惑，其实不是「AI会不会取代我」，是更根本的——我爸妈一直想让我读一个好找工作、好移民的专业，比如Accounting或者Data Science，可我自己真正想走的方向是别的，是我觉得神好像在这方面给了我一些负担、一些热情的地方，但那个方向「钱景」不明朗。我夹在这两种「成功」的定义中间，快被撕裂了。

　　Tom：这个我懂，我爸也是天天念叨「学这个以后能找到工作吗」。

　　John：Jenny这个撕裂，我觉得特别值得停下来看。你爸妈那套「成功」的定义——稳定、高薪、能移民——不是完全没有道理，这些是真实的、需要认真考虑的现实因素，圣经也从来没说「不要考虑现实、只管凭感觉走」，那是不负责任的。但如果「成功」的定义，只剩下这一套外在的、可以量化的标准，那这套定义本身，其实跟AI焦虑背后那套逻辑是同一个根——都是把一个人的价值，绑在「外在的、可以被别人比较、可以被淘汰」的东西上。

　　Jenny：那我该怎么在这两者之间找平衡？总不能完全不管现实，任性地说「神呼召我」就不管钱的事了吧。

　　John：完全同意，不能不负责任。但我想给你一个具体的问题去想，而不是一个「随便选一个」的空泛答案——你觉得那个让你有负担、有热情的方向，是不是也能诚实地服事人、供应你自己和将来的家庭，只是可能不像另一条路那么「稳」？如果是，那这不是「任性 vs 负责任」的选择，是两种都需要智慧和信心去走的路，只是风险和确定性不一样，值得你认真祷告、也跟信任的人商量，而不是简单套一个「听神的就一定选冷门」或者「现实的就一定不属灵」的公式。

　　Amy：（这时开口，带着好奇）我想插一句题外话。我上学期修了一门Sociology of Work，教授讲，「工作有神圣意义」这种说法，本质上是资本主义为了让人心甘情愿被剥削、心甘情愿加班，硬塞给劳动者的一套意识形态，好让人不去质疑不公平的用工结构。听完之后我再看你们刚才说的「工作是神给的呼召」，会不会也是同一种套路——用宗教语言，让人更心甘情愿地接受一份可能本来就不公平的工作？

　　（一时安静，几个人对视了一下）

　　John：（认真地）Amy这个问题问得很尖锐，我要老实说，这个批判，某种程度上是有道理的——历史上确实有教会、有雇主，滥用「工作是神圣的」这句话，去让工人接受不公平的待遇，甚至压制工人争取正当权益，这是真实发生过的罪，教会该为此认罪，不该被美化或者洗白。

　　Amy：（意外）我以为你会直接反驳我。

　　John：不会，因为你说的那部分，我没办法否认，那是真的滥用。但我想指出，你教授那套理论本身，也有一个没有被摆到台面上的前提——它默认「意义」这个词本身，只是一种被权力结构制造出来、用来操控人的工具，没有什么「意义」是真实存在、不是被建构出来服务某种利益的。如果这个前提是对的，那你教授讲的这套「揭穿意识形态」的理论，会不会也只是另一种意识形态，服务着学术圈自己的某种利益结构？

　　Jack：（若有所思）就是说，用来「戳破」别人是骗局的那把刀，也可以反过来戳自己？

　　John：对，这正是这类批判理论一个常见的自我瓦解——它可以拆穿任何一种「意义」，说那只是权力的伪装，唯独不去拆穿自己「一切意义都是权力伪装」这句话本身，是不是也可能只是它自己那套框架的产物。我不是说这类理论完全没有洞见——它提醒我们，确实要警惕权力、警惕剥削，这是对的、也是圣经本身一直在讲的，先知书里神一次次斥责那些欺压穷人、亏待雇工的人。但它跟圣经不一样的地方是，圣经在揭露不公义的同时，仍然肯定「工作本身有真实的、不是被谁编出来的尊严和意义」，这两件事——反对剥削，跟肯定工作的意义——圣经是同时讲的，不是非此即彼。

　　Amy：（想了想）……好吧，这个我需要再想想，但至少你没有直接否认我说的那部分是真的。

　　John：我不想否认，因为教会确实欠了不少人一句「对不起」，在这件事上。

讨论：

这一场聊到了AI带来的职业焦虑、「工作=证明自己价值」这套逻辑本来就摇摇欲坠、Jenny夹在两种「成功」定义中间的撕裂，还有Amy提出的「工作神圣意义」会不会只是意识形态操控的质疑。请讨论：你现在每天读书、赶due、找实习，如果把「怕落后、怕被淘汰」这份焦虑先放到一边，你觉得这些努力，还剩下什么让你愿意继续做下去的理由？

二、到底谁在定义什么是「真」？

　　Tom：（有点不好意思）我想说件挺现实的事。我室友这学期GPA一直比我高，前几天他拿到一个大厂的Return Offer，我表面上恭喜他，心里却很不是滋味，忍不住会想——是不是我不够被神喜悦，才这么不顺，他比我「值」？我知道不该这么想，但心里就是会冒出这个念头。

　　Grace：我也有过，看到同龄人事业顺、工资高，会不自觉地觉得「神好像更祝福他」，虽然我脑子里知道这个逻辑不对。

　　John：（点头）这个念头，其实是一个很古老的谎言换了个现代包装——「外在的成功，等于神的悦纳」，约伯的三个朋友，整本约伯记里一直在跟约伯讲这套逻辑：你受苦，一定是你哪里得罪了神；你顺利，就是神喜悦你。神在约伯记最后，明确地斥责了这三个朋友的说法。

　　Tom：那神喜不喜悦我，到底跟我GPA、工资有没有关系？

　　John：没有直接关系。神对你的悦纳，如果你在基督里，是完全建立在基督已经替你成就的事上，不是你的GPA、你的Offer、你的银行余额。你室友拿到Return Offer，不代表他「更蒙福」；你暂时不顺，也不代表你「不够格」。这两件事，是完全不同层面的事，硬把它们绑在一起，是我们的心自己在编故事，不是圣经教的。

　　Peter：（换个话题，认真地）我想问一个更学术一点的问题，可能会讲得有点长，你们忍一下。我这学期修了Intro Psychology，教授花了整整一节课讲进化心理学，说人的道德感、利他行为、甚至「爱」，说到底都是基因为了让个体更好地生存、繁衍，演化出来的策略——比如父母爱孩子，是因为这样基因才能传下去；人会有「公平感」，是因为群居动物这样才能长期合作、不至于互相残杀。整套体系讲得挺自洽的，从头到尾都不需要提到「罪」「救赎」这些词，逻辑上也说得通，考试还要求我们用这套框架去分析案例。我听完之后有点恍惚——我的信仰和我学的这套心理学，到底谁在定义「真相」？我该怎么学，才不会觉得自己精神分裂，上课信一套，主日信另一套？

　　John：这个「精神分裂感」，我完全理解，很多念心理学、社会学、生物学的基督徒同学都经历过，我自己以前也有过类似的挣扎。我先说一句——你教授讲的那套理论，「逻辑自洽」这件事本身，不代表它就是完整的真相，只代表它在自己设定的框架内，能自圆其说。

　　Peter：这什么意思？

　　John：任何一套解释体系，只要它够精密，几乎都能在自己的框架内讲得通，问题是——这套框架的起点，也就是它最开始默认接受、却从来不去证明的那几个前提，对不对。你教授那套进化心理学，一开始就默认「人只是进化出来的生物机器，没有一位造物主，没有超越物质世界的东西存在」，在这个前提下，道德感、意义感，当然都只能被解释成「有利于生存繁衍的适应性特征」。这个前提没有被证明过，是被当成研究的默认起点。

　　Jack：那我们信的这套，不也是一个「起点」吗？凭什么我们的起点更「真」？

　　John：这正是关键的地方——每一个人，不管信不信神，都是从某个没办法先证明、只能先相信的起点出发去理解世界的，没有人是从一个完全「中立、没有任何预设」的地方开始思考的，包括最坚定的无神论科学家。真正该问的问题，不是「谁的起点听起来更学术、更客观」，是「哪一个起点，能真正撑得住我们生活里明明白白经历到的东西」——比如，你教授那套理论，能不能真正解释清楚，为什么「屠杀无辜」是真实地错的，不只是「不利于生存繁衍」这么简单？能不能解释，为什么我们会经历到爱、经历到良心的谴责、经历到对公义近乎本能的渴望，这些东西如果只是进化的副产品，它们凭什么真的「重要」？

　　Peter：（想了想）……好像还真没法完全解释，最多说「这是有利于群体生存的机制」，但那感觉不太够。而且我还想到一个更让我不安的地方——如果爱、道德感都只是基因策略，那我爱我爸妈、爱我女朋友，是不是说到底也只是基因在操控我，根本没有什么「真的爱」，只是一堆化学反应在演戏？

　　John：这正是这套理论最难自圆其说的地方——它一旦用来解释「别人」的道德感、爱，听起来还挺有说服力；可一旦你把它用回自己身上，用来看你此刻对你爸妈、对你女朋友的爱，你会发现，你没办法真的这样活——你不会在拥抱你妈妈的时候，心里想「这只是基因让我这样做」，你经历到的，是真实的爱，不是一个化学反应的旁观报告。这说明，就算是最相信进化心理学的人，实际生活里，也没办法真的按照这套理论去活，他们照样会真诚地爱人、真诚地为不公义愤怒，好像这些真的有超越基因的分量一样。这个「说一套、活一套」的裂缝，恰恰说明这套理论没有讲出全部的真相。

　　Jack：（这时插话，带着自己的经历）我想到我一个非基督徒的朋友，他学的是Anthropology，人类学。他上学期给我看了一篇论文，讲不同文化对「乱伦禁忌」「一夫一妻制」的态度差异特别大，有些部落文化甚至完全没有我们认为「天经地义」的那些性道德规范。他说这就证明了「道德根本没有客观标准，全是文化建构出来的产物，你们基督徒说的那套『性道德』，只是你们那个文化偶然形成的规矩而已，不比别的文化的规矩更『对』」。我当时没接上话，挺尴尬的。

　　John：这个论证的模式，我们上次聊「意义由读者建构」的时候其实碰过类似的——从「不同文化有不同做法」，直接跳到「所以没有客观对错，都只是相对的」，中间其实跳过了很关键的一步。

　　Tom：跳过了什么？

　　John：「不同文化做法不一样」，这个观察是真的，人类学家做的这些田野调查很有价值，我不否认。但「做法不一样」，跟「所以没有哪个做法更对」，这两件事之间，需要一个额外的假设才能连起来，那个假设就是——「道德真理，如果存在，应该在所有文化里长得一模一样，没有例外」。可这个假设从哪来的？没有人证明过它。而且反过来想——不同文化对「二加二等于几」也可能有不同的记数系统、不同的表达方式，但这不代表「二加二」本身没有客观答案，只是表达、理解的方式不一样。

　　Jack：那你朋友那句「你们那套只是文化建构」，怎么回？

　　John：可以反问他——他说「道德是文化建构出来的，没有客观对错」，那「奴隶制是错的」「种族灭绝是错的」，这些他自己大概也深信不疑的判断，是不是也「只是某种文化建构、没有客观对错」？如果他愿意为了保持逻辑一致，承认「连奴隶制、种族灭绝对不对，也只是相对的、看哪个文化」，那大部分人，包括他自己，其实没办法真的接受这个结论，会本能地反对。可如果他不愿意承认这一点，那他就已经在用行动证明——他心里其实相信，有些道德真理，是跨文化、不因文化不同而改变的，只是他还没想清楚，凭什么「屠杀无辜是错的」能有客观标准，别的道德问题却不能。

　　Amy：（这时又提出一个更具体的例子）我想说我室友的一件事，可能更贴近生活。她这学期修了Gender Studies，整个学期学下来，她说她现在觉得，「男女有本质差异」这种说法，本身就是社会建构出来、用来维持某种权力结构的东西，性别更多是一个光谱、一种流动的、每个人自己定义的东西。她跟我说这些的时候，态度挺笃定的，我听着觉得也有一定道理——毕竟每个人经历自己的性别认同确实不完全一样。但我也隐约觉得，这套说法好像走得有点远，具体哪里不对，我说不清楚。

　　John：这是个很实际、也很敏感的问题，我想认真地、也温和地回应，而不是简单地说「这是错的」就带过去。我先说一点——每个人对自己性别的经历、感受，确实是真实的、复杂的，这些感受背后往往也有真实的挣扎、真实的痛苦，这些不该被轻视或者嘲笑，这也是为什么面对这个议题，态度上要格外温柔。

　　Amy：那你们不同意她那套理论？

　　John：我想指出的是，跟刚才「乱伦禁忌」那个例子类似的一个逻辑跳跃——「性别的社会期待、角色分工，在不同文化里有很大差异」，这个观察是真的，比如「男生该做什么工作、女生该穿什么颜色」，这些确实很大程度上是文化习俗；但从这一步，直接跳到「所以男女之间根本没有神所设计的、真实的、有意义的差异，一切都只是流动的、自己定义的」，这中间又需要一个没被证明的假设——「凡是带着文化差异的东西，底层就没有任何客观、被造的实质」。圣经从创世记开始就讲，神造男造女，两者都完全平等地带着神的形象，同样宝贵，同时又是真实地、有意义地不同，这个「既平等又不同」的图景，本身就没有落入「男女完全一样」或者「性别完全是自己定义」这两个极端。

　　Amy：那对我室友那种真实的挣扎，你们会怎么回应，而不只是讲道理？

　　John：如果是我，我不会一见面就先辩论理论，会先想认识她这个人、听她的故事——她的挣扎从哪里来的，是不是曾经因为「不符合期待」被伤害过、被嘲笑过。很多时候，人接受一套理论，不是先被逻辑说服的，是先被那套理论「接住」了自己真实的痛，如果基督徒只顾着辩论对错，却没有先看见、没有先陪伴那份真实的痛，讲再多道理也没用，甚至会把人推得更远。

　　Jenny：（这时想起自己的一件事）说到「厉害」这件事，我想说说我的一个纠结，跟前面聊的这些都有点关系。我其实希望，将来别人提起我的时候，第一反应是「这人很厉害」——学历好、事业好、生活体面。可我也隐约知道，如果「厉害」这件事就是我全部想要的目标，好像哪里不太对，但我又说不清楚哪里不对，毕竟想被人认可、想活得体面，这不是很正常的愿望吗？

　　John：这个愿望本身不是罪，神造我们，本来就有这种渴望被肯定、渴望活出美好人生的心，这不需要压抑。问题不在于「想要被人认为厉害」，是在于——如果这件事变成了你全部的、最终极的追求，它撑不住那个位置，因为「别人怎么看你」这件事，太不稳定了，随时会变；而且就算全世界都觉得你很厉害，那份认同也没办法真正填满你心里更深的那个渴望——被真正、无条件地认识和爱。

　　Jenny：那要怎么把这两种想法理清楚？

　　John：不是叫你从此不在乎事业、不追求做得好，那也不现实、也不圣经。是把次序摆对——你可以真心地、努力地追求把工作做好、活出有见证的生活，这本身是荣耀神的；但你不需要靠「别人觉得我厉害」，来确认自己「够格、有价值」，因为那份「够格」，在基督里，从一开始就已经是确定的，不需要靠外在的成就再去挣一次。你追求卓越，是因为你已经被爱了，不是为了换来被爱。

　　Amy：（若有所思，总结似地）我发现你们说来说去，好像很多问题最后都绕回同一个点——不管是心理学的进化解释、人类学的文化相对论、还是性别理论，你们说的意思，都是「这些理论一旦走到底，都会自己推翻自己，或者没办法解释我们真实活出来的东西」。会不会有点……什么都往这上面套？

　　John：（笑，认真地）这个观察很敏锐，我也想诚实地承认——这确实是我们，包括我自己，一直在讲的同一个核心，不是因为词穷、找不到别的话讲，是因为我越观察这些不同领域的理论，越发现，它们大多都是从同一个起点出发的——先假定除了物质世界，什么都不存在，然后再用这个假定去解释爱、道德、意义、性别这些东西，解释到最后，往往没办法真正安放我们活生生经历到的那些最深的东西，甚至连它们自己讲的人，都没办法真的照着那套理论去生活。不是我们「什么都往这上面套」，是这些理论，走到底，真的常常会露出同一个破绽。

　　Tom：（沉默一会儿，若有所思）……行吧，我这次是真没法反驳了，虽然感觉心里还是有点不服气。

　　John：（笑）不服气没关系，这些不是靠一次谈话就能完全说服你的东西，你可以带着这份不服气，回去继续想、继续问，我完全欢迎你下次带着更难的问题回来。

讨论：

这一场聊到了「别人顺利就是神更喜悦他」这个古老的谎言、进化心理学对爱与道德的解释、人类学的文化相对论、性别理论背后的假设，以及Jenny希望被人觉得「厉害」的挣扎。John反复指出，很多这类理论，一旦走到底，要嘛没办法解释我们真实经历到的爱与道德，要嘛连提出理论的人自己都没办法照着它去生活。请讨论：

1) 在你自己修的课里，有没有哪一门课、哪一个理论，让你听完之后跟信仰产生过类似的「精神分裂感」？

2) 听完今天的讨论，你会怎么重新面对那门课、那个理论？

Lesson 9: AI Is Here—Is What I’m Studying Still Useful? — Calling and the Future

(Midterm week has just ended. A few people walk in with dark circles under their eyes, with takeout containers scattered across the table.)

1. What Am I Actually So Busy Doing Every Day?

Peter: (scrolling through his phone and sighing) My roommate sent me an article yesterday saying that AI can already write cleaner code than most junior developers. I’m in CS, and I used to think this was a pretty safe major. But the more I look at what’s happening, the more nervous I get—I’m grinding through coding problems, rushing through projects, obsessing over my GPA, and maybe four years from now, none of what I’ve learned will even be useful. What if graduating basically means being unemployed?

Jack: (smiling bitterly) At least you’re in CS, which is still considered somewhat “up to date.” I’m in Business. Half the people in my class are talking about whether they should switch majors, because AI can already do things like make PowerPoints and write business analysis reports. The number of jobs companies hire for is only going to shrink.

Tom: And living costs in Vancouver are so high. Work permits and PR seem to get harder every year. For international students like us, it feels like our generation is working ourselves to death for a future that’s becoming more and more uncertain. Honestly, we don’t even know what we’re working toward.

Jenny: (quietly) I’m actually not that anxious about whether I’ll have a job. What I ask myself more often is—besides “getting another job,” what meaning do all these things have in themselves? I spend my days doing practice problems, writing papers, building my résumé. What if everything I’ve done these past few years is just an entrance ticket that can eventually be exchanged for a salary, and has nothing to do with questions like “Who am I?” or “Why am I alive?”

John: (putting down his coffee) What you guys are bringing up is actually two somewhat different layers of anxiety. Let me make a quick side comment—I was in school before people even talked about AI like this. Back then, we were worried about outsourcing: “What if the things I’m learning get done by a team in India for one-third of the cost?” The basic fear is actually the same as yours today, just wearing a different outfit. What Peter and Jack are talking about is closer to “Will my major become obsolete?” Jenny is asking the deeper question: “Even if my major doesn’t become obsolete, does all this busyness itself have any meaning?” Let’s start with the first layer.

Peter: Okay, so what do you think about AI? Do you think I’m worrying about nothing?

John: I wouldn’t say you’re worrying about nothing. This is a real situation, and I can’t honestly promise you, “Your major will definitely never be affected.” That would be irresponsible. But I want you to step back and look at something more fundamental. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, every major technological change has made people ask, “Will what I’ve learned still be useful?” Textile workers have asked that. Accountants and translators have asked it in recent years too. What history tells us isn’t that “one particular skill will always be safe.” It tells us that people constantly need to adapt and learn. That part is nothing new. AI may be arriving faster and hitting harder this time, but the nature of the anxiety isn’t completely new.

Jack: (pushing back) But isn’t this time different? Before, it was “a particular industry” being disrupted. This time it sounds like “almost all kinds of knowledge work” could be disrupted, including the so-called “soft skills” we’re working so hard to develop.

John: That concern is reasonable, and I don’t want to brush it aside. But I want you to step back and ask a different question—when you describe your everyday life as “grinding through problems,” “chasing a high GPA,” and “building your résumé,” what kind of mindset do those words reveal?

Tom: …I guess it’s being afraid of falling behind. Being afraid I won’t be as good as everyone else.

John: Exactly. That word “afraid” is what I really want us to look at. If the meaning of my studying and working every day is ultimately built on “Can I be more competitive than other people? Can I keep a good job?” then the foundation is going to shake whether AI comes or not—because there will always be someone smarter, younger, or cheaper than you. AI is just putting that reality in front of you earlier and more forcefully.

Jenny: So you mean AI is actually forcing us to face a problem that was already there, but had just been hidden for a while?

John: I think so. The Bible’s understanding of “work” is fundamentally different from the logic of “work = proving my worth and earning security.” Right at the beginning of Genesis, when God created human beings, He commanded them to cultivate and care for the Garden of Eden. Work wasn’t a punishment that appeared only after sin entered the world. From the very beginning, it was a dignified calling God gave human beings. It was part of what we were created to do—to reflect God and creatively care for and develop His world.

Jack: Then what exactly is work, if it isn’t just “a tool for making money and putting food on the table”?

John: It’s not just a tool, but we don’t have to make it overly complicated either. First of all, work is a specific place God has given you to live out the fact that “you were created in God’s image.” You use your mind, your hands, and your gifts to create things of value, serve other people, and provide for your family. If you write code or prepare reports today, and the work itself is honest and beneficial to others, that work already has meaning. It doesn’t need to be a job that will never be replaced in order to have value. When John Frame wrote about Christian ethics, he repeatedly emphasized a basic idea: Christ’s lordship isn’t limited to what you do at church on Sunday. It covers your entire week and every area of your life. Writing code and preparing reports, just like Sunday worship, aren’t divided into two separate categories called “spiritual” and “secular.” They are all different places where the same Lord calls you to be faithful and where you can worship Him. Work isn’t something separate from faith. It is one of the places where faith is lived out.

Jenny: So does that mean how well I do at work, and whether my work is successful, are connected to how well I’m doing spiritually?

John: Not exactly “connected” in that sense. They’re different sides of the same thing. When you honestly do a job well, that itself is part of living out your faith. You don’t need to add an extra layer of “religious meaning” to make it count.

Peter: But that still doesn’t solve my most practical anxiety. If AI really does replace the skills I’m learning, what am I supposed to do? Does that mean all the time I spent learning them was wasted?

John: I want to be honest—some specific skills really may be replaced. That is a real risk, and I’m not going to pretend it isn’t. But I want to invite you to dig one level deeper into the question “Is what I’m learning useful?” instead of stopping at “Can it get me a job?” Through learning these things, you develop ways of thinking, problem-solving skills, and the ability to work with other people. Those things aren’t so easily “made obsolete” overnight. More importantly, even if a particular job disappears, God’s more fundamental calling for you—to use your gifts to serve others, to work honestly, and to take responsibility within a community—doesn’t disappear just because a particular position does.

Jenny: (interrupting, her tone becoming more serious) I want to take this one step further. My struggle these past few years actually isn’t “Will AI replace me?” It’s something more fundamental. My parents have always wanted me to choose a major that leads to a good job and makes immigration easier, like Accounting or Data Science. But the direction I genuinely want to pursue is something else. I feel like God has given me a certain burden and passion for that area, but the career prospects aren’t very clear. I feel like I’m being torn between two different definitions of “success.”

Tom: I get that. My dad is always asking me, “Will you actually be able to find a job with that major?”

John: I think Jenny’s sense of being torn is especially worth stopping to look at. Your parents’ definition of success—stability, a high salary, being able to immigrate—isn’t completely unreasonable. Those are real factors that need to be taken seriously. The Bible never says, “Ignore reality and just follow your feelings.” That would be irresponsible. But if our definition of “success” is reduced to those external, measurable standards, then underneath it, it’s actually driven by the same logic behind our anxiety about AI: both tie a person’s value to things that are external, that can be compared with other people, and that can be replaced.

Jenny: Then how do I find a balance between the two? I can’t just completely ignore reality and say, “God is calling me to this,” and then stop caring about money, right?

John: Absolutely. You can’t be irresponsible. But instead of giving you a vague answer like “Just pick something,” I want to give you a specific question to think about: Can the direction you feel burdened and passionate about also allow you to honestly serve people and provide for yourself and your future family, even if it isn’t as “secure” as the other path? If so, then this isn’t a choice between “being irresponsible” and “being responsible.” These are two paths that both require wisdom and faith. They simply have different levels of risk and certainty. You need to pray seriously about it and talk it through with people you trust, rather than applying some simple formula like “If you listen to God, you must choose the less practical option,” or “If you choose the practical option, you must be less spiritual.”

Amy: (speaking up, curious) Can I make a side comment? Last semester I took a Sociology of Work course. The professor said that the idea that “work has sacred meaning” is basically an ideology created by capitalism to make people willingly accept exploitation and willingly work overtime, so that they won’t question unfair employment structures. After hearing that, when I hear you say “work is a calling from God,” I wonder if it’s actually the same kind of thing—using religious language to make people more willing to accept a job that may already be unfair?

(There is a brief silence. A few of them look at each other.)

John: (seriously) Amy, that’s a very sharp question. And honestly, that criticism has some basis. Throughout history, churches and employers really have misused the phrase “work is sacred” to get workers to accept unfair treatment, and sometimes even to suppress workers from standing up for legitimate rights. That really has happened. It is sin, and the church should confess that rather than trying to glorify it or cover it up.

Amy: (surprised) I thought you were going to argue with me right away.

John: No, because I can’t deny the part you’re talking about. That kind of thing really has been an abuse. But I do want to point out that your professor’s theory also has an unstated assumption behind it. It assumes that “meaning” itself is simply something created by power structures to control people—that no meaning is actually real or exists independently of being constructed to serve some interest. If that assumption is true, then couldn’t your professor’s theory about “exposing ideology” just be another ideology, serving some kind of interest structure within academia?

Jack: (thinking) So the knife we use to “expose” someone else’s deception can also be turned around and used on ourselves?

John: Exactly. That is a common problem with this kind of critical theory. It can expose almost any kind of “meaning” and say that it is merely a disguise for power, while never turning the same criticism back on its own claim that “all meaning is a disguise for power” and asking whether that claim might itself simply be a product of its own framework. I’m not saying these theories have no insight at all. They remind us that we really do need to be alert to power and exploitation, and that is true. The Bible itself has been saying this all along. Again and again, the prophets condemned those who oppressed the poor and mistreated workers. But this is where the Bible is different: while exposing injustice, it still affirms that work itself has a real dignity and meaning that isn’t simply invented by someone. These two things—opposing exploitation and affirming the meaning of work—are both taught in the Bible. It isn’t an either-or choice.

Amy: (thinking) …Okay. I need to think about this more. But at least you didn’t just deny that the part I was talking about is real.

John: I don’t want to deny it, because the church really does owe quite a few people an apology for what has happened in this area.

Discussion:

This conversation touched on career anxiety caused by AI, the fact that the logic of “work = proving my worth” is already unstable, Jenny’s struggle between two different definitions of “success,” and Amy’s challenge that the “sacred meaning of work” might simply be a form of ideological control. Discuss: If you put aside your fear of falling behind and your fear of being replaced, what reasons do you think would still make you want to keep studying, meeting deadlines, and looking for internships every day?

2. Who Gets to Define What Is “True”?

Tom: (a little embarrassed) I want to talk about something pretty real. My roommate’s GPA has been higher than mine all semester, and a few days ago he got a return offer from a major company. I congratulated him on the outside, but honestly, I felt terrible inside. I couldn’t stop thinking, “Maybe things are going so badly for me because God isn’t as pleased with me. Does that mean he’s more ‘valuable’ than I am?” I know I shouldn’t think that way, but the thought just comes up.

Grace: I’ve had that too. When I see people my age doing really well in their careers and making a lot of money, I automatically start thinking, “Maybe God has blessed them more,” even though I know intellectually that the logic isn’t right.

John: (nodding) That thought is actually a very old lie wearing modern clothes: “External success equals God’s approval.” Job’s three friends kept telling Job exactly this throughout the Book of Job: If you’re suffering, you must have done something to offend God. If things are going well for you, then God must be pleased with you. At the end of the Book of Job, God explicitly rebukes these three friends for what they said.

Tom: Then does whether God is pleased with me have anything to do with my GPA or my salary?

John: Not directly. If you are in Christ, God’s acceptance of you is completely based on what Christ has already accomplished for you, not on your GPA, your offer, or the balance in your bank account. Your roommate getting a return offer doesn’t mean he is “more blessed.” And things not going well for you right now don’t mean you are “not good enough.” These are completely different levels of reality. Forcing them together is a story our own hearts are making up. It isn’t what the Bible teaches.

Peter: (changing the subject, seriously) I want to ask something a little more academic. This might take a while, so bear with me. This semester I’m taking Intro Psychology, and the professor spent an entire class talking about evolutionary psychology. He said that our sense of morality, altruistic behavior, and even “love” are ultimately strategies that evolved because they help individuals survive and reproduce more successfully. For example, parents love their children because that’s how their genes get passed on. Humans have a sense of fairness because social animals need that in order to cooperate over the long term instead of killing each other. The whole framework was pretty coherent. It didn’t need words like “sin” or “redemption” at all, and logically, it seemed to make sense. We’re even expected to use this framework to analyze cases on the exam. After hearing all that, I felt kind of disoriented. When it comes to “truth,” who gets to define it—my faith or the psychology I’m learning? How am I supposed to study without feeling like I’m living in two different worlds, believing one thing in class and another thing on Sunday?

John: I completely understand that feeling of being split in two. A lot of Christian students studying psychology, sociology, biology, and similar subjects have experienced it. I’ve struggled with something similar myself. Let me say one thing first: the fact that your professor’s theory is “logically coherent” doesn’t by itself mean it is the complete truth. It only means that within the framework it has set up, the theory is able to explain things consistently.

Peter: What do you mean?

John: Almost any explanatory system, if it is precise enough, can make sense within its own framework. The question is what the framework starts with—the assumptions it accepts at the beginning but never actually proves. Take the evolutionary psychology framework your professor is using. It starts by assuming that human beings are simply biological machines produced by evolution, with no Creator and nothing beyond the material world. Given that starting point, our sense of morality and meaning naturally has to be explained as adaptive traits that help us survive and reproduce. But that starting assumption itself hasn’t been proven. It has simply been taken as the default starting point for the research.

Jack: But isn’t what we believe also a “starting point”? Why should our starting point be more “true”?

John: That is exactly the key issue. Every person, whether they believe in God or not, starts from some point that cannot be proven first and has to be accepted as a starting assumption in order to understand the world. No one begins thinking from a completely “neutral” position with zero assumptions—not even the most committed atheist scientist. The real question isn’t “Whose starting point sounds more academic or objective?” It’s “Which starting point can actually support the things we clearly experience in real life?” For example, can your professor’s framework really explain why “massacring innocent people is wrong” is objectively wrong, rather than simply saying it is “bad for survival and reproduction”? Can it explain why we experience love, why we experience the condemnation of conscience, and why we have an almost instinctive desire for justice? If these things are merely by-products of evolution, why should they actually matter?

Peter: (thinking) …I guess it can’t completely explain them. At most, it can say, “This is a mechanism that helps groups survive,” but somehow that doesn’t seem like enough. And there’s something else that makes me even more uncomfortable. If love and morality are just genetic strategies, then when I love my parents or my girlfriend, does that mean, at the end of the day, my genes are just manipulating me? That there’s no such thing as “real love,” just a bunch of chemical reactions pretending to be love?

John: That is one of the hardest problems for this theory to fully explain. When it uses the theory to explain other people’s morality and love, it can sound pretty convincing. But once you apply the same explanation to yourself—to the love you’re actually experiencing for your parents or your girlfriend—you realize you can’t really live that way. You don’t hug your mom while thinking, “This is just my genes making me do this.” What you experience is real love, not merely an observer’s report about a chemical reaction. This shows that even people who strongly believe in evolutionary psychology don’t actually live according to the theory all the way down. They still genuinely love people and genuinely become angry at injustice, as if these things really have a significance that goes beyond genetics. That gap between “what the theory says” and “how people actually live” is precisely one sign that the theory doesn’t tell the whole story.

Jack: (jumping in with something from his own experience) This reminds me of a non-Christian friend of mine who studies Anthropology. Last semester he showed me a paper about how different cultures have very different attitudes toward things like incest taboos and monogamy. Some tribal cultures don’t even have many of the sexual moral norms that we assume are completely obvious and universal. He said this proves that “morality has no objective standard. It’s all culturally constructed. The sexual morality you Christians talk about is just a set of rules that happened to develop in your culture. It isn’t any more ‘correct’ than the rules of another culture.” I didn’t know how to respond at the time. It was pretty awkward.

John: We actually ran into a similar pattern of reasoning when we talked about “meaning being constructed by the reader.” It goes directly from “different cultures do things differently” to “therefore there is no objective right or wrong; everything is relative.” But there’s actually a very important step missing in between.

Tom: What step?

John: The observation that “different cultures do things differently” is true. The fieldwork anthropologists do is valuable, and I’m not denying that. But going from “people do things differently” to “therefore none of the ways is more correct” requires an additional assumption. That assumption is: “If moral truth exists, it should look exactly the same in every culture, without exception.” But where does that assumption come from? No one has proved it. And think about it the other way around. Different cultures may use different counting systems or different ways of expressing “two plus two,” but that doesn’t mean there is no objective answer to what two plus two is. It just means the way people express or understand it is different.

Jack: Then how would you respond to my friend saying, “Your morality is just culturally constructed”?

John: You could ask him this: If he says “morality is culturally constructed and there is no objective right or wrong,” then what about judgments he himself probably believes very strongly, such as “slavery is wrong” or “genocide is wrong”? Are those also “just cultural constructions with no objective right or wrong”? If he is willing to remain logically consistent and admit that even whether slavery and genocide are right or wrong is relative to whatever culture you happen to be in, most people—including him—would actually struggle to accept that conclusion. They would instinctively reject it. But if he refuses to accept that, then he is already showing through his own actions that he believes some moral truths are cross-cultural and don’t change simply because cultures are different. He just hasn’t yet worked out why “massacring innocent people is wrong” can have an objective standard while other moral questions supposedly cannot.

Amy: (bringing up another, more specific example) I want to talk about something my roommate said, because it might be closer to everyday life. She took Gender Studies this semester, and after the whole course, she said she now thinks that the idea that “men and women have essential differences” is itself socially constructed to maintain a certain power structure. Gender, she says, is more of a spectrum, something fluid that each person defines for themselves. She was pretty confident when she told me this, and I felt like there was some truth in what she was saying. After all, everyone’s experience of their own gender really is not exactly the same. But I also had a vague feeling that maybe this view was taking things a little too far. I just couldn’t explain exactly where the problem was.

John: This is a very practical and sensitive question, and I want to respond seriously and gently rather than simply saying, “That’s wrong,” and moving on. Let me say one thing first: each person’s experience and feelings about their own gender are real and complex. There can also be real struggles and real pain behind those experiences, and those things shouldn’t be dismissed or mocked. That’s one reason we need to approach this issue with particular gentleness.

Amy: So you don’t agree with her theory?

John: What I want to point out is a logical jump similar to the one we just talked about with incest taboos. The observation that “social expectations and gender roles differ greatly across cultures” is true. For example, ideas like “what jobs men should do” or “what colors girls should wear” really are heavily shaped by cultural customs. But going from that to “therefore there are no real, meaningful differences between men and women designed by God, and everything is simply fluid and self-defined” requires another assumption that hasn’t been proven: “Anything that differs across cultures has no objective or created substance underneath it.” From the beginning of Genesis, the Bible says that God created male and female, that both equally bear the image of God and are equally valuable, while also being genuinely and meaningfully different. That picture of being “equal yet different” doesn’t fall into either extreme of “men and women are exactly the same” or “gender is entirely self-defined.”

Amy: Then how would you respond to the real struggles my roommate is experiencing, instead of just arguing about the theory?

John: If it were me, I wouldn’t start by debating the theory the moment I met her. I’d first want to get to know her as a person and hear her story—where her struggles came from, and whether she has ever been hurt or mocked because she didn’t fit other people’s expectations. A lot of the time, people don’t accept a theory because they were first convinced by its logic. They accept it because that theory first “gave them a place to land” for some real pain they were experiencing. If Christians only care about debating what is right or wrong, without first seeing and accompanying that real pain, no amount of arguing will help. It may even push the person further away.

Jenny: (remembering something from her own life) Speaking of being “successful,” I want to talk about something I’ve been struggling with, and it connects with what we’ve been discussing. Honestly, I want people’s first reaction when they hear my name in the future to be, “She’s really impressive”—good education, a good career, a respectable life. But I also vaguely know that if being “impressive” becomes the only thing I ultimately want, something about that doesn’t seem right. I just can’t explain what. After all, isn’t wanting to be recognized by others and wanting to live a respectable life a pretty normal desire?

John: The desire itself isn’t a sin. God created us with a desire to be affirmed and to live a good and meaningful life. You don’t need to suppress that. The problem isn’t “wanting other people to think you’re impressive.” The problem is when that becomes your entire and ultimate pursuit. It can’t carry that weight, because what other people think of you is incredibly unstable and can change at any moment. And even if the whole world thinks you’re impressive, that recognition still can’t truly fill the deeper desire in your heart—to be truly and unconditionally known and loved.

Jenny: Then how do I sort these two things out?

John: I’m not telling you to stop caring about your career or stop trying to do things well. That wouldn’t be realistic, and it wouldn’t be biblical either. It’s about getting the order right. You can sincerely and wholeheartedly pursue excellence at work and live a life that reflects your faith, and that itself can glorify God. But you don’t need to rely on “other people thinking I’m impressive” to prove that you are “good enough” or valuable. In Christ, that “good enough” status has already been settled from the beginning. You don’t need to earn it again through external achievements. You pursue excellence because you are already loved, not in order to earn love.

Amy: (thoughtfully, almost summarizing) I’m noticing that no matter how many different issues you talk about, they seem to keep circling back to the same point. Whether it’s evolutionary explanations in psychology, cultural relativism in anthropology, or theories about gender, what you’re saying is that once these theories are taken all the way to their logical conclusion, they either end up undermining themselves or they can’t explain the things we actually experience and live out. Could that be a little too convenient? Like… are you just fitting everything into the same framework?

John: (smiling, but serious) That’s a very perceptive observation. And I want to honestly admit that this really is the same core point we—including me—keep coming back to. It isn’t because we’ve run out of words or don’t have anything else to say. It’s because the more I look at theories from different fields, the more I notice that many of them start from the same basic assumption: first assume that nothing exists beyond the material world, and then use that assumption to explain love, morality, meaning, gender, and everything else. By the time they reach the end of the explanation, they often can’t really account for the deepest things we experience as living human beings. Sometimes even the people who propose those theories can’t actually live according to them. It isn’t that we’re “forcing everything into the same framework.” It’s that when these theories are followed all the way through, they often really do reveal the same kind of weakness.

Tom: (silent for a moment, thinking) …Okay. This time I really don’t know how to argue back, even though I still feel a little unconvinced inside.

John: (laughing) That’s okay. These aren’t things you can completely convince yourself of after one conversation. You can take that feeling of being unconvinced with you and keep thinking and asking questions. I’d be completely happy for you to come back next time with even harder questions.

Discussion:

This conversation touched on the old lie that “if someone else is doing well, it means God is more pleased with them,” evolutionary psychology’s explanations of love and morality, cultural relativism in anthropology, the assumptions behind theories of gender, and Jenny’s struggle with wanting other people to think she is “impressive.” Discuss:

1) In one of the courses you are taking, has there ever been a class or theory that gave you a similar feeling of being “split in two” between what you were learning and your faith?

2) After today’s discussion, how would you approach that course or theory differently?

　　（选课系统刚开放，几个人一边等着抢位置一边聊天，手机还开着页面）

一、我还有没有自由意志？

　　Jack：（把笔记本电脑合上，一脸烦躁）我这几天为了选专业的事，差点跟我爸吵起来。他觉得我该转CS，好找工作好移民；我自己更想读的是别的方向，因为现在AI发展这么快，我认识的好几个CS大三大四的学长学姐都开始慌了，说以前那种「学CS等于铁饭碗」的说法，现在根本不管用，entry level的岗位一堆都被冻结或者被AI工具替代了。可我爸完全听不进去，说我这是找借口瞎折腾，「AI再厉害也不会取代所有码农，你就是懒得吃苦」。吵到最后我脑子里冒出一个特别丧的念头——如果神早就预定了我这辈子会做什么，那我现在这么纠结、这么拼命想清楚「神的旨意」，是不是根本是白费力气，反正结局早就定了？

　　Peter：这个我也想过。预定论这东西我越想越绕——如果神从创世以前就已经定好谁得救、谁不得救，那我今天信不信、努不努力，还有什么意义？我是不是只是在演一出早就写好剧本的戏？

　　Tom：（半开玩笑）那你干脆现在就躺平算了，反正剧本早就写好了。

　　Peter：（叹气）问题是我又躺不平。我一边觉得「反正都定了」，一边又很焦虑——我有没有选错专业？我有没有错过「神完美的计划」？这两种情绪在我心里一直打架，一会儿摆烂，一会儿又拼命纠结每一个选择对不对。

　　John：（坐下，认真地）你们俩描述的这个「打架」，其实很多认真思考这件事的基督徒都经历过，我自己念书那几年也是这样，一会儿宿命论式地躺平，一会儿又焦虑到失眠——现在回头看挺搞笑的，我那学期GPA最低的一门课，正好就是我一边跟自己说「都是神预定的，我复习不复习没差」、一边又整晚睡不着觉纠结的那门课，两种心态轮流上阵，结果两边都没做到，成绩自然也好不到哪去。我们今天可能没办法把预定论这个题目讲得面面俱到，但我想先把最容易被误解的那个环节说清楚——「神预定了一切」，跟「所以我的选择不重要、不是真实的」，这两句话之间，其实不是直接画等号的。

　　Jack：那怎么不是等号？听起来就是一回事。

　　John：我问你一个问题——你今天早上决定穿这件外套出门，那个决定，是你自己真实做的，还是有人拿枪指着你逼你穿的？

　　Jack：当然是我自己决定的。

　　John：那我们再往深一层问——你为什么会「想」穿这件外套？是不是有一整串原因，比如今天天气冷、这件比较好看、昨天那件还没洗，这些原因加在一起，让你「自然而然」做出了这个选择，而不是随机、无缘无故的？

　　Jack：……对，是有原因的。

　　John：那这些「原因」的存在，有没有让你觉得「所以我今天早上没有真的做选择，是被这些原因逼着穿的」？

　　Jack：（想了想）没有，感觉还是我自己在选，只是这个选择不是凭空来的。

　　John：这正是我想说的——圣经讲的神的主权，从来不是说神像操纵木偶一样，越过你的意愿、你的思考、你的渴望，强行让你做某件事。是说，神在祂的智慧和主权里，安排了包括「你会怎么想、怎么渴望、最后怎么真实地选择」这整个过程，而这个过程里你所做的选择，仍然是「你自己」真实做出来的，不是被逼的，也不是假装的。

　　Peter：（皱眉）这听起来还是有点绕，感觉是在用文字游戏把两件矛盾的事硬凑在一起。

　　John：我理解这个感觉，说实话，神的主权跟人真实的责任怎么同时成立，这是教会历史上被认真讨论了几百年的问题，我没办法今天给你一个能让你完全「想通」、逻辑上一点缝隙都没有的解释。但我想请你们注意——圣经里这两件事，从头到尾是并排放在一起说的，从来没被当成互相矛盾。约瑟对他哥哥们说「从前你们的意思是要害我，但神的意思原是好的」——哥哥们卖约瑟，是他们自己真实的、要负责任的恶行，同时，神在那整件事的背后，主权地安排了一切，最后成就了拯救整个家族的美事。圣经没有说「其实哥哥们没有真的犯罪，只是神安排的」，也没有说「神只是被动地利用了一个意外」，两句话，圣经同时肯定。

　　Tom：（挑刺）那这不就是圣经自相矛盾，然后你们就说「这是奥秘，不用想通」，这不是逃避问题吗？

　　John：如果我今天就跟你说「这是奥秘，别问了」，那确实是逃避，我不想那样打发你。我想说的是——「这两件事怎么在神那里同时成立、不矛盾」，这个问题的完整答案，可能超出了我们作为受造、有限的人能完全把握的范围，这跟「逃避」不一样，是诚实承认「我不是神，我没办法从神的高度、同时俯瞰看清整个宇宙的因果链」。但这不代表这两件事在圣经里、在逻辑上是真的矛盾，只代表我目前没办法把它们完全解开摆在你面前看。很多真实的东西，我们没办法完全解释，不代表它不真实。

　　Amy：（这时插话，带着课堂上的困惑）我想接着「自由意志」这个话题往下问，跟神没关系，是我Psych课上学的。我们教授上礼拜讲脑科学实验，说仪器能在你「意识到」自己做决定之前几百毫秒，就已经从脑电波里预测出你要做哪个选择了。教授说这基本证明，所谓「自由意志」只是大脑先做了决定，然后编了个故事让你以为是「你」在选。如果连世俗科学都说自由意志是幻觉，那你们说的「人真实的责任」，会不会本来就是个错觉，不用扯到神预定不预定？

　　Jack：（皱眉）那听起来更丧了，等于说不管信不信神，反正都是被脑子里的电信号决定的，我们现在讨论这些是不是也挺可笑的？

　　John：这个问题问得很扎实，Amy，谢谢你把它摆到桌面上，因为这其实是比预定论更釜底抽薪的挑战，我想认真回应一下。如果一个人真的相信，人的每一个念头、每一句话，都只是大脑里神经元按照物理定律「必然」放电的结果，不多不少，没有任何超出物理因果链的东西，那我想请你们想一件事——包括你教授说的那句话「自由意志是幻觉，这是科学证明的」，这句话本身，按照他自己这套理论，也只是他大脑里那一刻恰好发生的电信号，不多不少，跟一块石头往下掉、一片树叶被风吹动，性质上没有任何不同。

　　Peter：（若有所思）那……我们凭什么要「相信」这句话是「对」的、是「真」的，而不只是「碰巧发生了」？

　　John：正是这个问题。「这句话是真的、值得相信」，这个判断本身，需要一个前提——存在着「合理的推理」跟「不合理的胡言」的区别，一个念头能不能被信任，不只是看它「有没有发生」，是看它「有没有理由」。可如果一切念头，包括这句「自由意志是幻觉」，都只是物理因果链上被决定的一环，那它跟一块石头砸中你脑袋、你「碰巧」冒出一个念头，本质上没有区别——都只是「发生了」，谈不上「有理由」「该被信」。这套理论如果彻底套用到底，会把它自己讲出来这句话的资格也一起吃掉，因为它没办法说明，为什么单单它自己这句话，值得被当成「理性推论」而不是「随机放电」来相信。

　　Amy：（沉默一下）……你是说，如果一切都是纯物理决定的，那「相信」这个动作本身，就没办法立得住，包括相信「一切都是物理决定的」这句话？

　　John：对，这正是我想说的。反过来，圣经讲的神的主权，跟这种冷冰冰的物理决定论完全不是一回事——神不是一堆没有理性、没有目的的粒子在瞎撞，祂是一位有位格、有智慧、按着祂自己的美意做工的神，而且祂造你的时候，就造了一个真实能思考、能权衡、能负责任地做选择的你，你的推理能力、你判断对错的能力，本身就是神所赐、有根有据的，不是大脑随机放电碰巧蒙对了。所以我不是要用「神的主权」去否定你在Psych课上学的东西，是想请你注意——如果丢掉神，只剩下纯物理决定论，你连「相信这堂课讲的是对的」这件事，都没有站得住的理由；但如果承认背后有一位赐人理性的神，你反而更有理由相信，你此刻的思考、我们此刻的讨论，是真实、有意义的，不是错觉。

　　Jack：那具体落到我选专业这件事上，你的意思是——我该怎么做？

　　John：意思是，你今天认真地思考、跟你爸沟通、权衡AI时代这些真实的行业变化、祷告寻求，这整个过程，本身就是神安排你走向祂那个已经定好的美好计划的方式，不是跟那个计划「对着干」，也不是「反正结果一样、想不想都无所谓」。你的纠结、你的认真，不是白费的，是神使用的一部分，哪怕你爸暂时不理解。

　　Jenny：（这时开口）那「寻求神的旨意」这件事，我一直很有压力。选Major、申Co-op、找工作，每一步我都觉得像在走雷区，生怕自己走错一步，就永远偏离了「神为我预备的完美计划」，然后我这辈子就毁了。我甚至会花特别多时间列各种pros and cons的表格，比来比去，比到最后自己都快崩溃了，还是不敢按下「确认」那个按钮。

　　Grace：我也有这种感觉，好像神在什么地方藏了一张「唯一正确答案」的地图，我要是没猜中，就全盘皆输。我室友是个不信主的，她跟我完全反过来——她选课、选实习，从来不纠结，选了就选了，顶多说一句「大不了以后再改」，我看着都羡慕，可我又觉得，我一个信主的人，怎么反而比她更焦虑、更不敢做决定？

　　John：Jenny、Grace，你们刚才说的这种反复权衡、迟迟不敢按下确认键的状态，我想指出一件事——这背后很可能不只是「认真」，是一种想把「选择」这件事完全掌控在自己手里、一点风险都不留的心态，说白了，是把「我必须自己算准每一步」，悄悄当成了让自己安心的依靠，而不是真正把这件事交托给神。这种「必须自己掌控」的心态，其实是很多人心里一个很顽固的根，它不会只在选专业这一件事上出现——你们有没有发现，自己在别的事上，比如订机票、订餐厅、甚至约朋友吃饭的时间，也常常反复纠结、迟迟定不下来？

　　Jenny：（愣了一下）……还真是，我上次订回国机票，光比价就比了快两个礼拜，最后还是我室友受不了了替我下的单。

　　John：这就是我想提醒的——如果只是想办法「解决选专业这件事上的焦虑」，比如逼自己「随便选一个」，很可能过一阵子，这种「必须掌控一切才安心」的心态，又会从订机票、找房子，或者别的地方冒出来，因为真正的根没被处理。真正要往下走的，不是学会「随便选」，是回到一个更根本的问题——你信不信，就算你这次选择不是「最优解」，神仍然稳稳地掌管着接下来的路，不需要你自己先把每一种可能都算清楚，祂才能带领你。圣经确实讲神有一个对每个人生命的旨意，但圣经从来没有把这个旨意描绘成一张「你必须精准猜中、猜错就万劫不复」的藏宝图。神更多时候给我们的，是清楚的原则——诚实、爱人、圣洁、忠心地使用祂给你的恩赐——在这些原则之内，祂给了我们相当大的自由去做智慧的选择，选CS或者选别的、去这家公司或者那家，这些选择，只要不违背祂清楚启示的原则，都是在祂的看顾之下的，不是「猜错就完蛋」的赌局。

　　Jenny：（松了口气）所以我选错了也不会「毁了」？

　　John：不会。而且我要提醒一句，「选错」这个词本身可能就带着刚才那种「唯一藏宝图」的假设。你诚实祷告、认真权衡之后做的选择，就算后来发现不是最理想的，神仍然在那个「不理想」的处境里，继续带领你、使用你，祂的主权不会因为你走了一条弯路就失效。

　　Peter：（想了想，半开玩笑）那我室友的办法呢？他上学期为了不纠结，干脆学着「一切随缘」，说反正想那么多也没用，选哪个都差不多。他现在看起来确实比以前轻松一点，是不是这样也挺好，比我们纠结半天要健康？

　　John：（认真地）我理解那种「随缘」表面上带来的轻松，很多人也确实靠这个办法暂时把焦虑压下去了。但我想请你注意，「随缘」跟「交托」，表面很像，骨子里不一样——「随缘」是「反正想了也没用，那就不想了」，本质上还是觉得这件事背后没有一个真正在乎、在掌管的神，只是自己放弃思考；「交托」是「我认真想了、也认真做了，但最后的结果，我相信是在一位又真又活、爱我的神手里」，两者外表都是「不那么纠结」，但一个底下是空的、是一种逃避，一个底下是有根的。我见过一些用「随缘」硬撑的同学，撑一阵子还行，可一旦真遇上大事——比如工签真的批不下来——那种「其实我什么都不能掌控、也没有谁真的在乎」的空虚感，反而比一直焦虑的人垮得更彻底。

讨论：

这一场聊到了神的主权跟人真实的选择会不会互相矛盾、约瑟被卖的例子、脑科学「自由意志是幻觉」这类说法自己站不站得住脚，还有「寻求神旨意」变成走雷区式焦虑、甚至演变成「必须自己掌控一切」的心态。John说，我们真实做的选择，正是神安排祂计划成就的方式，不是跟计划「对着干」；「随缘」的轻松跟「交托」的平安，外表相似，底下的根不一样。请讨论：

1) 你有没有过因为「反正神都定了」而想躺平，或者因为怕「选错神的旨意」而焦虑到不敢做决定的时候？

2) 你身上那种「必须自己掌控一切才安心」的心态，除了在选专业、选工作这类大事上，还有没有在生活里别的小事上冒出来过？

二、这跟我今天的痛有什么关系？

　　Paul：（声音低沉）我想说点更实际的。我上个月申请了三份工作，全被拒了；考的那个证书也没过；本来想留在加拿大，结果PR评分一直不够，希望越来越渺茫。我表哥知道后跟我说了一句「这是神的旨意，你要顺服」，我听完那一刻，说实话，心里不是平安，是更愤怒、更困惑——神就是这么对我的吗？

　　Sophia：这话我也听过，每次听到都觉得很堵，好像别人是在用一句「属灵」的话，把我的痛苦轻描淡写地打发掉。我有个朋友当年申请工签被拒了三次，最后放弃留加拿大回国了，她说她那阵子最讨厌的就是有人一边喝着咖啡一边跟她说「神自有安排」，她说「你要是也经历一次被拒信淹没的感觉，你就不会这么轻松地说这句话了」。

　　John：Paul、Sophia，我想先说，你表哥那句话，还有Sophia朋友遇到的那些人，出发点大概是好的，想安慰你，但那样脱口而出，很容易变成一种「情感上的止痛贴」，而不是真正的安慰，甚至可能让你觉得自己的痛苦被否定了、不被允许好好难过。我要先说——你现在这份愤怒和困惑，不需要立刻被压下去，可以先诚实地待在这里。

　　Paul：（有点意外）我以为你会说「不该对神生气」。

　　John：诗篇里大卫、约伯，一次又一次对神发出近乎控诉的问题，这些话被收进圣经里，成为我们可以照着祷告的诗篇，这本身在告诉我们，把真实的愤怒、困惑带到神面前，不是不敬虔，可能反而是更深的信靠——因为你还愿意去问祂，而不是转身彻底走开。

　　Jack：那「神的主权」跟「顺服」这些词，到底该怎么用，才不会变成压制人痛苦的工具？

　　John：我觉得关键是次序——不是先拿「神主权」这个概念，堵住一个正在痛苦的人的嘴，是先跟他一起坐在痛苦里，陪他哭、陪他问，等他自己走到那一步、愿意再往前看的时候，才一起去想「神在这当中做什么」。次序反过来，很容易变成伤害，而不是安慰。

　　Tom：（换个话题，带着课堂上的疑问）说到「神主权」跟「人的责任」，我记得历史课稍微提过加尔文主义跟亚米念主义这两派，一个强调神的主权拣选，一个强调人有责任自由回应，好像吵了几百年。老实说，这些争论对我来说很遥远，我更想知道——这两种说法，会让我在面对考试压力、人生选择的时候，心态上有什么真实的不一样？

　　John：这是个很实际的问题，我很欣赏你这样问，而不是停在学术辩论的层面。我简单说说改革宗（也就是加尔文主义传统）的理解，怎么落到你说的这些日常处境上。如果我相信，我的得救、我人生最根本的安全感，从起初到末了都稳稳地在神主权的手里，不是靠我自己的表现撑住的，那当我考试考砸了、申请被拒了，这些事确实会让我难过、失望，但它们没有资格动摇我作为神儿女这个最根本的身份和安全感——因为那个身份从来不是我自己挣来的，也不会因为我表现不好就被收回。

　　Jack：那如果不信这套，会怎么样？

　　John：如果一个人的安全感更多建立在「我够不够努力、够不够好」上，那每一次的失败、每一次的挫折，都会直接威胁到他对自己、对未来的整个信心，压力会更容易压垮人，因为一切都靠自己扛着。这不是说亚米念主义传统的弟兄姐妹就没有平安，很多亚米念派的信徒信心也很稳固，我不是要贬低那个传统，只是想说，改革宗对神主权的强调，能给人一种特别扎实的安全感——你的根基不在你自己身上，在神身上，而神不会失手。

　　Amy：（挑战地）可这样说会不会有点本末倒置？你是先觉得「相信神主权让我更有安全感」，所以才选择相信这套，而不是因为它「更真」才信。说白了，是不是哪套神学让人心理上更舒服，就信哪套，那跟挑一件让自己穿着舒服的衣服，有什么本质区别？

　　John：这是个很锐利、也很公平的提醒，Amy，谢谢你这样追问，因为这确实是要分清楚的两件事——「相信一件事，因为它让我感觉更好」，跟「相信一件事，因为经过认真查考，我认为它是真的，而它恰好也带来了平安」，次序完全不一样。改革宗神学不是先设计出来「为了让人心安」的一套心理按摩，是历世历代的人认真查考整本圣经，看见神的主权、拣选、恩典这些主题反复出现，才归纳、整理出来的理解。它带来的平安，是「因为真，所以安」，不是「因为想安，所以选它当真」。当然，我没办法在这里一条一条把每处经文摆给你看，这个我们可以私下再约时间深入查考，但我想先请你注意——如果一套东西只是因为「让人舒服」才被信，那遇到像Paul这样连续三次被拒的处境，它多半撑不住，因为舒服的感觉早就被现实打碎了；但很多经历过深重苦难、真正认识神主权的信徒，反而在最痛的时候更稳，这说明支撑他们的，不只是一种「感觉良好」，是底下有真实的东西。老普林斯顿神学院的沃菲尔德（B.B. Warfield）讲过一句很直接的话，大意是——加尔文主义不是一套用来让人心情变好的技巧，是把「神是神、人是人」这件事想透了、想彻底了的结果，人一旦真的认识到，救恩从头到尾都是神在做工，不是靠自己撑起来的，那种平安才不是自我催眠出来的，是认清真相之后自然长出来的。

　　Amy：（沉默一下）……这个回答我没法当场反驳，但我大概还是需要自己去查一查，不能只听你这么说。

　　John：这个态度我很欣赏，这本来就不该只听我一个人讲完就下结论。

　　Sophia：（这时又提出一个更尖锐的问题）我想问一个可能有点冒犯的问题。如果神预定了一切，那世界上这么多无缘无故的苦难——小孩得绝症、地震海啸毁掉无数家庭——这些也是神定的吗？如果是，那这个神听起来挺可怕的；如果不是，那「神预定一切」这句话是不是就不成立了？

　　（一时安静）

　　John：Sophia，谢谢你敢把这个问题问得这么直接，这值得认真对待，不该被回避。我想诚实地说——改革宗传统确实相信，神的主权涵盖了包括苦难在内的万事，没有什么是「意外」发生、神完全掌控不了或者事后才知道的。但我要立刻加上一句同样重要的话——神的主权跟神的良善，圣经从来是一起讲的，从不分开。神掌管苦难，不等于神是苦难背后那个恶意的策划者，圣经很清楚地区分——罪恶、苦难的直接来源，是这个堕落的世界、是罪、有时候是恶者的作为，而神在这一切之上、之中，用祂超越我们理解的智慧，让即使是最深的黑暗，最终也不能逃出祂手掌、也不能拦阻祂最终要成就的美好。

　　Peter：那具体像那个孩子得绝症，神在其中「做」了什么，还是「允许」了什么？

　　John：圣经里的语言常常用「允许」这个词，来描述神跟罪恶、苦难的关系——就像约伯记里，撒但要攻击约伯，是在神明确划定的界限之内被「允许」发生的，不是神自己动手作恶，也不是撒但可以随心所欲、不受限制。这个分寸很重要——神不是苦难的作者，但也没有一件苦难的事，是完全脱离祂主权、祂能力所不及的。

　　Amy：那这样讲，还是没有真正回答「为什么」，只是把责任推给了「界限」跟「允许」这些词。

　　John：我完全同意，这没有回答「为什么这个具体的孩子、这场具体的地震」，我没办法给你那个层面的答案，我怀疑没有人能给。但我想请你注意，圣经给的，不是一个让每件苦难都变得「说得通」的解释系统，是一个更深的应许——这位掌管万有的神，同时也是那位在十字架上，亲自承受了世上最深的、最不公义的苦难的神。祂没有站在苦难之外，冷眼地「允许」着，祂自己进到了苦难的中心。这不能解决「为什么」，但它能回答另一个同样重要的问题——「这位神，靠得住吗，祂真的在乎吗」，而答案是，十字架已经证明了，祂在乎到亲自承受的地步。

　　Paul：（声音低，若有所思）那……回到我自己这些事，工作没了、PR没戏——我该怎么带着这些去信靠祂？

　　John：不是要你现在就说「这一切都是好的」，那样太快、也不诚实。是可以老实祷告——「神，我现在很痛，我不明白，但我选择相信，你没有丢下我，你在这一切当中，仍然掌权，仍然爱我」。这句祷告，不需要一次说完就永远平安，是要在接下来的日子里，一次一次重新说出来的。

　　Jack：那具体来说，如果下次我身边有朋友也遇到Paul这种事——被拒信淹没、PR没戏——我能做点什么，而不是又说出一句让人更堵的「属灵话」？

　　John：最实际的，是先别急着开口讲道理，先问一句「你现在还好吗，愿不愿意多说一点」，然后好好听。如果他愿意，你可以陪他一起祷告，老实把痛苦讲给神听，不用急着替神辩护，神不需要你替祂辩护，祂能承受我们的质问。等他自己愿意往前走的时候，你再陪他一起想「接下来怎么办」，而不是一开始就把「神的旨意」这四个字，当成一句能让对话结束的句号。

讨论：

这一场聊到了「神主权」这类话语被拿来压制痛苦的风险、「信一套神学是因为它真、还是因为它让人舒服」这个尖锐的追问、加尔文主义与亚米念主义两种理解在真实处境里带来的心态差异、还有神的主权跟世上无缘无故的苦难之间的张力。John说，圣经给的不是让每件苦难都「说得通」的解释系统，是一位亲自进到苦难中心的神。请讨论：

1) 你有没有经历过、或者听过别人经历过，用「这是神的旨意」这句话来打发一个正在痛苦的人？

2) 听完今天的讨论，如果下次身边有朋友正在经历类似Paul这样的挫折——被拒信淹没、工签PR没着落——你会怎么具体陪伴他，而不是急着给他一句「属灵」的答案？

Lesson 8: If God Has Already Decided Everything, Why Should I Even Try? — God’s Sovereignty and Our Struggles

(Course registration has just opened. A few of them are waiting for spots to become available while chatting, with the registration pages still open on their phones.)

1. Do I Even Have Free Will?

Jack: (closes his laptop, looking frustrated) I almost got into a fight with my dad over choosing my major these past few days. He thinks I should switch to CS because it’ll make it easier to find a job and immigrate. But I actually want to study something else. AI is developing so fast right now, and several upper-year CS students I know are already getting nervous. They keep saying that the old idea that “a CS degree is basically a guaranteed job” just doesn’t hold anymore. A lot of entry-level positions have been frozen, or parts of those jobs are being replaced by AI tools. But my dad won’t listen. He says I’m just making excuses and messing around. “AI isn’t going to replace every programmer. You just don’t want to work hard.” By the end of the argument, I had this really depressing thought: if God has already decided what I’m going to do with my life, then what’s the point of all this stress and effort trying to figure out “God’s will”? Isn’t it all a waste of time if the ending has already been decided?

Peter: I’ve thought about that too. The more I think about predestination, the more confused I get. If God decided before creation who would be saved and who wouldn’t, then what difference does it make whether I believe today or how hard I try? Am I just acting out a script that was already written?

Tom: (half-joking) Then just give up and do nothing. If the script’s already written, what’s the point?

Peter: (sighs) The problem is, I can’t actually do that. Part of me thinks, “If everything is already decided, then whatever.” But at the same time, I’m constantly anxious. Did I choose the wrong major? Did I somehow miss “God’s perfect plan” for my life? These two feelings keep fighting inside me. One minute I want to give up, and the next I’m obsessing over whether every little decision is the right one.

John: (sits down, seriously) That conflict you two are describing is something a lot of Christians who seriously think about this have experienced. I went through the same thing in university. One moment I’d fall into this kind of fatalistic “whatever happens, happens” attitude, and the next I’d be so anxious I couldn’t sleep. Looking back, it’s actually kind of funny. The course where I got my lowest GPA that semester was exactly the course where I kept telling myself, “God has already decided everything, so it doesn’t matter whether I study,” while also lying awake all night worrying about it. I kept switching between the two mindsets, and in the end I managed to do neither properly. Naturally, my grade wasn’t great either. We probably can’t cover every aspect of predestination today, but I want to clear up the part that’s most easily misunderstood: “God has predestined everything” does not automatically mean “therefore my choices don’t matter or aren’t real.”

Jack: How is that not the same thing? It sounds like exactly the same thing.

John: Let me ask you something. This morning, when you decided to wear that jacket, did you actually make that decision yourself, or did someone hold a gun to your head and force you to wear it?

Jack: Obviously I decided myself.

John: Okay, then let’s go one level deeper. Why did you want to wear that jacket? Wasn’t there a whole chain of reasons? Maybe it was cold outside, you thought that jacket looked better, and the one you wore yesterday was still in the laundry. All those reasons came together and naturally led you to make that choice. You didn’t choose randomly for no reason, right?

Jack: …Yeah. There were reasons.

John: And did the existence of those reasons make you think, “So I didn’t really choose this morning. Those reasons forced me to wear the jacket”?

Jack: (thinking) No. It still feels like I chose it myself. The choice just didn’t come out of nowhere.

John: Exactly. That’s what I’m trying to say. When the Bible talks about God’s sovereignty, it doesn’t mean God controls us like puppets, ignoring our desires, thoughts, and intentions and forcing us to do things against our will. It means that in His wisdom and sovereignty, God ordains the whole process—including how you think, what you desire, and what you ultimately choose—and yet the choices you make within that process are still genuinely your choices. You aren’t being forced, and you aren’t pretending.

Peter: (frowning) That still sounds pretty confusing. It feels like you’re using word games to force two contradictory ideas together.

John: I understand why it feels that way. Honestly, the question of how God’s sovereignty and genuine human responsibility can both be true has been seriously debated throughout church history for hundreds of years. I can’t give you an explanation today that will make everything perfectly click and leave absolutely no logical tension. But I want you to notice something: throughout the Bible, these two things are presented side by side. They’re never treated as contradictions. Joseph told his brothers, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” His brothers selling Joseph was a real, sinful action for which they were responsible. At the same time, God sovereignly worked through the whole situation and ultimately used it to bring about the salvation of the entire family. The Bible doesn’t say, “Actually, the brothers didn’t really sin because God planned it.” And it also doesn’t say, “God just happened to take advantage of an accident.” It affirms both things at the same time.

Tom: (pushing back) But isn’t that just the Bible contradicting itself, and then you guys saying, “It’s a mystery, you don’t have to understand it”? Isn’t that just avoiding the problem?

John: If all I said today was, “It’s a mystery, stop asking questions,” then yes, that would be avoiding the problem. I don’t want to dismiss you like that. What I’m saying is that the complete answer to how these two things can both be true in God without contradicting each other may be beyond what finite, created human beings can completely grasp. That’s different from avoiding the question. It’s honestly admitting, “I’m not God. I can’t stand at God’s level and see the entire chain of cause and effect throughout the universe all at once.” But that doesn’t mean the two ideas are logically contradictory in Scripture. It simply means I can’t completely unpack the whole thing and lay it out in front of you. There are many things that are real even though we can’t fully explain them.

Amy: (jumping in, still thinking about something from class) I want to take the free-will question one step further, but without bringing God into it. This is something we learned in my Psych class. Our professor talked about neuroscience experiments last week where researchers can detect brain activity that predicts which choice you’re going to make hundreds of milliseconds before you consciously become aware that you’ve made the decision. The professor said this basically proves that free will is an illusion—that your brain makes the decision first, and then your conscious mind creates a story that makes you feel like you chose it. If secular science is saying that free will is an illusion, then is the “real human responsibility” you’re talking about just an illusion too? Do we even need to bring God and predestination into it?

Jack: (frowning) That sounds even more depressing. So whether you believe in God or not, everything is just determined by electrical signals in your brain. Then isn’t this whole conversation kind of ridiculous too?

John: That’s a really serious question, Amy. Thanks for putting it on the table, because in some ways it’s an even more fundamental challenge than predestination. I want to take it seriously. If someone really believes that every thought we have and every word we say is nothing more than neurons in the brain firing inevitably according to physical laws, with nothing beyond that physical chain of cause and effect, then I want you to think about something. Even the statement your professor made—“Free will is an illusion, and science has proven it”—would, under that theory, just be a particular pattern of electrical activity that happened in his brain at that moment. Nothing more, nothing less. In that sense, it wouldn’t be fundamentally different from a rock falling or a leaf being blown by the wind.

Peter: (thinking) Then… what gives us the right to believe that this statement is actually true, rather than just something that happened to occur?

John: Exactly. For the statement “this is true and worth believing” to make sense, we need to assume that there is a real distinction between reasonable reasoning and irrational nonsense. We don’t trust a thought simply because it happened in someone’s brain. We trust it because there are reasons for it. But if every thought—including the statement “free will is an illusion”—is simply another predetermined event in a physical chain of cause and effect, then it’s no different in principle from a rock hitting you on the head and you randomly having a thought afterward. Both things simply “happened.” You can’t really talk about one having reasons or being something that ought to be believed. If you take that theory all the way to its logical conclusion, it undermines its own claim to be a rational argument, because it can’t explain why that particular statement should be treated as a rational conclusion rather than just another random brain event.

Amy: (silent for a moment) …So you’re saying that if everything is purely physically determined, then even the act of “believing” something becomes difficult to justify—including believing the statement that everything is physically determined?

John: Exactly. That’s the point I’m making. And the Bible’s teaching about God’s sovereignty is completely different from this cold idea of physical determinism. God isn’t just a bunch of particles randomly bouncing around without reason or purpose. He is a personal God with wisdom and purpose, working according to His own will. And when He created you, He created you as a real person who can think, weigh options, and make responsible choices. Your ability to reason and distinguish right from wrong is itself something God gave you. It isn’t just your brain randomly firing and accidentally getting things right. So I’m not using God’s sovereignty to deny what you learned in your Psych class. I’m asking you to notice that if you remove God and leave only strict physical determinism, you lose a solid basis for even saying, “What I learned in this class is true.” But if there is a God who gives human beings the capacity for reason, then you have a stronger basis for believing that your thinking right now, and our conversation right now, are real and meaningful rather than just an illusion.

Jack: So when it comes specifically to choosing my major, what are you actually telling me to do?

John: I’m saying that the whole process—seriously thinking about your options, talking with your dad, considering the real changes happening in the job market because of AI, praying and seeking God—is itself part of the way God brings you toward the good plan He has already ordained. You’re not fighting against that plan. And it’s not “the outcome is already decided, so none of this matters.” Your careful thinking and your struggle aren’t pointless. They are part of what God uses, even if your dad doesn’t understand that right now.

Jenny: (speaking up) Then I’ve always felt a lot of pressure about “seeking God’s will.” Choosing a major, applying for co-op, looking for a job—I feel like every step is walking through a minefield. I’m terrified that if I make one wrong move, I’ll permanently miss “God’s perfect plan” for my life, and then my whole future will be ruined. I even spend way too much time making pros-and-cons lists, comparing everything over and over, until I’m almost losing my mind, and I still can’t bring myself to click the “Confirm” button.

Grace: I feel that way too. It’s like God has hidden a map somewhere with one “correct answer,” and if I don’t figure it out, I lose everything. My roommate isn’t a Christian, and she’s completely different. When she chooses courses or internships, she doesn’t obsess over it. She just picks something and says, “Worst case, I can change it later.” Honestly, I’m jealous of how relaxed she is. But then I wonder, as a Christian, why am I somehow more anxious and more afraid to make decisions than she is?

John: Jenny, Grace, that constant weighing of every option and being afraid to finally click “Confirm”—I want to point something out. It may not just be “being careful.” There may be a deeper desire underneath it to completely control your choices and eliminate every possible risk. Put simply, you may have quietly turned “I have to calculate every step correctly myself” into the thing that gives you security, rather than actually entrusting the situation to God. That need for control can be a very deep-rooted issue, and it doesn’t only show up when you’re choosing a major. Have you noticed that you sometimes do the same thing with smaller decisions—booking flights, making restaurant reservations, or even deciding when to meet a friend?

Jenny: (pauses) …Actually, yes. The last time I booked a flight home, I spent almost two weeks comparing prices. Eventually my roommate got so fed up that she just booked it for me.

John: That’s exactly what I want you to notice. If all you do is try to “fix the anxiety about choosing your major,” maybe by forcing yourself to just pick something randomly, that same need to control everything may show up again later—when you book a flight, look for housing, or deal with something else. The deeper issue hasn’t been dealt with. The real step forward isn’t learning how to “just pick something.” It’s going back to a more fundamental question: Do you trust that even if this choice isn’t the “optimal” one, God is still firmly in control of what comes next? You don’t have to calculate every possible outcome before He can lead you. The Bible does teach that God has a purpose for each person’s life, but it never describes that purpose as a hidden treasure map where you have to guess the one correct route or your whole life is ruined. More often, God gives us clear principles—honesty, love for others, holiness, faithfully using the gifts He has given us—and within those principles, He gives us a significant amount of freedom to make wise choices. Choosing CS or something else, going to one company or another—so long as those choices don’t violate what God has clearly revealed, they can all be made under His care. They aren’t a high-stakes game where one wrong guess means everything is over.

Jenny: (relieved) So even if I make the wrong choice, I’m not going to “ruin my life”?

John: No. And I’d actually question the phrase “wrong choice” itself, because it may already assume that there’s only one hidden path on that “treasure map.” If you pray honestly and carefully consider your options before making a decision, even if you later discover that it wasn’t the ideal choice, God can still lead you and use you in that less-than-ideal situation. His sovereignty doesn’t stop working just because you took a detour.

Peter: (thinking, half-joking) What about my roommate’s approach, then? Last semester, he got tired of overthinking everything and decided to just “go with the flow.” He said, “There’s no point thinking about it so much. Either choice will probably be fine.” He actually seems more relaxed now than he used to be. Isn’t that better than obsessing over everything like we do?

John: (seriously) I understand the sense of relief that “going with the flow” can bring. A lot of people really do use that approach to push their anxiety down for a while. But I want you to notice that “going with the flow” and “entrusting something to God” may look similar on the surface, but they’re fundamentally different. “Going with the flow” says, “There’s no point thinking about it, so I just won’t think about it.” At its core, it assumes there’s no one who is actually caring for or governing what happens. You’re simply giving up on thinking about it. “Entrusting” says, “I’ve thought about it seriously, I’ve done what I can, and now I believe the outcome is in the hands of a real and living God who loves me.” From the outside, both can look like “not obsessing,” but one is empty underneath and can become a form of avoidance, while the other has something solid underneath it. I’ve seen students rely on “just going with the flow” for a while and seem fine. But when something genuinely serious happens—like their work permit actually gets denied—that emptiness of realizing “I actually can’t control anything, and maybe no one really cares” can hit them even harder than it hits someone who has been anxious all along.

Discussion:

This session talked about whether God’s sovereignty and genuine human choices contradict each other, the example of Joseph being sold by his brothers, whether claims from neuroscience that “free will is an illusion” actually hold up, and how “seeking God’s will” can turn into anxiety that feels like walking through a minefield, eventually becoming a need to control everything. John said that our genuine choices are themselves part of the way God carries out His plan, rather than something that fights against His plan. He also said that the outward calm of “going with the flow” and the peace of “entrusting things to God” may look similar, but they come from very different foundations. Discuss:

1) Have you ever wanted to give up because you thought, “If God has already decided everything anyway, what’s the point?” Or have you ever become so anxious about “making the wrong choice according to God’s will” that you were afraid to make a decision?

2) Besides major life decisions like choosing a major or a job, have you noticed that this need to “control everything in order to feel secure” shows up in smaller parts of your everyday life?

2. What Does This Have to Do with My Pain Right Now?

Paul: (speaking quietly) I want to talk about something more practical. Last month, I applied for three jobs and got rejected by all three. I also failed the certification exam I took. I was hoping to stay in Canada, but my PR score still isn’t high enough, and my hope of staying here is getting smaller and smaller. When my cousin found out, he told me, “This is God’s will. You need to submit to it.” Honestly, when I heard that, I didn’t feel peaceful. I felt even more angry and confused. Is this really how God treats me?

Sophia: I’ve heard that too. Every time someone says it, I feel like there’s a knot in my stomach. It feels like they’re using one “spiritual” sentence to brush aside my pain. I have a friend who had her work permit application rejected three times. Eventually she gave up on staying in Canada and went back home. She told me that during that period, what she hated most was having someone casually drink coffee and tell her, “God has a plan.” She said, “If you had ever experienced what it feels like to be buried under rejection letters, you wouldn’t say that so casually.”

John: Paul, Sophia, I want to say first that your cousin, and the people Sophia’s friend encountered, probably meant well. They wanted to comfort you. But saying something like that too quickly can easily become an emotional Band-Aid rather than genuine comfort. It can even make you feel like your pain is being dismissed, like you’re not allowed to actually grieve. So let me say this first: you don’t have to push your anger and confusion down immediately. You can honestly stay there for a while.

Paul: (a little surprised) I thought you were going to say, “You shouldn’t be angry with God.”

John: In the Psalms, David and Job repeatedly bring extremely intense, almost confrontational questions before God. Those words were preserved in Scripture as prayers we can pray ourselves. That tells us something important: bringing your real anger and confusion to God isn’t necessarily a sign of unbelief. It may actually be a deeper form of trust, because you’re still willing to bring your questions to Him instead of turning around and walking away completely.

Jack: Then how are we supposed to use words like “God’s sovereignty” and “submission” without turning them into tools for shutting down someone’s pain?

John: I think the key is the order in which we do things. We shouldn’t take the concept of “God’s sovereignty” and use it to shut up someone who is hurting. First, we sit with them in their pain. We cry with them, listen to them, and let them ask their questions. Then, when they’re ready to look forward again, we can start thinking together about what God might be doing in the situation. If you reverse that order, it can easily become harmful instead of comforting.

Tom: (changing the subject, thinking about something from class) Speaking of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, I remember my history class briefly mentioning Calvinism and Arminianism. One side emphasizes God’s sovereign election, while the other emphasizes human responsibility and the freedom to respond. Apparently they’ve been arguing about this for hundreds of years. Honestly, those debates feel pretty far removed from my life. What I actually want to know is: how would these two views make a real difference in the way I handle exam pressure and major life decisions?

John: That’s a very practical question, and I appreciate that you’re asking about what this actually looks like in real life instead of keeping it at the level of an academic debate. Let me briefly explain how the Reformed tradition—what people usually call Calvinism—applies this to everyday life. If I believe that my salvation and my deepest sense of security in life, from beginning to end, are firmly in God’s sovereign hands rather than being held together by my own performance, then when I fail an exam or get rejected from a job, those things can still make me sad and disappointed. But they don’t have the power to destroy my deepest identity and security as a child of God, because I didn’t earn that identity through my performance in the first place, and it isn’t taken away because I performed badly.

Jack: What happens if someone doesn’t believe that?

John: If someone’s sense of security is built more around “Am I working hard enough? Am I good enough?”, then every failure and setback can directly threaten their confidence in themselves and their future. The pressure can become overwhelming because everything depends on them holding it together. That doesn’t mean our Arminian brothers and sisters don’t have peace. Many Arminian Christians have very strong and stable faith, and I’m not trying to put that tradition down. I’m simply saying that the Reformed emphasis on God’s sovereignty can give a person a particularly strong sense of security: your foundation isn’t ultimately in yourself. It’s in God, and God doesn’t lose control.

Amy: (challenging him) But isn’t that putting the cart before the horse? You’re saying, “Believing in God’s sovereignty makes me feel more secure,” and then choosing to believe it because of that, instead of believing it because it’s actually true. Basically, if one theological system makes you feel better psychologically, you choose that one. What’s fundamentally different about that from choosing clothes just because they’re more comfortable?

John: That’s a sharp and fair challenge, Amy. Thank you for pushing on it, because these are two things we really have to distinguish. “I believe something because it makes me feel better” is completely different from “I believe something because, after seriously examining it, I believe it’s true—and it happens to bring me peace.” The order matters. Reformed theology wasn’t designed as psychological comfort therapy. It developed as generations of Christians carefully studied the whole Bible and repeatedly saw themes like God’s sovereignty, election, and grace, and then tried to understand and organize what they were seeing. The peace it brings is “because it’s true, I can have peace,” not “because I want peace, I choose to call it true.” Of course, I can’t go through every relevant passage here. We can set aside time later and study them carefully. But notice this: if a belief is accepted only because it makes people feel comfortable, then when someone goes through something like Paul’s repeated job rejections, it probably won’t hold up for long, because reality will eventually shatter the comfortable feeling. Yet many Christians who have gone through deep suffering and genuinely trusted in God’s sovereignty have actually become more grounded in the middle of their hardest moments. That suggests that what supports them isn’t simply a “feel-good” experience. There is something deeper underneath it. B.B. Warfield, the old Princeton theologian, made a very direct point along these lines: Calvinism isn’t a technique for making people feel better. It comes from thinking seriously and consistently about the fact that “God is God, and human beings are human.” Once a person really understands that salvation, from beginning to end, is God’s work rather than something we hold together through our own strength, the resulting peace isn’t self-hypnosis. It grows naturally out of seeing reality clearly.

Amy: (silent for a moment) …I can’t really argue with that on the spot. But I probably still need to look into it myself. I can’t just take your word for it.

John: I actually really respect that attitude. You shouldn’t just listen to me and accept my conclusion without looking into it yourself.

Sophia: (raising an even harder question) I want to ask something that might sound a little offensive. If God has predestined everything, then what about all the seemingly pointless suffering in the world—children getting terminal illnesses, earthquakes and tsunamis destroying entire families? Did God predestine those things too? If He did, then God sounds pretty terrifying. But if He didn’t, then doesn’t that mean the statement “God predestines everything” isn’t actually true?

(The room goes quiet for a moment.)

John: Sophia, thank you for being willing to ask that question so directly. It deserves to be taken seriously, not avoided. I want to be honest: the Reformed tradition does believe that God’s sovereignty extends over all things, including suffering. Nothing happens completely outside His knowledge or control as though He only finds out about it afterward. But I want to add something equally important right away: Scripture always speaks about God’s sovereignty together with God’s goodness. It never separates the two. God being sovereign over suffering does not mean that God is the evil author behind suffering. Scripture makes a clear distinction: the direct sources of sin and suffering are this fallen world, human sin, and sometimes the work of evil spiritual forces. Yet above and within all of that, God works with a wisdom far beyond our understanding, so that even the deepest darkness cannot escape His sovereign care or ultimately prevent Him from accomplishing His good purposes.

Peter: But specifically, when a child gets a terminal illness, what exactly is God “doing” in that situation? Or what is He “allowing”?

John: Scripture often uses the language of “allowing” when describing God’s relationship to evil and suffering. In the Book of Job, for example, Satan’s attack on Job happens within boundaries that God explicitly sets. It is “allowed” to happen, but God Himself is not committing evil, and Satan is not acting without limits. That distinction matters. God is not the author of evil and suffering, but at the same time, no suffering happens completely outside His sovereignty or beyond His power.

Amy: But that still doesn’t really answer “why.” It just shifts the responsibility onto words like “boundaries” and “allowing.”

John: I completely agree. That doesn’t answer why this particular child got sick or why this particular earthquake happened. I can’t give you an answer at that level, and honestly, I doubt anyone can. But I want you to notice that the Bible doesn’t give us a system that makes every instance of suffering intellectually “make sense.” It gives us something deeper: the God who rules over everything is also the God who personally entered into the deepest and most unjust suffering in the world on the cross. He didn’t remain outside suffering, coldly “allowing” it from a distance. He entered into the very center of it Himself. That doesn’t answer the question “Why?” But it does answer another question that is just as important: “Can I trust this God? Does He really care?” The cross shows that He cares enough to suffer Himself.

Paul: (quietly, thinking it over) Then… going back to my own situation—losing my job, my PR plans falling apart—how am I supposed to trust Him with all of this?

John: I’m not asking you to say right now, “All of this is good.” That would be too quick, and it wouldn’t be honest. You can pray honestly: “God, I’m hurting right now. I don’t understand. But I choose to trust that You haven’t abandoned me, that You are still in control in the middle of all this, and that You still love me.” You don’t have to say that once and suddenly feel completely peaceful forever. It may be something you have to pray again and again in the days ahead.

Jack: So practically speaking, if I have a friend going through something like Paul is going through—getting rejection after rejection and feeling like their PR hopes are gone—what can I actually do instead of saying another “spiritual” line that just makes them feel worse?

John: The most practical thing is not to rush into explaining everything. Start by asking, “Are you doing okay right now? Do you want to talk about it?” Then actually listen. If they’re willing, you can pray with them and honestly bring the pain before God. You don’t need to rush to defend God. God doesn’t need you to defend Him. He can handle our questions. When the person is ready to move forward, you can help them think about what to do next. But don’t start the conversation by using the four words “God’s will” as if they’re a period that ends the conversation.

Discussion:

This session talked about the danger of using language about “God’s sovereignty” to shut down someone’s pain, the challenging question of whether we believe a theological system because it is true or because it makes us feel better, the differences between Calvinist and Arminian understandings when applied to real-life situations, and the tension between God’s sovereignty and the seemingly pointless suffering in the world. John said that the Bible doesn’t give us a system that makes every instance of suffering “make sense”; instead, it points us to a God who personally entered into the center of suffering. Discuss:

1) Have you ever experienced, or heard someone else experience, a situation where the phrase “This is God’s will” was used to brush aside someone who was hurting?

2) After today’s discussion, if a friend around you goes through something like Paul—buried under rejection letters, with their work permit or PR plans falling apart—what could you actually do to support them instead of immediately giving them a “spiritual” answer?

　　（Jack 一进门就把电脑包甩在桌上，还没坐稳就打开笔记本电脑）

一、这本书到底是怎么来的？

　　Jack：（把笔记本电脑转过来，屏幕上是一篇论文）我这学期修了一门Religious Studies的选修课，教授上周讲希腊文旧约《七十士译本》，说它跟希伯来文圣经有不少地方不一样，篇幅、章节顺序都有出入，甚至多出好几卷书，天主教圣经里有、我们新教圣经里没有。我当时脑子一下就懵了——如果连「圣经」这个东西的版本都统一不了，我怎么还能说这是「神的话」？我还特意去查了一下，光是《耶利米书》，七十士译本比我们现在读的希伯来文本短了差不多八分之一，这也太夸张了。

　　Peter：（皱眉）这我还真没细想过，我以为圣经就是圣经，一直都是这样，从来没变过。

　　Jack：教授还提到，希伯来文旧约本身也有不同的抄本传统，死海古卷出土之后，发现有些经文跟我们现在的圣经还有些出入，虽然大部分是拼写、用词的小差异，但确实有。

　　Tom：那这不就说明，我们现在读的圣经，可能根本不是「原版」，是一路传抄、翻译、挑选出来的东西？我室友是Comparative Religion的，他有次直接跟我说，「你们那本书，说白了就是好几百年、好几拨人东拼西凑改出来的，跟《一千零一夜》没什么本质区别，只是你们信的人多」。我当时被噎得说不出话。

　　John：（放下水杯）先给Tom的室友颁个奖，「跟《一千零一夜》没什么本质区别」这句话，我大学时候几乎每学期都会被不同的人用不同的方式说一遍，说明这套论证挺流行的，但流行不代表对。我先说一句，Jack说的这些事实，大部分都是真的，我不会否认，也不需要否认。死海古卷确实证实了旧约抄本在细节上有一些差异，《七十士译本》跟马索拉文本（希伯来文本）确实在某些书卷的篇幅、顺序上不一样。这些是研究圣经历史时真实存在的现象，不是教授编出来吓唬你们的。

　　Jenny：（有点慌）那……我们是不是应该更紧张一点？

　　John：我倒觉得该先问一个更基本的问题——「有抄本差异」跟「圣经不可信」，这两件事之间的距离，有没有你们想象中那么近？

　　Jack：怎么说？

　　John：我问你，你们Bio 100的教科书，跟十年前的版本相比，内容会不会有些不一样，用词会不会有调整？

　　Jack：会啊，科学一直在更新。

　　John：那这个「有版本差异」，会不会让你觉得「所以生物学根本不可信」？

　　Jack：不会，那是知识更新，不一样的事。

　　John：这个例子确实不完全对应，我承认圣经的情况更特殊——但我想指出的是同一个逻辑漏洞：「存在差异」本身，不会自动推出「整体不可靠」，得看差异的性质和范围。死海古卷出土之后，确实让学者们看到古代抄本传统里本来就存在的一些差异，不能说「完全一字不差」；但同时，死海古卷也提供了另一件很重要的证据——拿死海古卷（大概公元前二世纪抄的）跟我们现在用的马索拉文本（中世纪抄的，中间隔了上千年）相比，很大一部分经文，跟后来的文本高度一致，差异大多集中在拼写、极少数词序，跟教义、跟核心内容不相关的地方。更准确地说，死海古卷让我们更清楚地看到抄本传统里确实存在的变体，同时也给了我们大量材料，去比较、去判断哪个更接近原文——这不是「圣经一字未改」的证明，是「我们有办法认真核实这件事」的证明。

　　Tom：那我室友说的「东拼西凑」呢？他说得挺笃定的，好像这是学术界的共识。

　　John：如果他是说「圣经不是一次性写成的，是几百年间不同的作者，在神的默示下写成，后来被收集在一起」，那这个描述本身没有错，圣经自己也从不隐瞒这一点。但如果他的意思是「后来的人随意拼凑、篡改，最后凑成了一本没有历史根基的书」，那这个说法，其实没有真正的证据支持，更像是一种没有仔细查考、就先入为主的印象。你可以下次反问他一句——他有没有具体读过一份关于新约抄本证据的资料？新约希腊文抄本残片、抄本的数量非常庞大，有五千多份，时间跨度从公元二世纪一直到印刷术发明，这个数量和年代的密集程度，在整个古代文献里相当罕见，比荷马史诗、比凯撒的著作都多出不少，年代也更接近原作成书的时间。当然，抄本数量多，不等于「所以每一个字都自动没有问题」——真正重要的是，正因为有这么多不同年代、不同地区的抄本可以互相比较，文本批判才有材料可做，我们才有办法认真核查，而不是只能猜。

　　Peter：那《七十士译本》多出来的那几卷书呢？

　　John：那是另一件事，叫「次经」的问题。新教传统，包括宗教改革的时候，认定旧约正典就是希伯来文圣经这三十九卷，跟耶稣、跟新约作者引用旧约时所依据的那个正典范围是一致的；天主教后来在特伦特大公会议上，把次经也定为正典。这不是「原本统一后来分裂」，是历史上一直存在过的、关于「哪些书算正典」的讨论，教会最终按照几个标准做出了判断，不是随便挑的。

　　Sophia：（这时开口，语气带着困惑）说到「谁来决定」，我更想问这个——圣经正典到底是谁定的？凭什么是那几个人、那几次会议，就有资格决定「这卷是神的话，那卷不是」？我听说《雅煞珥书》圣经里都提到过，为什么它没被收进来？这整个过程，让我觉得很不安，好像正典是一群人开会投票投出来的。而且我还听过一种说法，说是君士坦丁皇帝为了政治目的，找人开会「定」了圣经，把一些「不方便」的书排除掉了，这个我听着特别不舒服，好像圣经从根上就不干净。

　　John：这个不安我理解，而且我要先纠正一个常见的误解——教会从来不认为自己「制造」了正典，教会的立场一直是「承认」正典。意思是，这些书卷的权威，不是因为某次会议投票通过才有的，是这些书卷本身，从一开始被写下来的时候，就带着神的权柄，教会做的，是辨认、确认哪些书是真的出于神，不是赋予它们权柄。

　　Sophia：那君士坦丁那个说法呢？

　　John：那个说法流传很广，但跟历史事实对不上。新约正典二十七卷书，早在君士坦丁公元四世纪召开尼西亚大公会议之前，就已经在教会里被广泛接受、使用了，那次会议主要讨论的，是关于基督神性的教义争论，根本没有讨论正典的问题。后来教会开会正式列出正典清单，做的是「确认」教会已经普遍接受的书卷，不是「创造」出一份新名单，更不是为了政治目的排除什么。这个说法之所以流传很广，很大程度上是因为一些小说、电影为了戏剧效果渲染出来的，不是严谨的历史研究结论。

　　Tom：那怎么辨认哪些是正典？万一辨认错了呢？

　　John：早期教会用了几个标准，不是拍脑袋——这卷书是不是使徒或者跟使徒有直接关系的人写的（新约）、是不是跟已经确立的正典教导一致、是不是被普世教会、跨越地域广泛地当作神的话来使用和传承。《雅煞珥书》没有被收进正典，不是因为哪次会议「漏掉」了它，是因为它从一开始就没有满足这些标准——圣经引用它，就像我们今天写文章引用别的历史书一样，引用一本书不代表那本书本身是「神的话」。

　　Jack：那如果哪天又发现一份更古老的抄本，跟现在圣经内容差很多，是不是整个正典又要重新洗牌？

　　John：从死海古卷这些近百年最重大的考古发现来看，答案其实是相反的——越是发现更古老的材料，越是印证了我们手上的圣经，在漫长的传抄历史里，惊人地稳定、可靠，不是越挖越发现「原来我们一直被骗」，是越挖越证实这个传承链条的严谨。

　　Grace：（这时开口，带着自己课堂上的经历）我想接着说一件更让我困惑的事。我上一门圣经文学的课，教授把圣经完全当成古代文献来分析——讲摩西五经不是摩西一个人写的，是好几个不同的文献来源（她管这个叫「底本假说」），在不同的政治背景下拼凑、编辑出来的；讲以赛亚书可能不是一个人写的，是好几位「以赛亚」写的，因为书里前半部分和后半部分的写作风格、历史背景明显不一样。听完之后，我没有觉得受启发，只觉得很乱——我还能不能相信这是神的话？而且更麻烦的是，这门课的Final Paper，就要求我们「运用底本假说分析摩西五经的一段经文」，我写的时候心里特别别扭，好像在写一篇我自己都不信的东西，只是为了拿分。

　　Peter：那你怎么写的？

　　Grace：我最后还是老老实实按照理论框架写了，写完感觉特别空虚，好像我把圣经当成一件「学术标本」解剖了一遍，而不是神的话。

　　John：这门课你上的，很可能是所谓的「历史批判方法」，这是过去两百年学术界研究圣经的一种主流方法，你会遇到，很多基督徒念大学都会遇到，这不奇怪。Grace你说的那种「空虚感」，我完全理解，我大学时候上过类似的课，也有过一模一样的感觉。我要说两件事。第一，这些理论里，有一些确实指出了圣经文本形成过程中一些真实值得思考的现象——比如摩西五经里确实有些段落，风格、用词跟别的段落不太一样，这些观察本身不是凭空捏造的。

　　Grace：那第二呢？

　　John：第二，也是更关键的一点——这整套「历史批判方法」，从一开始设定的前提，往往就已经排除了「这本书可能真的是神所默示的、有超自然来源」这个可能性，它默认圣经跟别的任何古代文献一样，只能用「纯粹人的、自然的因素」去解释，一旦有超自然的成分（比如以赛亚书里精确预言了几百年后波斯王居鲁士的名字和作为），就先假定「这肯定是后来的人事后写的、伪托前人名字」，而不是去问「会不会这真的是神启示的预言」。这个前提，从来没有被证明过，只是被当成研究的默认起点，你的教授上课时多半也不会特别点出来，因为在他们那个学术圈子里，这已经是习以为常的默认设定了。

　　Tom：（若有所思）所以不是「证据指向」这个结论，是「先假设了不能有神迹」，然后再去解读证据？

　　John：对，这正是我想让你们看清楚的地方。如果一个人一开始就排除了「神真的介入、真的默示了这本书」的可能性，那不管证据是什么样子，他最后得出的结论，一定是「这是纯粹人写的东西」，因为他的前提早就把答案锁死了。这不是「客观、中立的学术研究」打败了「盲目的信仰」，是两套不同的前提，在同一堆证据面前，得出了不同的解读。

　　Grace：那我该怎么面对上课学的这些？直接跟教授对着干吗？还是Final Paper就照着写、心里过不去？

　　John：不用对着干，你可以带着尊重去学这些理论，了解学术界在讨论什么，这对你有好处，甚至像你这次写Paper，按照要求运用那套框架去分析，这本身没有问题，是在学一种学术工具，就像学统计学的人要会用某个学派的方法，不代表他必须相信那个学派背后的全部世界观。但你可以诚实地意识到——教授的结论，不是从「中立的证据」里长出来的，是从他先接受的那套「不能有神迹」的前提里长出来的。你完全可以带着另一套前提——「这本书真的可能是又借着人、又出于神默示写成的」——去看同一堆证据，而且这套前提，跟圣经作者自己怎么理解自己在做的事，其实更吻合。写作业的时候按要求完成，心里知道自己在做什么，这两件事不矛盾。

讨论：

这一场聊到了不同抄本、译本之间的差异、「君士坦丁定圣经」这类流传很广却经不起查证的说法、正典是「教会确认」而不是「教会制造」，还有历史批判方法背后其实藏着一个先排除神迹的前提。请讨论：如果你身边的同学也跟Grace、Jack一样，在课堂上第一次听到这些「圣经不是原来想的那样单纯」的说法，甚至像Tom室友那样直接说圣经是「东拼西凑」的，你现在会怎么回应他们？

二、我的信任到底建立在什么上？

　　Peter：（换了个角度）撇开学术上的这些争论，我更困惑的是「圣经无误」这个说法。我们查经班以前学过这个词，可我一直没搞懂，它到底是说圣经每一个细节——年代、数字、地理——都精确到一个字不差，还是说，圣经在关乎拯救的核心真理上不会出错？我上次还被我一个学Astronomy的朋友问住了，他说圣经里「日头停住」那段（约书亚记），如果地球真的停止自转，按物理学根本不可能只是「太阳看起来停了」，会有毁灭性的后果，那这段经文到底是不是「错」的？

　　John：这个问题问得很好，而且这两种理解，在教会历史上确实都有人这样表述，值得说清楚。改革宗传统对「圣经无误」的理解，指的是圣经在它原初的手稿里，在它所宣告的一切事上——不管是关于神、关于救恩，还是关于历史、地理这些细节——都是真实可靠的，没有错误。但这句话有一个重要的前提，常常被忽略——圣经的每一句话，要按照它原本的文体、写作的方式去理解，才能判断它「说了什么」。

　　Jenny：这是什么意思？

　　John：比如，圣经里有诗歌体裁，用「大山踊跃如公羊」这种夸张的意象来描述神的荣耀，我们不会说这句话「错」了，因为它从来没打算做精确的地质学描述，它是诗歌语言。约书亚记那段「日头停住」，也要放回当时的写作习惯来读——古代近东的历史叙事，常常用「从观察者角度看到的现象」来描述事件，就像我们今天说「太阳下山了」，气象学家也这样说，没有人会因此说这句话「不科学」，因为大家都明白，这是从地面观察者角度说的话，不是在做天文学声明。这段经文，很可能是在描述一种超自然的现象——从约书亚和以色列人的角度，那一天的光照异常地延长了，具体物理机制圣经没有交代，也不需要用现代物理学的框架去逐字对应，才能判断它「对不对」。

　　Tom：（挑刺）那这样一来，是不是随便一处圣经跟别的地方对不上，都可以说「哦这是文体问题，不算错」，这不就是想怎么解释都行吗？

　　John：这个警惕是对的，我完全同意不能滥用这个说法当万能挡箭牌。真正负责任的做法，是老老实实去研究这段经文原本的文体、写作背景、当时的语言习惯，而不是随便套一个理由搪塞过去。这也是为什么好的解经，需要花功夫、需要严谨，不是拍脑袋。

　　Jack：（换个话题，带着点无力感）我说实话，我根本听不懂这些学术层面的东西，什么历史批判、抄本传统、正典标准，我一个念Engineering的，压根没时间去研究这些，我连每周的Lab Report都赶不完。那我对圣经的信任，到底建立在什么上面？会不会特别脆弱，一旦有人拿出一套我看不懂的学术论证，我就没法回应了？

　　John：这个问题，可能是今天最重要的一个，我想认真回答。我先说，历史证据、护教学的论证，都是有价值的，能帮助我们、也能帮助跟我们对话的人看到，信靠圣经不是不讲道理的盲信。但如果一个基督徒对圣经的信心，最终的根基是「我把所有学术论证都搞懂了、能把每个反对意见都驳倒」，那这个信心确实会很脆弱，因为总有更难的问题、更专业的学者，你没办法全部应付过来。

　　Jack：那到底该建立在什么上？

　　John：改教传统一直很看重一件事，加尔文在《基督教要义》里专门用一整章讲这个，叫圣灵的内证——意思是，我们对圣经是神的话这件事的最终确信，不是先靠一套完美无缺的外部论证「证明」出来的，是圣灵自己，藉着圣经本身向我们的心作见证，让我们里面真实地认出——这就是神在对我说话。就像你听一个真正认识你、爱你的人说话，跟听一个陌生人照着剧本背台词说话，你心里会有不一样的感觉，那种「认出来」，不是先经过一套逻辑推演才有的。

　　Amy：（好奇）这听起来是不是有点玄，会不会又是一种「我感觉是真的，所以就是真的」？我身边不少信别的宗教、或者信一些新兴灵修的人，也会说类似的话——「我打坐的时候能感觉到宇宙的能量」，这跟你说的「圣灵内证」，听起来结构上很像，那凭什么你们这个是真的，别人那个就不是？

　　John：这是个很公平的追问，我很高兴你提出来，而不是自己心里嘀咕。我要先澄清——圣灵的内证，不是取代证据、也不是叫你不管证据凭感觉信，是说，就算Jack这样的同学，没有能力去逐条驳倒每个学术论证，他仍然可以真实地、有根有据地信靠圣经，因为最终的确信，不是靠人自己的论证能力撑起来的，是神自己愿意让祂的百姓，借着祂的话，认出祂的声音。这跟外部的历史证据、护教论证不冲突，是两个层面的事，互相配合，不是互相取代。你提到的那种「感觉到能量」，跟这个不完全一样——它更多是脱离具体内容的、纯粹的主观体验，而圣灵的内证，是紧紧扣着圣经具体说了什么内容来的，不是一种模糊的、跟内容脱节的感受，而且它是跟外在的历史证据一起、互相印证地运作的，不是单独凭一种感觉就自证。

　　Jack：（松了口气）所以就算我不懂什么死海古卷、历史批判，我一样可以真实地信靠圣经？

　　John：可以，而且教会历史上绝大多数信徒，从来没有机会读那些学术论文，他们的信心一样是真实、稳固的。你如果有兴趣、有能力去多了解一些护教学的东西，那很好，能帮助你、也能帮助你身边质疑的朋友；但那不是信心「必须」建立的地基，只是能帮上忙的辅助工具。

　　Sophia：（这时又提起自己一直放不下的事）那我还是想回到旧约那些让我不安的经文——神对迦南人的灭绝令、约伯记里神竟然「允许」撒但去试探约伯。这些不只是学术上的争议，是让我对神的品格本身产生疑问。当圣经本身让我困惑、甚至反感，我该怎么继续读下去？

　　John：Sophia，这个问题我们上一次聚会也碰过一点，我想再补充一点。「圣经让我困惑」，不代表「圣经有问题」，也可能是「我此刻还没有足够的背景去理解这段经文原本要说的事」——就像你第一次看一部很复杂的电影，某一幕单独拿出来看会觉得莫名其妙，甚至反感，但看完整部片、了解了前因后果，你的理解会完全不一样。约伯记正是这样一卷书——它一开始就明明白白告诉读者一个约伯自己完全不知道的「幕后」信息：撒但的攻击是在神明确的许可和限制之下发生的，而整卷书最后的重点，不是「解释苦难的原因」，是约伯借着与神真实的相遇，认识到神的智慧远超过他能理解的范围，这卷书从头到尾都在提醒我们，人的理解力是有限的，不该拿它当作评判神的最终标准。

　　Sophia：（沉默一会儿）……那是不是意味着，我永远没办法真的「想通」这些经文？

　　John：有些经文，我们这一生可能真的没办法完全「想通」，我不想骗你说总有一天所有困惑都会消失。但「没办法完全想通」，跟「应该因此就不信靠这位神」，中间还有很长的距离。你可以带着诚实的困惑，继续留在神面前，继续读下去，这本身就是一种信靠的方式——不是因为你已经把每个问题都解决了才信，是因为你信靠的这位神，配得上你带着问题继续跟随祂。

　　Amy：（若有所思，这次是真心的）我发现你们讨论这些的方式，跟我以为的「信徒就是不许质疑」完全不一样。我一个学Philosophy的朋友以前说，宗教信仰说到底就是「不敢面对不确定性的人，找一个东西让自己心安」，听完你们今天聊的，我倒觉得，你们好像反而比很多不信的人，更愿意直面那些说不通、不舒服的地方。

　　John：谢谢你这样说，我希望我们真的是这样，而不只是嘴上说说。福音从来不需要靠回避难题才能站得住，如果它经不起认真的追问，那才真的该让人担心。

讨论：

这一场聊到了「圣经无误」到底是什么意思、Jack担心自己听不懂学术论证信心会不会很脆弱、圣灵的内证跟别的宗教「主观感受」有什么不同、还有Sophia始终放不下的旧约难题。John说，信心的最终地基不是我们自己驳倒每个反对意见的能力，是神自己让祂的百姓认出祂的声音。请讨论：如果有一天，有人拿一套你完全答不上来的学术理论，来挑战圣经的可信度，听完今天的讨论，你觉得自己会怎么回应——是急着找答案证明自己对，还是可以带着平静，继续信靠？为什么？

Lesson 7: Can We Really Trust the Bible? — The Bible and Authority

(Jack walks in, tosses his laptop bag onto the table, and opens his laptop before he has even fully sat down.)

1. Where Did This Book Even Come From?

Jack: (turning his laptop around; there’s a paper open on the screen) I’m taking an elective in Religious Studies this semester. Last week, the professor talked about the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, and said there are quite a few differences between it and the Hebrew Bible. The length is different, the order of some books and chapters is different, and it even includes several books that aren’t in our Protestant Bible but are in the Catholic Bible. My brain just kind of froze. If we can’t even agree on which version of the “Bible” we’re talking about, how can I still say that this is “the Word of God”? I even looked into it myself, and just in the Book of Jeremiah, the Septuagint is about one-eighth shorter than the Hebrew text we use today. That’s a pretty huge difference.

Peter: (frowning) Honestly, I’ve never really thought about that. I always assumed the Bible was just the Bible, and that it had always been exactly the same.

Jack: The professor also mentioned that there are different manuscript traditions even within the Hebrew Old Testament itself. After the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, scholars found that some passages differ from the Bible we have today. Most of the differences are small things like spelling or wording, but they are real differences.

Tom: So doesn’t that mean the Bible we read today might not actually be the “original”? Maybe it’s something that was copied, translated, and selected over and over again? My roommate is in Comparative Religion, and one time he just straight-up told me, “Your book is basically something that hundreds of years of different people pieced together and edited. It’s not fundamentally different from One Thousand and One Nights—the only difference is that more people believe in yours.” I honestly had no idea how to respond.

John: (puts down his cup) First, let’s give Tom’s roommate an award. I swear, “It’s basically no different from One Thousand and One Nights” is something I heard in a different form almost every semester when I was in university. So yeah, it’s clearly a popular argument. But popular doesn’t automatically mean correct. First of all, most of what Jack said is true. I’m not going to deny it, and I don’t need to. The Dead Sea Scrolls really did confirm that there are some differences in the details of Old Testament manuscripts. The Septuagint really is different from the Masoretic Text—the Hebrew text—in the length and order of some books. These are real phenomena in the study of biblical history. The professor didn’t just make them up to scare you guys.

Jenny: (a little nervous) So… should we be more worried about this?

John: I actually think we should ask a more basic question first: how close are “there are differences between manuscripts” and “the Bible isn’t trustworthy”? Are those two things really as closely connected as you think?

Jack: What do you mean?

John: Let me ask you this. Your Bio 100 textbook—is it exactly the same as the version from ten years ago? Wouldn’t some of the content and wording have changed?

Jack: Yeah, definitely. Science is always being updated.

John: So if there are different editions, would that make you think, “Therefore biology itself can’t be trusted”?

Jack: No. That’s just knowledge being updated. It’s a different thing.

John: The example isn’t a perfect match, I admit that. The Bible is obviously a more complicated case. But what I want you to notice is the same logical problem: the existence of differences does not automatically mean something is completely unreliable. You have to look at what kind of differences they are and how significant they are. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls did show scholars that there were already some variations within ancient manuscript traditions. So we can’t honestly say that every manuscript was “exactly identical word for word.” But at the same time, the Dead Sea Scrolls also gave us something very important: when we compare manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of which were copied around the second century BC, with the Masoretic Text we have from the medieval period—more than a thousand years later—a very large amount of the text is remarkably consistent. Most of the differences are in spelling, a small number of word-order issues, or other details that don’t affect the core teachings. More accurately, the Dead Sea Scrolls help us see more clearly that variations really did exist within the manuscript tradition, while also giving us a huge amount of evidence that we can compare to determine what is closer to the original text. That’s not proof that “the Bible was never changed by even one letter.” It’s proof that “we have ways to seriously investigate what happened.”

Tom: What about what my roommate said about it being “pieced together”? He sounded so confident, like it was basically the academic consensus.

John: If what he means is, “The Bible wasn’t written all at once. Different authors wrote different books over hundreds of years, under God’s inspiration, and those writings were later collected together,” then that description itself isn’t wrong. The Bible never tries to hide that. But if he means, “Later people randomly pieced things together and altered them until they ended up with a book that has no historical foundation,” then there really isn’t solid evidence for that claim. It sounds more like an assumption made before actually looking carefully at the evidence. Next time, you could ask him one simple question: Has he actually read any of the evidence about New Testament manuscripts? There are more than 5,000 known Greek New Testament manuscripts and fragments, spanning from around the second century AD up to the invention of printing. That number and the relatively early dates are unusually strong compared with most ancient literature. There are far more New Testament manuscripts than we have for works like Homer’s epics or Caesar’s writings, and many of them are much closer in date to the original composition. Of course, having lots of manuscripts doesn’t mean, “Therefore every single word is automatically perfect.” What really matters is that because we have so many manuscripts from different periods and regions, textual criticism actually has a large amount of evidence to work with. We can seriously compare the texts instead of simply guessing.

Peter: What about those extra books in the Septuagint?

John: That’s a different issue. It’s the question of the “Apocrypha,” or what some traditions call the Deuterocanonical books. The Protestant tradition, including the Reformers, understood the Old Testament canon to consist of the same thirty-nine books found in the Hebrew Bible. They understood that as corresponding to the collection of Scriptures used by Jesus and the New Testament writers. The Catholic Church later formally recognized the Deuterocanonical books as part of its canon at the Council of Trent. This isn’t a story of “there was originally one universally agreed Bible and then people later split it apart.” There were historical debates about which books should count as Scripture, and different church traditions eventually made decisions based on several criteria. It wasn’t just a matter of randomly picking books.

Sophia: (speaking up, sounding confused) Since you mentioned “who decides,” that’s actually what I want to ask about. Who decided what belongs in the biblical canon? Why did those particular people, at those particular meetings, have the authority to decide, “This book is the Word of God, but that one isn’t”? I’ve heard that the Book of Jashar is even mentioned in the Bible. So why wasn’t it included? The whole process makes me uncomfortable. It sounds like the canon was basically created by a group of people sitting around and voting on it. And I’ve also heard this story that Emperor Constantine, for political reasons, got people together and “decided” what the Bible would be, while removing books that were inconvenient. That really bothers me. It makes it sound like the Bible was compromised from the very beginning.

John: I understand why that would make you uncomfortable. But first, I want to correct a very common misunderstanding: the church has never understood itself as “creating” the canon. The historic Christian position has been that the church “recognized” the canon. In other words, these books didn’t become authoritative because some council voted to approve them. Their authority came from what they were from the beginning—the church believed they were writings that carried God’s authority. What the church did was recognize and confirm which books truly came from God. It didn’t give those books their authority.

Sophia: What about the Constantine story, then?

John: That story is very widespread, but it doesn’t line up with the historical evidence. The twenty-seven books of the New Testament were already widely accepted and used in the church before Constantine called the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century. That council was mainly dealing with theological debates about the divinity of Christ. It did not decide the New Testament canon. When later church councils formally listed the books of the canon, they were confirming books that were already widely recognized by the church, not creating a brand-new list. And they weren’t meeting to remove books for political reasons. The Constantine story became popular partly because novels, movies, and other popular media have exaggerated it for dramatic effect. It isn’t the conclusion of careful historical scholarship.

Tom: So how did they actually recognize which books belonged in the canon? What if they got it wrong?

John: The early church used several criteria. It wasn’t just guesswork. For the New Testament, they considered things like whether a book was written by an apostle or someone directly connected to the apostles, whether its teaching agreed with the faith already received by the church, and whether it was broadly recognized and used as God’s Word across different regions of the Christian church. The Book of Jashar wasn’t left out because some council accidentally “forgot” it. It simply never met those criteria for inclusion in the canon. The Bible can quote another book in the same way that we might quote a historical source in an academic paper today. Quoting a book doesn’t mean that the book itself is “the Word of God.”

Jack: So if someone discovers an even older manuscript someday, and its contents are really different from the Bible we have now, does that mean the whole canon has to be rearranged again?

John: Based on major archaeological discoveries over the past century, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, the evidence actually points in the opposite direction. The more ancient material we discover, the more we see how remarkably stable the biblical text has been through its long history of transmission. It isn’t a story of digging deeper and discovering, “Oh, we’ve been fooled this whole time.” Instead, the evidence gives us more material for examining and confirming how carefully the text was transmitted.

Grace: (speaking up, drawing on her own classroom experience) I want to add something that confuses me even more. I took a Bible literature course last term, and the professor treated the Bible entirely as an ancient collection of texts to analyze. We talked about how the Pentateuch wasn’t written by Moses alone, but came from several different sources that were combined and edited in different political contexts. She called this the “Documentary Hypothesis.” We also talked about how Isaiah may not have been written by just one person, but by several different authors, because the writing style and historical background in the first and second halves are noticeably different. After hearing all that, I didn’t feel enlightened. I just felt confused. Can I still believe this is the Word of God? And the more awkward part was that the final paper for the course required us to “use the Documentary Hypothesis to analyze a passage from the Pentateuch.” I felt really uncomfortable writing it, like I was writing an argument I didn’t even believe just to get a grade.

Peter: So how did you write it?

Grace: In the end, I just followed the framework honestly and wrote the paper. But afterward I felt really empty, like I had dissected the Bible as an “academic specimen” instead of treating it as the Word of God.

John: The course you took was probably using what’s called the “historical-critical method.” It has been one of the major approaches to academic biblical studies over the past two hundred years. You’re going to run into it, and a lot of Christians in university run into it too. That’s not unusual. Grace, I completely understand the emptiness you’re describing. I took similar courses when I was in university, and I had exactly the same feeling. I want to say two things. First, some of these theories really do point out things about how biblical texts developed that are worth thinking about. For example, there really are passages in the Pentateuch whose style and vocabulary are noticeably different from other passages. Those observations aren’t simply made up.

Grace: What’s the second thing?

John: The second thing—and this is more important—is that the historical-critical method often begins with assumptions that have already ruled out the possibility that the Bible could genuinely be inspired by God or have a supernatural source. It assumes that the Bible, like any other ancient document, has to be explained entirely through ordinary human and natural causes. So when something supernatural appears—for example, when Isaiah seems to name the Persian king Cyrus and describe what he would do centuries before he lived—the starting assumption is often that this must have been written later by someone pretending to be Isaiah. Instead of asking, “Could this actually be a prophecy inspired by God?” That starting assumption has never itself been proven. It’s simply treated as the default starting point for the research. Your professor probably doesn’t stop in the middle of class to point that out, because within that academic community, it has become such a normal assumption that people often don’t even notice it anymore.

Tom: (thinking it over) So it’s not necessarily that “the evidence points to that conclusion.” It’s that they first assume miracles can’t happen, and then interpret the evidence within that assumption?

John: Exactly. That’s the point I want you to see. If someone starts by ruling out the possibility that God really intervened or really inspired the Bible, then no matter what the evidence looks like, their conclusion is going to be that it’s purely a human product, because the starting assumptions have already limited the possible answers. That doesn’t necessarily mean “objective, neutral scholarship defeated blind faith.” It means two different sets of assumptions can look at the same evidence and arrive at different interpretations.

Grace: So how am I supposed to deal with what I’m learning in class? Should I just argue with the professor? Or should I write the Final Paper exactly as they want and just feel uncomfortable about it?

John: You don’t have to fight with your professor. You can study these theories respectfully and understand what scholars are actually debating. That can be good for you. Even writing your paper the way you did, using the required framework to analyze the passage, isn’t necessarily a problem. You’re learning an academic tool, just like someone studying statistics might learn how to use a particular school of statistical methods. That doesn’t mean you have to accept the entire worldview behind that school of thought. But you can honestly recognize that your professor’s conclusions don’t simply grow out of “neutral evidence.” They also grow out of a set of assumptions he or she has already accepted, including the assumption that miracles cannot be part of the explanation. You can approach the same evidence with a different starting point: “This really could be a book written through human authors while also being inspired by God.” And that starting point actually fits better with the way the biblical authors themselves understood what they were doing. So you can complete the assignment according to the course requirements while still understanding what you are doing. Those two things are not contradictory.

Discussion:

This session talked about differences between manuscripts and translations, popular claims like “Constantine decided what the Bible would be” that don’t hold up well when checked against history, the idea that the canon was “recognized by the church” rather than “created by the church,” and the assumption behind some forms of historical-critical scholarship that rules out miracles from the beginning. Discuss: If someone around you, like Grace or Jack, hears these ideas for the first time in university and starts thinking, “The Bible isn’t as simple as I thought,” or if someone like Tom’s roommate says the Bible is just something that was “pieced together,” how would you respond now?

2. What Is My Trust Actually Built On?

Peter: (looking at it from another angle) Putting all the academic debates aside, what I’m more confused about is this idea of “biblical inerrancy.” We learned the term in our Bible study group before, but I never really understood what it means. Does it mean that every single detail in the Bible—dates, numbers, geography, everything—is perfectly precise? Or does it mean that the Bible doesn’t make mistakes when it comes to the core truths about salvation? I was also stumped recently when a friend of mine who studies Astronomy asked me about the passage in Joshua where “the sun stood still.” If the Earth literally stopped rotating, according to physics there would be catastrophic consequences. So was that passage actually “wrong”?

John: That’s a really good question. And historically, Christians have explained “biblical inerrancy” in both of those ways, so it’s worth being clear about what we mean. In the Reformed tradition, biblical inerrancy means that the Bible, in its original manuscripts, is completely true and reliable in everything it teaches—whether it’s about God, salvation, history, geography, or other details. But there’s an important qualification that people sometimes overlook: every statement in the Bible has to be understood according to its original literary genre and the way the author intended to communicate it. Only then can we determine what the statement is actually claiming.

Jenny: What does that mean?

John: For example, the Bible contains poetry. It might say something like “the mountains leap like rams” to describe God’s glory through vivid imagery. We wouldn’t say that statement is “wrong,” because it was never intended to be a precise geological description. It’s poetic language. The passage in Joshua about “the sun standing still” should also be read within the writing conventions of its time. Ancient Near Eastern historical narratives often described events from the perspective of what an observer saw. We still say “the sun went down” today. Meteorologists say that too, and nobody thinks they’re making an unscientific statement, because we understand that it’s describing what things look like from the perspective of someone on the ground, not making a technical claim about astronomy. That passage in Joshua may be describing a supernatural event in which, from Joshua and the Israelites’ perspective, the daylight was unusually extended. The Bible doesn’t explain the exact physical mechanism, and we don’t need to force it into a modern physics framework word for word in order to decide whether the passage is true.

Tom: (picking at the argument) But then couldn’t you use that explanation for literally anything? Whenever something in the Bible seems to contradict something else, you could just say, “Oh, that’s a genre issue, so it doesn’t count as an error.” Doesn’t that mean you can interpret it however you want?

John: That’s a fair warning, and I completely agree that we can’t use “genre” as a universal excuse. A responsible approach is to actually study the genre of the passage, its historical background, and the language conventions of the time, rather than just making up an explanation whenever we get stuck. That’s also why good biblical interpretation takes real work and careful study. You can’t just make it up as you go.

Jack: (changing the subject, sounding a little defeated) Honestly, I don’t understand most of this academic stuff at all. Historical criticism, manuscript traditions, canon criteria—I’m an Engineering student. I barely have time to finish my weekly lab reports. So what is my trust in the Bible actually based on? Isn’t it really fragile if someone can come along with some complicated academic argument that I don’t even understand and suddenly I have no way to respond?

John: That might be the most important question today, and I want to answer it seriously. First, historical evidence and apologetic arguments are valuable. They can help us, and they can help people we talk to, see that trusting the Bible isn’t just irrational blind faith. But if a Christian’s ultimate foundation for trusting the Bible is, “I understand every academic argument and I can defeat every objection,” then that faith really would be fragile. There will always be harder questions and more specialized scholars. You simply can’t know enough to answer everything.

Jack: So what should it actually be built on?

John: The Reformation tradition has always placed a lot of importance on something Calvin discusses at length in his Institutes of the Christian Religion: the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit. Basically, our ultimate confidence that the Bible is the Word of God doesn’t come from first constructing a flawless set of external arguments and then “proving” it. It comes from the Holy Spirit Himself testifying through Scripture to our hearts, allowing us to genuinely recognize, “This is God speaking to me.” It’s like hearing someone who truly knows you and loves you speak to you compared with hearing a stranger recite lines from a script. There’s a difference in how you recognize the speaker. That recognition doesn’t necessarily come only after going through a long logical argument.

Amy: (curious) That sounds a little mystical, though. Isn’t it basically just “I feel like it’s true, therefore it’s true”? A lot of people I know who follow other religions or newer spiritual practices say similar things. They might say, “When I meditate, I can feel the energy of the universe.” Structurally, that sounds pretty similar to what you’re describing as the “internal testimony of the Holy Spirit.” So why should we think yours is real while theirs isn’t?

John: That’s a very fair question, and I’m glad you asked it instead of just keeping it to yourself. First, I want to clarify that the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit isn’t meant to replace evidence, and it doesn’t mean you should ignore evidence and just believe whatever you feel. It means that even someone like Jack, who doesn’t have the ability to respond to every academic argument one by one, can still genuinely and rationally trust the Bible. Ultimately, our confidence isn’t held up by our own ability to construct arguments. It’s based on God enabling His people, through His Word, to recognize His voice. That doesn’t conflict with external historical evidence or apologetic arguments. They operate on different levels and work together rather than replacing each other. The “feeling the energy of the universe” example you gave isn’t exactly the same thing. That kind of experience is more like a subjective feeling detached from specific content. The internal testimony of the Holy Spirit is closely connected to the actual content of Scripture. It isn’t just a vague feeling floating free from what the Bible says. And it works alongside external historical evidence, rather than trying to prove itself through a feeling alone.

Jack: (relieved) So even if I don’t understand the Dead Sea Scrolls or historical criticism, I can still genuinely trust the Bible?

John: Absolutely. And throughout church history, most believers have never had the opportunity to read academic papers about these things. Their faith was still real and solid. If you’re interested and have the ability to learn more about apologetics, that’s great. It can help you, and it can help friends who have questions. But that isn’t the foundation that faith “must” rest on. It’s a helpful tool.

Sophia: (bringing up the thing she still can’t let go of) I still want to go back to those Old Testament passages that make me uncomfortable—the commands concerning the destruction of the Canaanites, and the Book of Job, where God actually “allows” Satan to test Job. These aren’t just academic questions. They make me question God’s character itself. When the Bible itself confuses me, or even makes me uncomfortable or upset, how am I supposed to keep reading it?

John: Sophia, we touched on this a little at our last gathering, but I want to add something. “The Bible confuses me” doesn’t necessarily mean “there’s something wrong with the Bible.” It may simply mean “I don’t have enough background yet to understand what this passage was originally trying to say.” It’s like watching a really complicated movie. If you take one scene out of context, it might seem completely strange or even disturbing. But once you watch the whole movie and understand what happened before and after, your understanding can change completely. Job is exactly that kind of book. Right at the beginning, it gives the reader information that Job himself doesn’t know—the “behind-the-scenes” situation. Satan’s attack happens with God’s explicit permission and within limits set by God. And the main point of the book isn’t to explain exactly why suffering happens. It’s about Job encountering God personally and realizing that God’s wisdom is far beyond what he can fully understand. From beginning to end, the book reminds us that human understanding is limited, and that we shouldn’t treat our own limited understanding as the ultimate standard for judging God.

Sophia: (silent for a moment) …So does that mean I might never actually be able to “figure out” these passages completely?

John: There are passages that we may genuinely never be able to fully “figure out” in this life. I don’t want to lie to you and say that one day every question will disappear. But there’s still a huge distance between “I can’t fully understand this” and “therefore I shouldn’t trust this God.” You can continue to come before God honestly with your questions and keep reading. That itself can be an expression of trust—not because you’ve already solved every problem, but because you believe that the God you’re trusting is worthy of being followed even while you still have questions.

Amy: (thinking it over, this time sincerely) I’m realizing that the way you guys talk about these things is really different from what I assumed. I always thought “believers aren’t allowed to question anything.” A friend of mine who studies Philosophy once told me that religious faith is basically “people who are afraid of uncertainty finding something that makes them feel safe.” But after listening to you guys today, I actually feel like you’re more willing than a lot of non-religious people to face the things that are difficult, uncomfortable, or don’t have easy answers.

John: Thanks for saying that. I hope that’s actually true of us, and not just something we say. The gospel shouldn’t need us to avoid difficult questions in order to stand. If it can’t survive serious questions, then that really would be something worth worrying about.

Discussion:

This session talked about what “biblical inerrancy” actually means, Jack’s concern that his faith might be fragile if he can’t understand academic arguments, the difference between the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit and the “subjective experiences” found in other religions, and the difficult Old Testament questions that Sophia still struggles with. John said that the ultimate foundation of faith isn’t our ability to defeat every objection, but God Himself enabling His people to recognize His voice. Discuss: If one day someone challenges the reliability of the Bible with an academic theory that you have absolutely no idea how to answer, after hearing today’s discussion, how do you think you would respond? Would you immediately try to find an answer to prove that you’re right, or could you stay calm and continue trusting God? Why?

　　（新学期第一周，宿舍分配结果刚出来，大家围坐在沙发区，气氛比平时安静一点）

一、我到底在祷告什么？

　　Paul：（把手机扔到沙发上，靠着椅背叹气）刚收到One Card抽宿舍的结果，没抽中。我这几天认真祷告求神让我抽中的，比我准备Interview还认真，甚至还列了个清单，一条一条求。

　　Peter：那你现在住哪？

　　Paul：只能去外面租，贵了快一倍，而且还得重新找室友，麻烦死了。我不是在乎住哪，我是想不通——我这么认真求了，怎么还是这个结果？

　　Tom：（半开玩笑）那你祷告的时候是不是姿势不对，还是没跪够久。

　　Paul：（没心情笑）我是认真的。我上学期为GPA祷告，为Co-op面试祷告，那次面试前一晚我几乎跪着求了半小时，结果人家连二面都没给我，连拒信都是模板，连个理由都没给。我不是没信心，我是真的想不通——如果祷告有用，那它的「用」到底体现在哪？我求的事一样没成。

　　Jenny：（小声）我也有过这种时候，第一反应就是——是不是我信心不够？是不是我哪里做得不对，神才不听？我甚至有段时间开始「计算」，觉得自己是不是最近哪件事没做好、哪个小罪没认，才导致祷告不灵，跟还债一样，越算越焦虑。

　　John：（把外套搭在椅背上坐下）你们俩说的这两件事，其实是两个不同的问题，我们一件一件说。先说一句题外话，Paul，我当年抽宿舍也没中，最后在Wesbrook那边合租了一间没有窗户的地下室，冬天没有阳光，整个人都要发霉，所以这个痛我懂。Paul问的是「祷告到底有没有效果」，Jenny问的是「没被应允，是不是我的错」。这两个问题背后的逻辑不太一样。

　　Jack：那先说Paul这个。我也一直有个更底层的疑问——如果神已经定了计划，一切都在祂的主权底下，那我求祂改变结果，这不是在求神改变祂自己的旨意吗？这不是有点荒唐吗，我算老几，凭什么让全能的神听我的意见？我室友是学Philosophy的，他上次直接跟我说，「祷告本质上就是一种自我安慰的仪式，你求的东西成了，你说是神应允；不成，你说是神有别的安排——不管结果怎样，你这套解释系统都能自圆其说，那这套东西还有什么意义，反正怎么样都『对』」。我当时被他说得哑口无言。

　　Tom：对，而且这样想的话，祷告听起来更像讨价还价——「神啊求你让我抽中宿舍」，说白了不就是在跟神谈条件？

　　John：这两个问题都问得很扎实，我年轻的时候也被这些卡住过很久。先说Jack室友那个「怎样都对」的质疑——这个批评，如果套在一个不诚实的信徒身上，是成立的，确实有人会把「神应允」和「神有别的安排」变成一套「怎么讲都赢」的话术，不去认真面对失望，这是我们该警惕、也该悔改的。但这不代表「祷告本身」这套体系必然是这样，一个理论好不好，不能只看它有没有被人滥用来逃避问题，得看它本身经不经得起检验。我们等一下会具体讲，神应允祷告，不是随便一个「怎样都算数」的空白支票，是有具体、可以观察的内容的，只是很多时候，那个内容不是我们订购的那个「结果」。

　　John：至于Jack你问的「求神改变旨意会不会荒唐」——我先反问你们一句——圣经里神吩咐我们祷告，同一本圣经也说神的旨意从亘古就定了，还说连一根头发掉下来都在祂手里。这两件事，圣经放在一起说，从来没觉得矛盾，那会不会是我们默认了一个错误的画面——把祷告想象成「说服一个还没拿定主意的神」？

　　Peter：那不然是什么？

　　John：祷告更像是——神不仅定了结果，也定了通往那个结果的路径，而「你的祷告」，本身就是那条路径的一部分。神不是先定了计划，然后被你的祷告打断、临时改主意；是神在祂的计划里，从一开始就把「你会为这件事祷告」这件事也算进去了。荷兰神学家巴文克（Herman Bavinck）讲神的护理的时候，专门提到祷告这一点，大意是——神在祂的护理里，不只定了要成就什么事，也定了藉着哪些「凭借」去成就，阳光雨水是凭借，人的劳力是凭借，祷告也是神所定的凭借之一，不是跟神的主权对着干的东西，是被那个主权本身包括在里面的。

　　Jack：（皱眉）这听起来有点绕，感觉像是在硬圆场。

　　John：我理解这个感觉，我换个更笨的比方——你会不会因为「妈妈已经决定今晚做你爱吃的菜了」，就觉得「那我谢谢她做饭这件事没有意义，反正她本来就要做」？

　　Jack：不会，那还是要谢，而且我要是不说我爱吃这道菜，她可能压根不知道要做这个。

　　John：对，这就是重点。神的主权跟你的祷告，不是两个互相竞争、只能留一个的东西，是神亲自安排了「借着你的祈求」去成就祂的旨意。雅各书说「你们得不着，是因为你们不求」，这句话认真读，其实是说——祷告不是多余的仪式，是神安排的、真实有分量的一环。

　　Paul：（还是不服）好，就算这套逻辑说得通，可我求的事最后没成——没抽到宿舍，面试也没过。那祷告在这些事上的「作用」到底在哪？如果结果一样是「没成」，那我求跟不求，有什么区别？

　　John：这才是我觉得最该老实回答你的地方。祷告的「作用」，从来不等于「我求什么就给什么」，圣经从来没这样应许过。耶稣自己教我们祷告的时候，第一句是「愿你的名为圣，愿你的国降临，愿你的旨意成就」——先求的是神的荣耀和旨意，不是先列一张我想要的清单。

　　Tom：（挑刺）那这样讲，会不会又变成一种「万能借口」——只要没应允，就说「哦这是神的旨意，你该求的不是结果，是顺服」，这不就是把祷告的意义架空了吗？神到底有没有真的在乎我求的那件具体的事？

　　John：这个反弹是对的，我不想给你们一个把「结果」完全抹掉的答案，那也不诚实。神确实在乎你具体求的那件事——祂邀请你把GPA、面试、抽宿舍这些具体的焦虑都带到祂面前，这不是幼稚，这正是祂要的。只是，祂应允的「方式」，不只有「照你要的给你」这一种。有时候答案是「是」，有时候是「不是」，有时候是「不是现在」，还有时候，是借着「没给你」这件事，做另一件你当下看不见的工作。

　　Jenny：（迟疑地）那我可以说说我自己的事吗？我上学期考试前也认真祷告了，结果还是没考好。我第一反应真的就是——是不是我信心不够，神才不理我？我甚至跑去问过我们查经班一个学姐，她当时跟我说「你要是真信，神一定会应允」，我听完更慌了，好像考砸了这件事，直接证明了我信心不合格。

　　John：这个反应很常见，但我要老实说，这个反应本身，可能藏着一个不太对的假设——好像祷告是一套魔法公式，只要「信心够格」就一定换来我要的结果，没换到，就是我配方错了。这套逻辑听起来很属灵，其实骨子里跟拜偶像很像——把「信心」当成一种可以操控神的筹码，而不是单纯地信靠一位有主权的、又真的爱我们的神。你学姐那句话，我要老实说，出发点可能是好的，但那样讲，很容易变成一种伤害人的「信心公式」教导。

　　Grace：（这时插话，语气带点自己的挣扎）我在教会服事这几年，见过太多这种「信心公式」的教导——「你祷告没应验，是因为你信心不够、罪没认清楚」。我自己带过的一个姐妹，家人生病，她祷告了很久没见果效，结果有人直接跟她说「你肯定哪里信心不够」，那姐妹后来整整半年都不敢再祷告，她说她怕自己「祷告技术」不合格，反而害了家人。

　　Tom：这也太可怕了，那不就是往伤口上撒盐吗。

　　Grace：对，我当时也很生气，但我也承认，我自己有时候也会不自觉地这样想——祷告没应，第一反应是「我哪里做错了」，而不是老实承认，神的智慧本来就比我高，祂看得见我看不见的东西。

　　John：Grace说得很对，这正是我想说的——「是不是我信心不够」这个问题，问的方向错了。更该问的是：我信靠的，是不是一位真的良善、真的智慧、值得我交托的神？如果是，那祂没有照我要的给我，不代表祂不在乎，也不代表我不合格，是祂看见了一个更大的图景，而我此刻还看不见。

　　Paul：（沉默了一会儿）……那我该怎么调整我为面试、GPA祷告的方式？

　　John：不是不让你求具体的事，是求的时候，心里存着一个更深的顺服——「神，我真的很想要这个，求你成就，但如果你有别的安排，我愿意信靠你比我更清楚什么是好的」。这不是嘴上说说，是需要练习的功课，我们等一下会再说。

讨论：

这一场聊到了神的主权和人的祷告会不会互相矛盾、Jack室友「祷告怎样都能自圆其说」的质疑、祷告没被应允时容易冒出的「是不是我信心不够」的自责，还听到了Grace带的姐妹因为被灌输「信心公式」，半年不敢祷告的故事。请讨论：想一件你曾经认真祷告、却没有得到你想要的结果的事。听完今天的讨论，你现在回头看那件事，心里的感受和当时比，有没有一点不一样？

二、我到底信不信祂顾念？

　　Sophia：（低着头，声音有点闷）我想说一件更难开口的事。我一个很好的朋友生病了，不是感冒那种，是比较严重的病，我为她祷告了快大半年，天天求，可她的状况一点起色都没有，最近反而更差了。我不怀疑神有没有能力医治，我是开始怀疑——祂是不是真的顾念这件事。这样的怀疑，算不算罪？

　　（一时安静）

　　Amy：（这次也很认真，没有开玩笑）我虽然还没决定信不信，但听你们说这些，我一直有个疑问——耶稣在客西马尼那晚祷告，说「不要照我的意思，只要照你的意思」，那是他快死的时候说的，情境那么极端。可我们平时为考试、为找工作祷告，说真心话，我们心里想的其实就是「照我的意思吧」，没人真的一开口就准备好「不照我的意思也行」。这中间的落差，你们怎么处理？

　　Jack：（笑）这问题问得挺狠的，我确实每次祷告求的东西没成，心里都不是「哦那随主的意思」，是失望，甚至有点生气。

　　John：（对Sophia，先回应她）Sophia，我想先回答你的问题，因为这个不该被跳过——怀疑本身不等于罪。诗篇里大卫、亚萨，一次又一次在神面前发出近乎控诉的问题——「耶和华啊，你为何弃绝我？为何掩面不顾我的苦难？」这些话被收进圣经，成为我们可以照着祷告的诗篇，这本身就在告诉我们，把真实的困惑、甚至愤怒带到神面前，不是不信，反而可能是更深的信——因为你还愿意去找祂问，而不是转身走开、不再理祂。

　　Sophia：（眼眶有点红）可我心里那个声音，真的会问——如果祂顾念，为什么不做点什么？

　　John：这个问题我没办法给你一个让你立刻不痛的答案，我不想假装我有。我只能说，圣经里那位神，不是一个远远看着我们受苦、无动于衷的神。祂自己藉着耶稣，真实地进到人的苦难里——祂在拉撒路的坟墓前哭了，祂自己在十字架上经历了被离弃的极致痛苦。所以你朋友的病，还有你为她流的这些泪，神不是隔岸观火地看着，祂比你更早、更深地知道这份痛。

　　Jack：那这样说，祂知道，但祂还是没有医治，这不还是一样让人难受吗？

　　John：会难受，我不否认。但「知道并且亲身经历」跟「远远地不在乎」，是完全不一样的两件事。而且我们此刻看到的，只是这个故事还没写完的一段——圣经应许的，不是「今生一切都会照你要的方式变好」，是「神会把一切，包括这份痛苦，编织进一个最终导向复活和更新的结局里」，哪怕我们现在完全看不出来怎么编织。

　　Amy：（回到自己的问题）那客西马尼那个「不要照我的意思」，我还是没搞懂怎么落在我们身上。

　　John：我先说耶稣那晚祷告的完整画面——祂不是假装不害怕、假装无所谓地说这句话，祂是真实地、极其痛苦地求「若可能，叫这杯离开我」，祂真的不想经历十字架。祂先诚实地说出了自己想要的，然后才说「但愿你的意思成就」。这个顺序很重要——不是先压下自己真实的渴望，装出一副「随便，都听你的」，是先诚实地把自己真正想要的告诉神，然后在那份诚实之上，选择信靠祂比我更清楚什么是好的。

　　Amy：所以「照你的意思」不是先假装自己没有意思？

　　John：对，如果那样，那不是顺服，是压抑。真正的顺服，是先老老实实说「我真的很想要这个工作、这个成绩」，然后加上一句「但我信你比我更清楚，如果你不这样安排，我愿意信靠」。这两句话都要有，缺一句都不完整。

　　Peter：（想到什么）那我可以问一个听起来有点幼稚的问题吗？我有时候想为一些小事祷告——考试及格啦、找停车位啦，但每次话到嘴边又觉得太自我中心了，世界上还有战争、还有Sophia朋友那样的病，我怎么好意思为一个停车位打扰神？

　　Jenny：我也是，感觉小事祷告完自己都不好意思。

　　John：（笑）这个心态很常见，但我想反过来问——你觉得神的心力，是不是一种有限的资源，用在大事上多一点，小事上就没了？

　　Peter：……好像不该这么想，但确实心里是这样觉得的。

　　John：马太福音说，神连麻雀掉在地上都知道，连你们的头发都被数过。这不是说小事比大事重要，是说，对一位真正无限、又真正认识你的父亲来说，「大」和「小」的这个分类，本来就不是祂衡量爱的标准。你为停车位祷告，不是在浪费神的力气，是在操练一个习惯——把生活里每一件事，不分大小，都带到祂面前，这本身就是在活出「祂真的顾念我全部的生活」这件事。

　　Tom：（换了个角度，带点挑衅）说到「祂顾念」，我上学期修了一门Intro Neuroscience，教授讲，祷告能让人感觉平静，是因为祷告这个行为会激活大脑里跟压力调节有关的区域，跟冥想的效果差不多，是神经科学能解释的现象。他没说信不信神，但那个语气就是——「你觉得神在回应你，其实只是你自己大脑分泌的东西起作用」。我当时听着挺无力反驳的。

　　John：这个我完全理解你当时的感觉，因为表面上听起来确实很有说服力。我想问一句——你祷告的时候大脑里确实有生理反应，这个我不否认，神造的身体本来就是这样运作的。但「祷告的时候大脑有反应」这件事，能不能证明「祷告只是大脑反应，没有一个真实的对象在回应」？

　　Tom：……好像不能直接证明，只能说「有相关性」。

　　John：对，这正是关键。如果我现在跟你说话，你大脑里也会有一堆神经元在放电，这不代表「我说的话不是真的传到了你耳朵里，只是你脑子自己在放电」。神造我们，让我们借着一个有生理反应的大脑，去经历真实的关系——跟人的关系是这样，跟神的关系也是这样。神经科学能描述「祷告的时候身体发生了什么」，但它没办法回答「有没有一位神在那一头真的在听」，这个问题，从一开始就不是显微镜能看到的东西。而且，你那位教授在下这个判断之前，其实已经先假定了「除了物质和大脑反应，什么都不存在」，这个假定本身，才是他真正没有证明、只是拿来当出发点的东西。

　　Tom：（想了想，没有立刻反驳）……这倒是，他确实没证明这个前提，只是这么讲的时候听起来特别理所当然。

　　John：这正是这类说法最容易骗人的地方——听起来像是「科学证明了」，其实只是「科学观察到了一个现象，然后套上了一个没被证明的假设去解释它」。

　　Jack：（这时又提出一个更实际的疑问）那我还想问一个具体的——为病祷告到底有没有「用」？我表弟去年得了比较严重的病，我们全家、还有教会一起为他祷告了好几个月，他后来真的好转了，医生都说是奇迹。我表弟他自己开始信主了，说是这件事让他信的。可我另一个同学，跟Sophia朋友差不多的情况，一样很多人祷告，结果没能撑过去。这两个结果摆在一起，我该怎么理解？会不会只是「碰巧」——祷告的人多了，总有一部分「碰巧」好转，剩下的就用「神有更好的安排」来解释，跟我室友说的那个「怎样都对」的质疑，其实是一回事？

　　John：这是个很诚实、也很难的问题，我不想用一句「都是神的美意」就轻轻带过去。我先说，我不否认，有一些「奇迹见证」的故事，被讲述的时候确实有夸大、有选择性记忆的成分，这个我们该警惕，不该为了让见证更「感人」就添油加醋。但这不代表所有的医治，都能被简化成「碰巧」。

　　Jack：那怎么分？

　　John：我没办法给你一个能百分之百排除「碰巧」的证明，任何单一的个案，理论上都可能被质疑「只是自然恢复」。但我想请你注意一件事——不管结果是你表弟那样好转，还是Sophia朋友那样的处境，圣经从来没说「祷告的『用』，就是让病一定好」。祷告真正、稳定发生的「用」，不是每次都能让你看见的那种——是在你祷告的过程里，你跟神的关系被更新、你的心被塑造得更信靠、更谦卑；是神使用你们全家、全教会一起祷告这件事，把大家的心连结在一起、一起在苦难面前学习倚靠祂；有时候，也真的包括身体的医治，这是神在祂的自由和智慧里，选择要不要、什么时候要做的事，不是我们能预先订购、也不是「祷告人数够多」就能兑现的公式。

　　Jack：那这样说，跟「怎样都对」有什么不一样？

　　John：不一样的地方在于——「怎样都对」是说，不管发生什么，我都能编一套理由，让这件事「看起来」符合我的理论，逃避真正面对失望。我说的是，神应允祷告有具体、真实可以观察到的内容，不是抽象、什么都能套的空话——比如你表弟那件事里真实发生的信心的转变，比如Grace那个姐妹半年不敢祷告这件事本身提醒我们「信心公式」的教导是错的、需要被纠正，这些都是具体、可以被检验、也可能被证明是错的说法，不是一套怎么讲都赢的封闭系统。真正的差别不在「结果一定要如我所求」，是在于，我信靠的这位神，是不是真实地、在乎地介入我的生活，哪怕祂介入的方式，常常不是我预设的那一种。

　　Sophia：（重新回到自己的问题，声音还是低）那我朋友的病，我还是要继续祷告吗？就算大半年都没有起色。

　　John：要。不是因为祷告是一种保证书，是因为祷告本身，就是你跟神之间那份关系还活着的证据——你还愿意天天为她开口，说明你心里还相信，神在听、神在乎，哪怕祂选择的时间表你完全看不懂。而且，你不用一个人扛这个祷告，让我们今天在场的都一起为她祷告，这也是神安排我们彼此背负的方式之一。

　　Sophia：（点头，眼眶红着）……好。

讨论：

这一场谈到了对生病朋友的怀疑算不算罪、耶稣在客西马尼祷告时先诚实说出渴望再顺服的顺序、为小事祷告会不会太自我中心、神经科学对祷告的解释能不能否定神的真实，还有Jack提出的「奇迹见证会不会只是碰巧」的追问。请讨论：你有没有一件像Sophia那样，祷告很久却看不到起色、甚至让你开始怀疑神是否顾念的事？听完今天大家的讨论，你愿意今天就把这件事，用诗篇里那种诚实、甚至带着困惑的方式，带到神面前吗？

Lesson 6: Does Prayer Actually Work? — Prayer and Disappointment

(The first week of the new semester. The dorm assignment results have just been released. Everyone is sitting around the lounge area of the residence, and the atmosphere is quieter than usual.)

1. What Am I Actually Praying For?

Paul: (throws his phone onto the couch and leans back with a sigh) I just got the results from the One Card dorm lottery. I didn’t get in. I’ve been seriously praying these past few days, asking God to let me get a spot. I was even more serious about it than I was preparing for my interview. I actually made a list and prayed through it item by item.

Peter: So where are you going to live now?

Paul: I guess I’ll have to rent off campus. It’ll cost almost twice as much, and I have to find roommates all over again. It’s such a hassle. It’s not really about where I live. What I can’t understand is this: I prayed so seriously. How did it still end up like this?

Tom: (half-joking) Maybe you were praying in the wrong position. Or maybe you didn’t kneel long enough.

Paul: (not in the mood to laugh) I’m serious. Last semester I prayed about my GPA and about my co-op interview. The night before that interview, I practically knelt there begging God for half an hour. And they didn’t even invite me to a second interview. The rejection email was completely generic. They didn’t even give me a reason. It’s not that I don’t have faith. I genuinely don’t understand. If prayer actually works, then what exactly does it “do”? None of the things I asked for happened.

Jenny: (quietly) I’ve had times like that too. My first reaction was always, “Maybe my faith isn’t strong enough. Maybe I did something wrong, and that’s why God didn’t listen.” For a while, I even started keeping score—wondering whether there was something I’d done wrong recently, or some little sin I hadn’t confessed, that was making my prayers ineffective. It became like trying to pay off a debt. The more I calculated, the more anxious I became.

John: (puts his jacket over the back of a chair and sits down) What you two just described are actually two different questions, so let’s take them one at a time. Paul, as a side note, I never got my dorm assignment either. I ended up sharing a basement room around Wesbrook that didn’t even have a window. There was no sunlight in the winter. I practically started growing mold. So I understand the pain. Paul is asking, “Does prayer actually accomplish anything?” Jenny is asking, “If my prayer wasn’t answered, was it my fault?” The logic behind those two questions is actually quite different.

Jack: Then let’s start with Paul’s question. I’ve always had an even more basic question. If God has already determined His plan, and everything is under His sovereignty, then when I ask Him to change the outcome, aren’t I asking Him to change His own will? Isn’t that kind of absurd? Who am I to tell an almighty God what to do? My roommate studies philosophy, and he once said to me, “Prayer is basically a ritual of self-comfort. If what you ask for happens, you say God answered your prayer. If it doesn’t happen, you say God had another plan. No matter what happens, your system can explain it. So what’s the point? Whatever happens, you’re going to say you’re right.” I had absolutely no answer at the time.

Tom: Exactly. And if you think about it that way, prayer sounds more like bargaining. “God, please let me get the dorm.” Isn’t that basically negotiating with God?

John: Those are both very substantial questions. I wrestled with them for a long time when I was younger too. Let’s start with your roommate’s objection that prayer is a system where “anything can count as the right answer.” If you apply that criticism to a dishonest believer, it can certainly be valid. There are people who turn “God answered my prayer” and “God had another plan” into a way of always being able to claim victory without honestly facing disappointment. That’s something we should be alert to and repent of. But that doesn’t mean prayer itself necessarily works that way. You can’t judge whether a theory is sound merely by looking at how people misuse it to avoid difficult questions. You have to ask whether the theory itself can withstand examination. We’ll talk about this more specifically later. When the Bible speaks of God answering prayer, it isn’t giving us a blank check where “anything counts.” There are concrete things that can genuinely be observed. It’s just that the answer is often not the particular “result” we ordered.

John: And Jack, regarding your question about whether asking God to change His will is absurd, let me ask you something. The Bible commands us to pray. The same Bible also says that God’s will was established from eternity, and that even the falling of a single hair is under His sovereign care. Scripture puts those two things together without ever treating them as contradictory. Could it be that we’re starting with the wrong picture—that we’re imagining prayer as “trying to persuade a God who hasn’t made up His mind yet”?

Peter: Then what is it?

John: Prayer is more like this: God has determined not only the outcome, but also the means by which that outcome will come about. And your prayer itself is part of those means. God didn’t first make His plan and then have your prayer interrupt it, forcing Him to change His mind. From the beginning, within His plan, God included the fact that you would pray about this particular matter. The Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck, when discussing God’s providence, specifically addresses prayer. In essence, he says that in His providence, God not only determines what will happen, but also determines the means by which it will happen. Sunshine and rain are means. Human labor is a means. Prayer is also one of the means God has ordained. Prayer isn’t something that fights against God’s sovereignty; it is included within that sovereignty.

Jack: (frowning) That sounds a little complicated. It feels like you’re just trying to make the pieces fit.

John: I understand why it feels that way. Let me give you a much simpler analogy. If your mother has already decided to cook your favorite meal tonight, would you say, “Then thanking her for cooking it is meaningless, because she was going to make it anyway”?

Jack: No. I’d still thank her. And if I never told her that I liked that dish, she might not even know I wanted it.

John: Exactly. That’s the point. God’s sovereignty and your prayer aren’t two competing things where only one can remain. God Himself has ordained to accomplish His will through your requests. James says, “You do not have because you do not ask.” If you take that seriously, prayer isn’t a meaningless ritual. It is a real and significant part of the way God has chosen to work.

Paul: (still unconvinced) Okay, even if that logic makes sense, the things I asked for still didn’t happen. I didn’t get the dorm, and I didn’t get the interview. So where exactly was the “effect” of prayer in those situations? If the result is still “no,” what’s the difference between praying and not praying?

John: This is where I think we need to give you the most honest answer. The “effect” of prayer has never meant, “Whatever I ask for, God gives me.” Scripture never promises that. When Jesus teaches us to pray, the first requests are, “Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done.” We begin by asking for God’s glory and God’s will, rather than starting with a list of everything we want.

Tom: (challenging him) But doesn’t that become another universal excuse? Whenever God doesn’t answer, we just say, “Oh, that was God’s will. You weren’t supposed to ask for the result; you were supposed to learn obedience.” Doesn’t that make prayer meaningless? Does God actually care about the specific thing I’m asking for?

John: That’s a fair pushback. I don’t want to give you an answer that simply erases the importance of the outcome. That wouldn’t be honest either. God does care about the specific thing you’re asking for. He invites you to bring your actual anxieties—your GPA, your interview, your dorm assignment—to Him. That’s not childish. That’s exactly what He wants. But His answer doesn’t come in only one form: “Yes, I’ll give you exactly what you asked for.” Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes it’s no. Sometimes it’s not yet. And sometimes, through not giving you what you asked for, God is doing something else that you cannot yet see.

Jenny: (hesitantly) Can I tell you about something that happened to me? Last semester I prayed seriously before an exam, and I still didn’t do well. My first reaction really was, “Maybe my faith wasn’t strong enough, and that’s why God ignored me.” I even asked an older girl in my Bible study group. She told me, “If you really believe, God will definitely answer you.” That made me even more anxious. It felt as though failing the exam directly proved that my faith wasn’t good enough.

John: That’s a very common reaction. But honestly, there may be a wrong assumption hidden inside it: that prayer is a kind of magical formula. If your “faith level” is high enough, you get the result you want. If you don’t get it, then your formula must have been wrong. That logic sounds spiritual, but at its core it is actually very similar to idolatry. It treats “faith” as a kind of leverage we can use to control God, rather than simply trusting a sovereign God who truly loves us. Your Bible study leader may have meant well, but stated that way, it can easily become a harmful teaching—a kind of “faith formula.”

Grace: (joining in, with some personal struggle in her voice) I’ve served in church for several years, and I’ve seen far too much of this kind of “faith formula” teaching: “Your prayer wasn’t answered because your faith wasn’t strong enough,” or “You haven’t confessed your sin thoroughly enough.” I once discipled a woman whose family member was seriously ill. She prayed for a long time without seeing any improvement, and someone simply told her, “There must be something wrong with your faith.” She stopped praying for almost six months afterward. She said she was afraid that her “prayer technique” wasn’t good enough and that she was somehow making things worse for her family.

Tom: That’s terrible. That’s like pouring salt into an open wound.

Grace: Exactly. I was angry about it at the time. But I also have to admit that sometimes I unconsciously think the same way. When a prayer isn’t answered, my first reaction can be, “What did I do wrong?” rather than honestly admitting that God’s wisdom is greater than mine and that He sees things I cannot see.

John: Grace is exactly right. That’s what I want to say. The question “Is my faith strong enough?” may be pointing in the wrong direction. The deeper question is: Am I trusting a God who is truly good, truly wise, and truly worthy of my trust? If so, then His not giving me what I want doesn’t mean He doesn’t care, and it doesn’t mean that I have failed some spiritual test. It means He sees a larger picture that I cannot yet see.

Paul: (silent for a moment) …Then how should I change the way I pray about interviews and my GPA?

John: Don’t stop asking for specific things. But when you ask, hold onto a deeper posture of surrender: “God, I really want this. Please let it happen. But if You have another plan, I am willing to trust that You know better than I do what is good.” That’s not just something you say with your lips. It’s something you have to learn through practice. We’ll come back to that.

Discussion

This conversation explored whether God’s sovereignty and human prayer contradict each other, Jack’s roommate’s objection that prayer can always explain any outcome, and the self-blame that often appears when our prayers aren’t answered: “Maybe my faith wasn’t strong enough.” Grace also shared the story of a woman who stopped praying for six months because she had been taught a “faith formula.” Discuss: Think of something you once prayed for sincerely but did not receive. Looking back on it now, after today’s discussion, is there anything different about how you feel about that experience compared with how you felt at the time?

2. Do I Really Believe That He Cares?

Sophia: (looking down, her voice heavy) I want to talk about something that’s harder to say. A very close friend of mine is sick. Not just a cold—it’s a serious illness. I’ve been praying for her for almost half a year, every day, asking God to help her. But her condition hasn’t improved at all. Recently, it’s actually gotten worse. I don’t doubt that God has the power to heal her. What I’m beginning to doubt is whether He actually cares about this situation. Is it a sin to have that kind of doubt?

(The room becomes quiet.)

Amy: (serious this time, without joking) I haven’t decided whether I believe yet, but listening to all of you has raised a question for me. Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, “Not my will, but yours be done.” But that was the night before He died. The situation was extreme. In everyday life, when we pray about exams or jobs, if we’re honest, what we’re actually thinking is, “Please let it go my way.” Nobody really starts praying already prepared to say, “It’s okay if it doesn’t go my way.” How do you deal with that gap?

Jack: (laughs) That’s a pretty tough question. Honestly, every time something I pray for doesn’t happen, my reaction isn’t, “Okay, I’ll accept the Lord’s will.” I’m disappointed. Sometimes I’m even angry.

John: (to Sophia, answering her first) Sophia, I want to answer your question first, because we shouldn’t skip over it. Doubt itself is not necessarily sin. In the Psalms, David and Asaph repeatedly bring deeply painful questions before God: “Why, O LORD, do you reject me? Why do you hide your face from my suffering?” These words were preserved in Scripture as prayers we ourselves are allowed to pray. That tells us something important: bringing genuine confusion, even anger, before God isn’t necessarily unbelief. It may actually be a deeper form of faith, because you’re still willing to go to Him with your questions rather than turning away and walking off.

Sophia: (eyes beginning to tear up) But there’s a voice inside me that keeps asking, “If He cares, why doesn’t He do something?”

John: I don’t have an answer that can immediately take away the pain. I don’t want to pretend that I do. I can only say that the God revealed in Scripture isn’t a God who watches human suffering from a distance without caring. Through Jesus, He Himself entered into human suffering. He wept at Lazarus’s tomb. And on the cross, He Himself experienced the deepest agony of abandonment. So your friend’s illness, and all the tears you’ve shed praying for her, are not something God watches from a safe distance. He knows that pain more deeply, and knew it before you did.

Jack: But if He knows and still doesn’t heal her, isn’t that still painful?

John: It is painful. I won’t deny that. But “knowing and personally entering into suffering” is completely different from “watching from a distance and not caring.” And what we’re seeing right now is only one part of a story that hasn’t finished. The promise of Scripture isn’t that everything in this life will eventually turn out exactly the way we want. The promise is that God will weave everything—including suffering—into an ultimate story that leads toward resurrection and renewal, even when we have absolutely no idea right now how He could possibly do that.

Amy: (returning to her own question) I still don’t understand how Jesus’ “not my will” applies to us.

John: Let me first describe the full picture of Jesus’ prayer that night. He wasn’t pretending not to be afraid. He wasn’t casually saying, “Whatever happens is fine.” He genuinely and intensely prayed, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” He really did not want to experience the cross. He first honestly expressed what He wanted, and only then said, “Yet not my will, but yours be done.” That order matters. It isn’t about suppressing what you genuinely want and pretending to say, “Whatever, I’ll do whatever you want.” It means honestly telling God what you truly desire, and then, in the midst of that honesty, choosing to trust that He knows better than you what is good.

Amy: So saying “Your will be done” doesn’t mean pretending I don’t have my own will in the first place?

John: Exactly. If that’s what it meant, it wouldn’t be submission. It would be suppression. Genuine submission is saying, “I really want this job. I really want this grade.” And then adding, “But I trust that You know better than I do. If You don’t arrange things this way, I am willing to trust You.” Both statements matter. If either one is missing, something is incomplete.

Peter: (thinking of something) Can I ask a question that might sound childish? Sometimes I want to pray about small things—passing an exam, finding a parking spot—but just when I’m about to say it, I feel selfish. There are wars in the world. Sophia’s friend is seriously ill. How can I bother God with something as trivial as a parking spot?

Jenny: Same here. Sometimes I feel embarrassed even after praying about something small.

John: (smiles) That’s a very common way of thinking. But let me turn the question around. Do you think God’s attention is a limited resource, so if He spends more of it on big things, He has less left for small things?

Peter: …I know I probably shouldn’t think that way, but honestly, that’s kind of how I feel.

John: Matthew tells us that God knows even when a sparrow falls to the ground, and that the hairs on your head are numbered. That doesn’t mean small things are more important than big things. It means that for a Father who is truly infinite and who truly knows you, the categories of “big” and “small” aren’t the measure of His love. When you pray about finding a parking spot, you’re not wasting God’s energy. You’re practicing a habit of bringing every part of your life before Him, without deciding that some things are too small to matter. That itself is part of living as though He really does care about your whole life.

Tom: (changing direction, somewhat provocatively) Speaking of whether He cares, I took an introductory neuroscience course last semester. The professor said that prayer can make people feel calmer because the act of praying activates areas of the brain associated with stress regulation. It’s similar to the effects of meditation. It’s something neuroscience can explain. He didn’t say whether he believed in God, but the implication was basically, “You think God is responding to you, but it’s actually just your brain producing these effects.” I didn’t really know how to respond.

John: I completely understand why that felt difficult to answer. On the surface, it sounds quite persuasive. Let me ask you something. When you pray, there really are physiological responses in your brain. I don’t deny that. God created our bodies, and that’s how our bodies function. But can the fact that your brain responds physiologically during prayer prove that prayer is nothing more than a brain response, with no real person on the other end listening?

Tom: …I guess it can’t directly prove that. It can only show a correlation.

John: Exactly. That’s the key. If I talk to you right now, there will also be a whole series of neurons firing in your brain. That doesn’t mean, “What John is saying isn’t really reaching your ears; it’s just my brain firing.” God created us to experience real relationships through a brain that has real physiological responses. That’s true of our relationships with other people, and it’s also true of our relationship with God. Neuroscience can describe what happens in your body while you pray. It cannot answer the question, “Is there actually a God on the other end listening?” That question was never something a microscope could see in the first place. And before your professor made that conclusion, he had already assumed that nothing exists beyond matter and brain activity. That assumption itself is the thing he hasn’t actually proven; he has simply taken it as his starting point.

Tom: (thinking about it, without immediately arguing back) …That’s true. He didn’t actually prove that assumption. He just presented it as though it were completely obvious.

John: Exactly. That’s what makes this kind of argument easy to misunderstand. It can sound as though “science has proved it,” when in reality science has observed a phenomenon and then interpreted it through an assumption that itself hasn’t been proved.

Jack: (raising another practical question) Then I have another specific question. Does prayer for healing actually “work”? My cousin had a pretty serious illness last year. Our whole family, along with people at church, prayed for him for several months. He eventually got better. Even the doctors called it a miracle. My cousin himself became a Christian afterward. He said that experience was what led him to believe. But I have another classmate whose situation was similar to Sophia’s friend. A lot of people prayed, but he didn’t make it. When I put those two outcomes side by side, how am I supposed to understand them? Could it just be coincidence? If enough people pray, some people will naturally recover “by chance,” and then the recoveries are called miracles while the deaths are explained as “God had a better plan.” Isn’t that really the same as my roommate’s objection that the system can explain anything?

John: That’s a very honest and difficult question. I don’t want to dismiss it with a quick “Everything is God’s good purpose.” First, I don’t deny that some miracle stories are exaggerated or shaped by selective memory when people retell them. We should be cautious about that. We shouldn’t embellish a testimony just to make it more moving. But that doesn’t mean every healing can simply be reduced to coincidence.

Jack: Then how do you tell the difference?

John: I can’t give you a proof that eliminates the possibility of coincidence with one hundred percent certainty. Any individual case can theoretically be challenged as simply a case of natural recovery. But I want you to notice something. Whether the outcome is like your cousin’s recovery or like Sophia’s friend’s situation, Scripture never says that the “use” of prayer is that every illness will necessarily be healed. The real and consistent work of prayer isn’t always something you can immediately see. It is that through prayer, your relationship with God is renewed and your heart is shaped to become more trusting and humble. It is that God uses the prayers of your family and the whole church to bind people together and teach them to depend on Him in suffering. And sometimes it genuinely does include physical healing. That is something God, in His freedom and wisdom, may choose to do, but it isn’t something we can order in advance or guarantee by accumulating enough prayers.

Jack: Then how is that different from saying “anything counts as the right answer”?

John: The difference is this: “Anything counts” means that no matter what happens, I can invent an explanation that makes the event appear to fit my theory, allowing me to avoid actually facing disappointment. What I’m saying is that God’s answers to prayer have concrete, real, observable content. They’re not vague statements that can be applied to anything. For example, the genuine transformation of your cousin’s faith is something that actually happened. And the fact that Grace’s friend stopped praying for six months because of the “faith formula” teaching is itself something concrete that exposes the error of that teaching and calls for correction. These are specific claims that can be examined and can potentially be shown to be wrong. They aren’t a closed system that automatically wins every argument. The real difference isn’t that the outcome must always be exactly what I requested. The difference is whether the God I trust is actually and personally involved in my life and cares about me, even when His way of intervening is not the way I expected.

Sophia: (returning to her original question, her voice still quiet) Then should I keep praying for my friend? Even after more than half a year without improvement?

John: Yes. Not because prayer is a guarantee, but because prayer itself is evidence that your relationship with God is still alive. You are still willing to speak for her every day because, somewhere in your heart, you still believe that God hears and that God cares, even though you cannot understand His timing at all. And you don’t have to carry this prayer alone. Let all of us here pray for her today. That’s also one of the ways God has arranged for us to bear one another’s burdens.

Sophia: (nods, eyes red) …Okay.

Discussion

This conversation explored whether doubting God’s care for a sick friend is sinful, the order of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane—first honestly expressing His desire, then submitting to God’s will—whether praying about small things is too self-centered, whether neuroscience can explain away the reality of God in prayer, and Jack’s question about whether miracle testimonies might simply be coincidence. Discuss: Is there something in your life like Sophia’s situation—something you’ve prayed about for a long time without seeing improvement, something that has even made you wonder whether God really cares? After today’s discussion, are you willing to bring that matter before God today in the kind of honest, even questioning way we see in the Psalms?

　　（期中考试刚结束，桌上摊着几本还没收起来的教科书，大家一坐下就开始揉眼睛）

一、我到底哪里没做对？

　　Grace：（把摊开的圣经合上，揉了揉眼睛）我今天已经是这周第三次逼自己打开圣经了。读是读完了，一章创世记，可你现在问我讲了什么，我大概只记得「有晚上、有早晨、这是头一日」。

　　Sophia：（笑）你还算好的，我最近根本没打开过。

　　Grace：不是我不想认真读，我是真的不知道自己在读什么。眼睛扫过那些字，脑子里同时在想project还有多少没写、晚上吃什么。读完合上圣经的那一刻，跟没读之前，感觉一模一样，什么都没留下。

　　Peter：这不就跟上课走神一样吗？我Bio 100的课也常常这样，人在教室，魂不知道飘哪去了。

　　Grace：可上Bio课走神，顶多考试考差。读经走神，我总觉得心里更亏欠一点——好像我把神的话当成了一门我根本没兴趣的必修课，混学分而已。

　　John：（正低头翻着自己那本写满笔记的圣经，抬头接话）我大学的时候有整整一年，读经就是这个状态——说句实话，那一年我读利未记的进度比我读教科书还敷衍，有一次读到那些祭司条例，居然睡着了，醒来发现口水滴在「燔祭」那两个字上，那本圣经到现在还有个印子。我那时候甚至开始怀疑，是不是我信心有问题，别人读经都能「遇见神」，我怎么就只是完成任务。

　　Jack：那后来呢，你怎么解决的？

　　John：我先说一个可能有点扎心的事实——圣经自己就说过，人天然不喜欢神的话。哥林多前书说，属血气的人不领会神的圣灵的事，反倒以为愚拙。不是说你信心不够格，是说，人的心天生就不是朝向神的话去转的，需要神自己动工，把那颗心转过来，我们才会真的「尝」到里面的甘甜，而不只是「读」过去。

　　Tom：（挑眉）那这话听起来有点方便啊——「读不出味道，是因为你还没被神动工」，那我是不是可以说「反正是神的事，我就不用负责任了」？

　　John：（不急）这个反弹我理解，但我说的不是「你不用负责」，是「你不能光靠自己的意志力，把枯燥硬变成享受」。这两件事要分开——你该不该打开圣经、该不该坚持读，这是你的责任；但读的时候心里能不能真的被摸到、真的觉得甘甜，这一部分从来不是纯靠你自己「更努力」就能挤出来的，是要祈求圣灵一起做工的。当代神学家约翰·傅瑞姆（John Frame），他讲圣经的时候特别强调一点，大意是——读经从来不只是一件「弄懂道理」的知识活动，它同时也是一件「我这个人整个被这段话对上」的事。你可以把一段经文的原文、结构、背景都分析得很清楚，却还是没有真的「被这段话遇见」，因为那个部分不是靠分析能到达的，是圣灵把神的话跟你这个具体的人接通的工作。

　　Jenny：（皱眉）那具体要怎么祈求？我是不是每次翻开圣经前先念一句「求圣灵光照」，然后就会不一样？

　　John：老实说，不会像开关一样立刻见效。但那句祷告的意义，不是咒语，是承认——我今天打开这本书，不是靠我自己的悟性能读懂的，我需要神自己开我的心眼。这个态度上的转变，比技巧重要。

　　Grace：（若有所思）那这样说的话，我这几年在教会受装备，学了不少读经方法——归纳法、原文查经、结构分析，这些工具我都会用。可有时候我发现，我用这些工具读经，读得越「专业」，心却越冷，好像在做学术分析，不是在跟神说话。这算是本末倒置吗？

　　John：这是个很值得停下来想的观察。工具本身没有错，圣经也不是拿来随便乱猜的，方法能帮我们不曲解经文。但如果这些工具变成了你「证明自己读得够专业」的东西，跟你刚才说的「感觉在应付作业」，其实是同一个根——都是把读经变成一件靠自己表现的事，而不是等候神向你说话的事。

　　Tom：（转移话题，带点不耐烦）说真的，我更受不了的不是枯燥，是那种「每日KPI」的压迫感。我妈以前每天检查我有没有读经，读完了才安心睡觉。现在没人检查了，可我心里那个声音还在——读了，今天算合格；没读，今天就有点心虚，好像欠了神什么账。

　　Amy：（第一次开口，带着好奇又谨慎）我不是基督徒，我插一句——你们说的这个「合格」、「欠账」，听起来跟我小时候写作业交老师检查，感觉一模一样。信耶稣不是应该让人轻省吗，怎么听起来比不信还累？

　　Tom：对，就是这个感觉，我一直讲不清楚，Amy一句话就点出来了。

　　John：（认真地）Amy这句话问得很准，我要老实承认，很多基督徒——包括我自己——某个阶段的读经，确实活成了你说的那样，一种自我审判的KPI。但那不是圣经原本要给我们的。

　　Jack：（有点激动）那到底哪里出错了？

　　John：出错的地方在于，把「读经」当成了「换取神今天喜不喜欢我」的筹码。今天读了，我今天在神面前分数加一；今天没读，扣分，心虚一整天。这套逻辑的问题是——它偷偷把福音换成了律法。福音说的是，神接纳我，不是因为我今天读经打卡了，是因为基督已经替我完全满足了律法的要求。我读经，不是去挣一个「合格」，是一个已经被接纳的孩子，想更认识那位接纳我的父亲。

　　Tom：（沉默一下，仍有保留）……这话我听着舒服，但很难落地。因为就算我信这个道理，我明天没读经，那种心虚感大概还是会自动冒出来，不会因为我懂了这个道理就消失。

　　John：会的，这个我不否认。这不是一次听懂就永远解决的事，是要每次那种心虚感冒出来的时候，重新用福音去回应它——不是「我今天没读经，神会不高兴」，而是「我今天没读经，我错过了一个跟神亲近的机会，这很可惜，但神对我的接纳没有因此改变」。这两种心情，外表看起来都是「觉得没读经不太好」，但一个是害怕被定罪，一个是可惜错失了甜蜜。

　　Sophia：（终于开口，声音有点低）那我可能是更严重的那种。我不是最近才「读不进去」，我是从高中毕业之后，差不多两年多没正经打开过圣经。奇怪的是，我一开始还会内疚，后来慢慢地，连内疚都没有了，就是很平静地不读，也不觉得少了什么。

　　Peter：（脱口而出）那不是更好吗，至少不内疚了。

　　Sophia：（摇头）不是，我心里知道那不是「好」，是麻木了。

　　John：（认真地看向Sophia）Sophia，谢谢你说出来，这不容易。我想说一句可能有点重的话——内疚和麻木，麻木是更让人担心的那一个。

　　Jack：为什么？内疚不是更痛苦吗？

　　John：内疚痛苦，但内疚说明良心还活着，还在对神的话有反应，那是好的信号，说明神还在你心里做工，提醒你、拉你回来。麻木是那个提醒的声音渐渐被压下去、听不见了，不是因为问题解决了，是因为心开始变硬。圣经里希伯来书特别警告过这件事——不要硬着心，好像在旷野悖逆的日子一样。心硬不是一夜之间发生的，是一次一次地把那个提醒的声音摁下去，摁到最后就真的听不见了。

　　Sophia：（声音更低）那……我现在这样，是不是已经太晚了？

　　John：（马上、清楚地）不晚。你今天愿意说出「我麻木了，这不对」，这句话本身，就说明那个提醒的声音，其实还在，只是很小声。你还听得见，就还有回应的空间。真正可怕的，是连「这不对」都感觉不到了。

讨论：

几个朋友聊到了读经像应付作业、像每日KPI、还有从内疚滑向麻木的经历。John说，人天然读不出神话语的甘甜，需要圣灵动工；也说，把读经变成「换取神今天喜不喜欢我」的筹码，是把福音偷换成了律法；还说，麻木比内疚更值得警惕，因为那是良心的声音渐渐听不见了。请讨论：

1) 回想你最近一次打开圣经的经历，你心里当时更接近「应付一门必修课」，还是「靠读经交换今天的心安」，还是已经麻木、没什么感觉了？

2) 是什么让它变成这样的？

二、圣灵到底在不在说话？

　　Grace：（想了想，主动开口）我想问一个不太一样的。我不是每次读经都没感觉，有那么几次——特别是有一次读诗篇139篇，「你从远处知道我的意念」那一段——我读着读着突然眼眶湿了，觉得神好像真的在看着我、认识我。但那种时刻很少，一年可能就那么两三次。我怎么知道那是圣灵在说话，还是我那天刚好心情比较敏感，情绪上来了而已？

　　Jack：这个我也想过。我甚至怀疑过，是不是我那天听的诗歌、周围的气氛正好烘托，让我「感动」了，跟圣灵没关系，纯粹是气氛使然。

　　John：这是个很诚实、也很重要的问题，我不会给你们一个简单的公式，因为神学上，改教传统一直强调，圣灵做工从来不是脱离圣经文字、凭空给你一种感觉，是借着话语本身、跟话语一起说话的。所以第一个可以检验的地方，是——那个感动，是不是把你带向经文本身真正在说的意思，而不是你自己脑补出来的意思。

　　Grace：那次的感动，就是经文原本在讲的——神从起初就认识我、看顾我，不是我自己脑补的。

　　John：那这是一个好信号。第二个可以检验的地方，是「果子」——不是当下感动了多激烈，是那之后有没有留下什么，让你更认识神、更愿意信靠祂、更愿意顺服祂，哪怕只是一点点。如果只是当下哭一场，过后什么都没留下，那可能真的只是情绪；如果那之后你发现自己面对某件焦虑的事，会想起「神从远处也知道我的意念」，那说明那个感动结出了果子。

　　Tom：（挑刺）可这个「果子」也可能是心理暗示啊——我一旦相信那次是圣灵感动，我就会努力让自己「表现得」好像真的被改变了，这不就是自我实现的预言吗？

　　John：（诚实地）这个可能性我没办法百分之百排除，我不是心理学家，也没办法拿仪器测出圣灵在不在做工。我只能说，如果一切感动都可以被解释成「自我暗示」，那你此刻用来质疑这个感动的这套理论本身，是不是也可以被同样的方式质疑——你信「这只是心理暗示」，会不会也只是你现在这个阶段的一种心理暗示？如果什么都能被还原成脑科学反应，那我们此刻的整个对话，包括你的质疑，也一样只是脑神经放电而已，谁也说服不了谁。我不是要用这个把你噎住，是想说——这条路走到底，其实没有真的更「客观」，只是换了一套解释框架而已。真正要问的，不是「有没有办法排除一切自然解释」，是「这套解释，配不配得上你正在经历的这件事」。

　　Jenny：（换个角度）那撇开怎么分辨不说，我更实际的问题是——除了硬着头皮一章一章刷，我根本不知道还有别的读法。我试过一年读经计划，一开始很有劲，读到利未记直接卡住，弃坑到现在。

　　Peter：（举手）我室友最近在用一个叫SOAP的方法，S是经文，O是observation观察，A是application应用，P是prayer祷告，读完一段先写一句这段在讲什么，再写一句跟我有什么关系，最后写一句祷告。他说这样逼自己慢下来，比刷章数有用多了。

　　Jack：那你有试过吗？

　　Peter：试了两周，说实话第一周还挺新鲜，第二周就开始应付，写的东西越来越敷衍，跟当初刷章数没什么两样，只是换了个格式继续应付。

　　Jenny：（笑）所以这个方法也不是万灵药。

　　John：没有一个方法是万灵药，工具能帮我们养成习惯、慢下来，但工具本身填不满那个更深的需要——就是我们刚才说的，需要神自己开心眼。我个人觉得有帮助的，是先缩小范围，不追章数，就一小段经文，慢慢读，读完问一句：这段经文里，神是什么样的？我又是什么样的？然后老实地回应祂。

　　Grace：还有，别总是一个人闷头读。我这学期开始跟两个姐妹每周一起查一段经文，各自先读，再一起讨论，发现她们看到的角度，我自己一个人根本想不到。

　　Jenny：（想到什么，欲言又止，最后还是说了）说到这个……我想说说我室友的事，可能有点跑题。她不是基督徒，上学期Comparative Literature课学了「读者反应理论」（Reader-Response Theory），教授讲，一段文字的意义不是作者放进去的，是每个读者自己「建构」出来的，一千个读者就有一千种正确的解读，没有哪个更对。她后来跟我聊天，半开玩笑地说——那你们信徒读圣经，说什么「神的意思是这样」，会不会也只是你们自己脑补出来的意思，跟别人「脑补」出别的意思，本质上没什么不同？

　　Tom：（认真起来）这个我也被问过，当时被问得哑口无言，因为好像也没法反驳——凭什么你的解读就是「神的意思」，别人的解读就不是？

　　John：这个问题问得很扎实，值得认真回应，而不是随便糊弄过去。我想先问一句——你室友说「意义是读者建构的，没有哪个更对」的时候，她是不是也希望，别人不要「误读」她说的这句话？

　　Jenny：（想了想）这个……应该是的吧，她肯定不希望我把她这句话理解成相反的意思。

　　John：对，这就是这个理论一个很难绕过去的地方——如果一段文字的意义真的完全由读者自己决定、没有客观对错，那她刚才那句「意义没有客观对错」的话，我也可以随便按我自己的意思去理解，包括理解成「其实是有客观对错的」，而她没有资格说我理解错了。可她显然不会接受这个，她还是希望自己的话被「正确」理解。这说明，就算是最坚持「意义由读者决定」的人，实际生活里也没办法真的活出这套理论，因为沟通本身就要求有一个说话者原本的意思，不然连「理解」跟「误解」都分不出来了。

　　Peter：那放回圣经上呢？

　　John：圣经不是一段漂浮在空中、任人解读的文字，是一位有位格、有意思的神，藉着人写下来、向我们说话。既然是有一位说话者，那就有祂原本要表达的意思，我们读经的工作，不是「我想读出什么就是什么」，是尽力去明白这位说话者原本在说什么。这不代表每个人的理解都一样精准——我们确实会读错、会带着自己的偏见去读，这也是为什么需要好好查考、需要教会群体一起印证——但「有可能读错」跟「没有对错」，是完全不一样的两件事。

　　Jenny：那我可以怎么跟她说？我不想显得我们很霸道，好像只有我们说的才对。

　　John：不用急着说服她，你可以老实告诉她——我完全同意，我们的理解都有限、都可能带着自己的角度，这个我承认；但我不认为「意义完全没有客观对错」，因为如果连这句话本身都要用「有客观对错」的方式讲出来才有意义，那这套理论其实自己先把自己推翻了。

　　Sophia：（换个话题，语气变得沉重）我想问一个我一直不敢问的。旧约里神吩咐以色列人进迦南地，要灭尽那里的人，一个不留；还有撒母耳记上，神藉撒母耳吩咐扫罗，要灭尽亚玛力人。我每次读到这些经文，心里都很不舒服，甚至有点反感——一个慈爱的神，怎么会下这种命令？我不知道该怎么面对这些经文，干脆就跳过不读。

　　Tom：我也是，每次读到这种地方都很别扭，感觉跟主日学讲的「神就是爱」对不上。

　　John：（认真地）我不会假装这是一个读一读就能让人舒服的问题，坦白说，我自己每次读到这些经文，心里也不轻松，我不想给你们一个太快、太轻巧的答案。

　　Jack：那至少说说你是怎么想的？

　　John：我想先说一件事——你们说「这让我反感、觉得不对」，这个反应本身，其实值得注意。你们凭什么知道「灭尽一整个民族」是不对的？

　　Sophia：（愣住）这……不是常识吗，杀戮无辜的人当然不对。

　　John：我完全同意这不对，我不是要为暴力辩护。我想问的是更前面一层——「杀戮是错的」，这个判断本身，是从哪里来的？如果这个世界说到底只是物质、演化出来的结果，没有神、没有一个客观的善恶标准，那「灭族」跟别的任何自然现象，比如一场地震压死很多人，其实没有本质的不同，都只是「发生了」而已，没有谁有资格说哪个「不对」。可我们每个人，包括最激烈反对基督教的人，心里都笃定地知道，屠杀是真实地错的，不只是「我不喜欢」。这份笃定，恰恰需要一个在我们之上、真实存在的善恶标准才能立得住——而这正是圣经里那位神一直在宣告祂自己是的那一位。你们对这段经文的反感，某个意义上，其实是借着神放在你们心里的那把尺子，在审判这段经文里描述的行为，这不是矛盾，反而说明那把尺子是真的。

　　Peter：（皱眉）那这不就更奇怪了吗——用神给的尺子，去质疑神自己下的命令？

　　John：这正是问题的核心，我们得诚实面对这个张力，而不是绕过去。我想说几点，不是要把不舒服感一笔勾销，是帮我们更完整地看这件事。第一，迦南灭绝令不是「随便找个民族杀掉」，圣经自己交代了背景——创世记里神对亚伯拉罕说，要等到「亚摩利人的罪孽满盈」才会审判，中间给了差不多四百年的空间。这些民族长期行邪淫、献婴儿为祭、极其败坏，神的审判不是任意的，是长久忍耐之后，对一个罪恶累积到极致的群体的公义审判。第二，这类「灭尽令」（希伯来文叫herem，圣战）在圣经历史里是一次性的、跟以色列进迦南这件特殊的救赎历史事件绑在一起的，不是神给普遍时代的命令，也从来不是新约教会可以援引来打仗的模板——耶稣、使徒行传，都没有让教会用刀剑扩展神的国。第三，我们容易忘记，以色列自己后来也因为效法迦南人的罪，被神用同样的公义审判、赶出那地——这不是「神偏袒以色列」，是神对一切罪都同样公义。

　　Sophia：（还是有些挣扎）可就算这样，那些被杀的孩子，他们做错了什么？

　　John：（不回避）这是最难的部分，我没有一个能让你完全释怀的答案。我只能说，圣经从头到尾没有把神描绘成一个任意妄为的神，祂一次又一次被称为「审判全地的主岂不行公义」——这句话出自亚伯拉罕自己质问神的时候，神没有斥责这个质问，反而允许他一路追问下去。你们今天的这份不安，其实站在一个很古老、很合圣经的传统里，不是不信，是诚实地在神面前摔跤。

　　Amy：（若有所思）你们讨论这些的方式，跟我想象中不太一样，我以为基督徒遇到这种问题都是直接说「神说的都对，不许问」。

　　John：如果哪个基督徒这样打发你，那多半是他自己也没想清楚，用一句话把你堵回去了，这不是好的做法。神不怕我们问，诗篇里一半都是这种带着痛苦、甚至带着控诉的祷告。诚实地带着困惑来读经，好过假装自己什么都懂。

讨论：

这一场谈到了怎么分辨读经时的感动是圣灵的工作还是单纯情绪、读经方法的局限、后现代「意义由读者决定」的说法、还有旧约里让人不安的灭绝令经文。John提到，我们对「屠杀是错的」这份笃定本身，其实需要一个在我们之上的善恶标准才能立得住。请讨论：

1) 旧约里有没有哪一段经文，是你读了会不舒服、甚至想跳过不读的？

2) 听完今天的讨论，你愿意带着这份不安，继续认真面对它，还是仍然想先放在一边？为什么？

Lesson 5: Why Does Bible Reading Feel More and More Like Homework? — Bible Reading and Spiritual Devotion

(The midterm exams have just ended. Several textbooks are still spread out on the table. As everyone sits down, they start rubbing their tired eyes.)

1. What Exactly Am I Doing Wrong?

Grace: (closing her open Bible and rubbing her eyes) This is already the third time this week that I’ve forced myself to open the Bible. I did finish reading it—a whole chapter of Genesis—but if you asked me right now what it was about, I’d probably only remember, “There was evening, and there was morning—the first day.”

Sophia: (laughing) You’re doing better than I am. I haven’t even opened mine lately.

Grace: It’s not that I don’t want to take it seriously. I genuinely don’t know what I’m reading. My eyes are scanning the words, but at the same time my brain is thinking about how much of the project I still have left to do and what I’m going to eat tonight. The moment I close the Bible after finishing, I feel exactly the same as I did before I started. Nothing has stayed with me.

Peter: Isn’t that just like zoning out in class? I do that in Biology 100 all the time. My body is in the classroom, but my mind has no idea where it has wandered off to.

Grace: But if I zone out in Biology, the worst that happens is that I do badly on an exam. When I zone out while reading the Bible, I feel more guilty somehow—as if I’ve turned God’s Word into a required course I have no interest in, and I’m just trying to get the credit.

John: (looking up from his own Bible, which is filled with notes) I was exactly like that for an entire year in university. To be honest, during that year I read Leviticus even more carelessly than I read my textbooks. Once I actually fell asleep while reading all those regulations for the priests, and when I woke up, I discovered that I’d drooled right onto the words “burnt offering.” That Bible still has a mark on it to this day. Back then I even started wondering whether there was something wrong with my faith. Everyone else seemed to “meet God” when they read the Bible. Why was I just completing an assignment?

Jack: So what happened? How did you get past it?

John: Let me start with something that may sting a little: the Bible itself says that people, by nature, don’t like the things of God. First Corinthians says that the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, but considers them foolishness. That doesn’t mean your faith isn’t good enough. It means that the human heart isn’t naturally turned toward God’s Word. God Himself has to work and turn our hearts toward Him before we can truly “taste” the sweetness in His Word instead of merely “reading” our way through it.

Tom: (raising an eyebrow) That sounds pretty convenient, though. “You can’t get anything out of reading the Bible because God hasn’t worked in you yet.” So couldn’t I just say, “Well, that’s God’s job, so I’m not responsible”?

John: (calmly) I understand that reaction. But I’m not saying, “You’re not responsible.” I’m saying, “You can’t simply use willpower to force something dry to become enjoyable.” Those are two different things. Whether you should open the Bible and whether you should persevere in reading it—that’s your responsibility. But whether your heart is genuinely touched while you’re reading, whether you actually find it sweet—that has never been something you can produce simply by trying harder. You need to ask the Holy Spirit to work as well. The contemporary theologian John Frame makes an important point when he talks about Scripture: reading the Bible is never merely an intellectual activity of “figuring out doctrine.” It is also a matter of having your whole person confronted by what the passage is saying. You can analyze the original language, structure, and historical background of a passage extremely well and still never really be “met” by that passage, because that part cannot be reached through analysis alone. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, connecting God’s Word with you as a particular person.

Jenny: (frowning) Then how exactly do I pray for that? Am I supposed to say, “Holy Spirit, please illuminate me,” every time I open the Bible, and then things will suddenly be different?

John: Honestly, it doesn’t work like a switch that suddenly turns on. The point of that prayer isn’t that it’s a magic formula. It’s an acknowledgment: I’m opening this book today, but I can’t understand it through my own insight alone. I need God Himself to open the eyes of my heart. That change in attitude is more important than any technique.

Grace: (thoughtfully) Then, if that’s the case, I’ve spent the last few years receiving training at church and learning quite a few Bible-reading methods—inductive Bible study, working with the original languages, structural analysis. I know how to use all those tools. But sometimes I find that the more “professionally” I read the Bible using those tools, the colder my heart becomes. It feels more like academic analysis than talking with God. Is that putting the cart before the horse?

John: That’s a very worthwhile observation to stop and think about. There’s nothing wrong with the tools themselves. The Bible isn’t something we should interpret randomly, and good methods can help keep us from twisting the meaning of Scripture. But if those tools become a way for you to “prove that you’re reading the Bible well enough,” then what you just described is actually rooted in the same problem as feeling like you’re completing an assignment. In both cases, you’ve turned Bible reading into something that depends on your performance instead of something in which you wait for God to speak to you.

Tom: (changing the subject, sounding a little annoyed) Honestly, what bothers me more than the dryness is the pressure of a daily KPI. My mom used to check every day whether I’d read the Bible. She wouldn’t feel at ease until I’d finished. Nobody checks on me now, but that voice is still inside my head: if I read, I passed for today; if I don’t, I feel guilty, as if I owe God something.

Amy: (speaking for the first time, curious but cautious) I’m not a Christian, so let me say something. This “passing” and “owing” you’re talking about sounds exactly like doing homework when I was a kid and handing it in for the teacher to check. Isn’t believing in Jesus supposed to make people free and give them rest? Why does it sound more exhausting than not believing?

Tom: Exactly. That’s the feeling I’ve never been able to explain. Amy just put it into words.

John: (seriously) Amy’s question is very perceptive. I have to admit that many Christians—including myself—have gone through periods when Bible reading really did become the kind of self-judging KPI you’re describing. But that’s not what the Bible originally intends for us.

Jack: (a little agitated) Then where did we go wrong?

John: We went wrong when we turned Bible reading into a bargaining chip for getting God to like us today. I read today, so I get one more point with God. I don’t read today, so I lose a point and feel guilty all day. The problem with that logic is that it quietly replaces the gospel with the law. The gospel says that God accepts me not because I checked Bible reading off my list today, but because Christ has already perfectly fulfilled the demands of the law for me. I don’t read the Bible in order to earn a passing grade. I read it as a child who has already been accepted and wants to know the Father who accepted me better.

Tom: (silent for a moment, still hesitant) …That sounds comforting, but it’s hard to make practical. Because even if I believe what you’re saying, if I don’t read the Bible tomorrow, that feeling of guilt will probably just pop up automatically. Understanding the principle isn’t going to make it disappear.

John: You’re right. I don’t deny that. This isn’t something you understand once and then never struggle with again. Every time that guilty feeling comes up, you have to answer it with the gospel again—not, “I didn’t read the Bible today, so God must be displeased with me,” but, “I didn’t read the Bible today, and I missed an opportunity to draw near to God. That’s a loss, but God’s acceptance of me hasn’t changed.” Outwardly, both feelings may look like, “I wish I had read the Bible,” but one is fear of condemnation, while the other is regret over missing something sweet.

Sophia: (finally speaking, quietly) Then I might be in a more serious situation. It’s not just that I’ve been having trouble reading lately. Since I graduated from high school, I haven’t seriously opened the Bible for more than two years. What’s strange is that at first I felt guilty, but gradually even the guilt disappeared. Now I can simply not read it, feel perfectly calm, and not feel like I’ve lost anything.

Peter: (blurting out) Isn’t that better, at least? You don’t feel guilty anymore.

Sophia: (shaking her head) No. I know it’s not “better.” I’ve just become numb.

John: (looking seriously at Sophia) Sophia, thank you for saying that. I know that isn’t easy. I want to say something that may sound a little strong: between guilt and numbness, numbness is the one that concerns me more.

Jack: Why? Isn’t guilt more painful?

John: Guilt is painful, but guilt means your conscience is still alive. You’re still responding to God’s Word. That’s actually a good sign—it means God is still working in your heart, reminding you and drawing you back. Numbness means that voice of warning has gradually been pushed down until you can no longer hear it. It doesn’t mean the problem has been solved; it means the heart is beginning to harden. Hebrews gives a particularly serious warning about this: do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion in the wilderness. A hardened heart doesn’t happen overnight. It happens when we repeatedly suppress that warning voice until eventually we really can’t hear it anymore.

Sophia: (even more quietly) Then…is it already too late for me?

John: (immediately and clearly) No, it isn’t too late. The fact that you’re willing to say today, “I’ve become numb, and that’s not right,” is itself evidence that the warning voice is still there, even if it’s very quiet. As long as you can still hear it, there is still room to respond. What is truly frightening is when you can no longer even sense that something is wrong.

Discussion:

The friends have talked about Bible reading feeling like completing homework, like meeting a daily KPI, and about the experience of gradually moving from guilt into numbness. John said that people do not naturally taste the sweetness of God’s Word and need the Holy Spirit to work in them. He also said that turning Bible reading into a way of “earning God’s approval for today” is replacing the gospel with the law. He further said that numbness is more concerning than guilt, because it means the voice of conscience is gradually becoming harder to hear. Discuss:

1) Think about the last time you opened the Bible. At that moment, were you closer to “trying to get through a required course,” “using Bible reading to earn peace of mind for the day,” or being numb and feeling almost nothing?

2) What caused it to become that way?

2. Is the Holy Spirit Really Speaking?

Grace: (thinking for a moment, then speaking voluntarily) I want to ask something a little different. I don’t feel nothing every time I read the Bible. There have been a few times—especially once when I was reading Psalm 139, the part that says, “You know my thoughts from afar”—when my eyes suddenly filled with tears. I felt as if God really was looking at me and knew me. But those moments are rare, maybe only two or three times a year. How do I know whether that was the Holy Spirit speaking, or whether I just happened to be emotionally sensitive that day?

Jack: I’ve wondered about that too. I’ve even wondered whether the worship song I had just heard and the atmosphere around me had simply created the right mood and made me emotional, with nothing to do with the Holy Spirit.

John: That’s a very honest and important question. I don’t want to give you a simple formula. The Reformed tradition has always emphasized that the Holy Spirit does not work apart from the actual words of Scripture, giving us some kind of feeling out of nowhere. He speaks through the Word itself and together with the Word. So the first thing we can examine is this: Did that experience lead you toward what the passage actually means, or did it come from something you read into the passage yourself?

Grace: What I felt that time was exactly what the passage was talking about—that God has known me and watched over me from the beginning. I wasn’t reading something into it.

John: Then that’s a good sign. The second thing we can examine is the fruit—not how intense the emotion was in the moment, but whether it left something behind afterward that helped you know God better, trust Him more, or obey Him more, even if only a little. If you simply cried during the moment and nothing remained afterward, then perhaps it really was just emotion. But if afterward you found yourself facing a particular anxiety and remembering, “God knows even my thoughts from afar,” then that suggests the experience produced fruit.

Tom: (pushing back) But that “fruit” could also be psychological suggestion. Once I believe that experience was the Holy Spirit’s work, I might simply try to make myself “act” as though I had really been changed. Isn’t that just a self-fulfilling prophecy?

John: (honestly) I can’t rule that possibility out with one hundred percent certainty. I’m not a psychologist, and I don’t have an instrument that can measure whether the Holy Spirit is working. I can only say that if every spiritual experience can be explained away as “psychological suggestion,” then can the theory you’re using to question that experience be questioned in exactly the same way? Could your belief that “this is only psychological suggestion” itself be a form of psychological suggestion produced by the stage you’re currently in? If everything can ultimately be reduced to brain activity, then our entire conversation right now—including your doubts—is also nothing more than neural activity, and neither of us could actually persuade the other. I’m not saying that to shut you down. I’m saying that if you follow that approach all the way to the end, it isn’t really more “objective”; you’ve simply changed to a different explanatory framework. The real question isn’t whether we can eliminate every possible natural explanation. It’s whether this explanation adequately accounts for what you’re experiencing.

Jenny: (approaching it from another angle) Then, setting aside how to distinguish the two, I have a more practical question. Apart from forcing myself to plow through one chapter after another, I honestly don’t know any other way to read the Bible. I tried a one-year Bible-reading plan. I was really motivated at first, then I got stuck in Leviticus and abandoned it. I still haven’t gone back.

Peter: (raising his hand) My roommate has been using something called the SOAP method. S stands for Scripture, O for Observation, A for Application, and P for Prayer. After reading a passage, he first writes one sentence about what the passage is saying, then one sentence about what it has to do with him, and finally a prayer. He says forcing himself to slow down like that is much more helpful than simply trying to get through a certain number of chapters.

Jack: Have you tried it?

Peter: I did it for two weeks. Honestly, the first week was pretty fresh and interesting. By the second week I started going through the motions, and what I wrote became more and more superficial. It ended up being no different from counting chapters. I had just changed the format of my way of going through the motions.

Jenny: (laughing) So that method isn’t a magic cure either.

John: No method is a magic cure. Tools can help us build habits and slow down, but no tool by itself can fill the deeper need we were talking about—the need for God Himself to open our eyes. Personally, what I find helpful is to narrow the scope. Don’t chase a chapter count. Take a short passage and read it slowly. Then ask: What is God like in this passage? What am I like? And then respond to Him honestly.

Grace: And don’t always read alone in silence. This semester I started studying a passage together with two other women every week. We each read it beforehand and then discuss it together. I’ve discovered perspectives they noticed that I would never have seen on my own.

Jenny: (thinking of something, hesitating, then finally speaking) Speaking of that…I want to tell you about something my roommate said. It may be a little off topic. She’s not a Christian. Last semester, in our Comparative Literature class, we studied Reader-Response Theory. The professor said that the meaning of a text isn’t something the author puts into it; instead, each reader “constructs” the meaning. A thousand readers can have a thousand valid interpretations, and none is more correct than another. Later she was talking with me and jokingly said, “So when you Christians read the Bible and say, ‘This is what God means,’ aren’t you just making up your own meaning? Isn’t that basically the same thing as everyone else coming up with their own interpretation?”

Tom: (becoming serious) I’ve been asked that too. At the time I had no answer, because it seemed impossible to argue with. Why should your interpretation be “God’s meaning” while someone else’s isn’t?

John: That’s a substantial question, and it deserves a serious answer rather than a quick dismissal. Let me ask you something first: when your roommate said, “Meaning is constructed by the reader, and there is no more correct interpretation,” did she also expect people not to “misread” what she meant by that statement?

Jenny: (thinking) Well…I suppose so. She definitely wouldn’t want me to interpret what she said as meaning the exact opposite.

John: Exactly. That’s one of the difficult problems that theory has to face. If the meaning of a text is really determined entirely by the reader and there is no objective right or wrong interpretation, then I could interpret her statement, “There is no objective right or wrong meaning,” however I wanted—including interpreting it to mean, “There actually is an objective right and wrong.” And she would have no grounds to tell me that I had misunderstood her. But obviously she wouldn’t accept that. She still wants her words to be understood correctly. That shows that even people who most strongly insist that meaning is determined by the reader cannot actually live as though that theory were true. Communication itself requires that there be an original meaning intended by the speaker; otherwise we couldn’t even distinguish “understanding” from “misunderstanding.”

Peter: What about when we apply that to the Bible?

John: The Bible isn’t a piece of text floating in the air, waiting for anyone to interpret it however they want. It is God, a personal being with intentions, speaking to us through human authors. If there is a speaker, then there is an original meaning He intends to communicate. Our task in reading the Bible isn’t, “Whatever I want to get out of it is what it means.” Our task is to do our best to understand what the speaker originally intended to say. That doesn’t mean everyone’s interpretation will be equally precise. We really can misunderstand Scripture, and we really can bring our own biases into the text. That’s one reason we need careful study and the confirmation of the church community. But “we can interpret something incorrectly” and “there is no right or wrong interpretation” are two completely different claims.

Jenny: Then what can I say to her? I don’t want to sound arrogant, as though we’re saying only our interpretation can be right.

John: You don’t need to rush to convince her. You can honestly tell her: “I completely agree that our understanding is limited and that all of us can bring our own perspectives into what we read. I accept that. But I don’t believe meaning is completely without objective right or wrong, because if even that statement itself has to be expressed as though it has an objective meaning in order to make sense, then the theory has already undermined itself.”

Sophia: (changing the subject, her tone becoming heavier) I want to ask about something I’ve been afraid to ask. In the Old Testament, God commanded the Israelites to enter the land of Canaan and completely destroy the people there, leaving no survivors. And in First Samuel, God commanded Saul through Samuel to completely destroy the Amalekites. Every time I read those passages, I feel deeply uncomfortable, even repulsed. How could a loving God give commands like that? I don’t know how to deal with those passages, so I usually just skip them.

Tom: Same here. Every time I come across passages like that, I feel conflicted. It seems inconsistent with what we learned in Sunday school—that “God is love.”

John: (seriously) I’m not going to pretend this is a problem that becomes comfortable after reading one explanation. Honestly, I don’t feel comfortable myself every time I read these passages. I don’t want to give you a quick or superficial answer.

Jack: Then at least tell us how you think about it.

John: I want to start with something. You said, “This makes me feel repulsed; I feel that it’s wrong.” That reaction itself is worth paying attention to. How do you know that completely destroying an entire people is wrong?

Sophia: (stunned) Isn’t that…just common sense? Killing innocent people is obviously wrong.

John: I completely agree that it is wrong. I’m not trying to defend violence. What I’m asking is one level deeper: Where does the judgment itself—that “killing is wrong”—come from? If, at the end of the day, this world is nothing more than matter and the result of evolution, with no God and no objective standard of good and evil, then genocide is ultimately no different in kind from any other natural event, such as an earthquake killing many people. It simply “happened,” and no one has the authority to say that one event is “wrong.” Yet every one of us—including people who strongly oppose Christianity—knows with deep certainty that mass killing is genuinely wrong, not merely something we personally dislike. That certainty requires a standard of good and evil that exists above us and is genuinely real. And that is precisely who the God of the Bible continually declares Himself to be. In a sense, your discomfort with this passage is actually you using the moral standard God has placed within you to judge the actions described in the passage. That’s not necessarily a contradiction. It may actually show that the standard itself is real.

Peter: (frowning) But doesn’t that make it even stranger? We’re using the standard God gave us to question a command that God Himself gave?

John: That’s exactly where the heart of the problem lies. We have to face that tension honestly rather than avoid it. Let me point out several things—not to make the discomfort disappear, but to help us see the whole picture. First, the command concerning the destruction of Canaan wasn’t simply, “Find some nation and kill them.” The Bible itself gives us the background. In Genesis, God told Abraham that the judgment would not come until “the iniquity of the Amorites was complete.” In other words, there was a period of roughly four hundred years. These peoples had long practiced sexual immorality, child sacrifice, and other forms of extreme wickedness. God’s judgment was not arbitrary. It was a righteous judgment upon a society whose accumulated wickedness had reached its fullness after a long period of patience. Second, these commands concerning complete destruction—the Hebrew term is herem, associated with holy war—were unique to that particular event in redemptive history, connected with Israel’s entry into Canaan. They were not general commands for all times, and they were never a model that the New Testament church could invoke to wage war. Jesus and the apostles never instructed the church to expand God’s kingdom through the sword. Third, we easily forget that Israel itself was later judged by God with the same justice because of its own imitation of Canaanite wickedness and was driven out of the land. This wasn’t God showing favoritism toward Israel. It was God being equally just toward all sin.

Sophia: (still struggling) But even so, what did those children do to deserve being killed?

John: (not avoiding the question) That’s the hardest part. I don’t have an answer that will make you completely at peace. I can only say that from beginning to end, the Bible never portrays God as arbitrary or capricious. Again and again He is called the One who judges the whole earth justly. Those words come from Abraham himself when he questioned God. God didn’t rebuke him for asking. Instead, He allowed Abraham to keep asking and wrestling with the issue. Your discomfort today actually places you within a very old and deeply biblical tradition. It isn’t necessarily unbelief. It can be an honest struggle before God.

Amy: (thoughtfully) The way you guys are discussing these things is different from what I imagined. I thought Christians usually responded to questions like this by saying, “God said it, so it must be right. Don’t question it.”

John: If a Christian dismisses you that way, most likely they haven’t thought the issue through themselves and are using one sentence to shut down the conversation. That’s not a good way to handle it. God isn’t afraid of our questions. Half of the Psalms are filled with prayers like this—prayers spoken out of pain and sometimes even protest. It is better to come to Scripture honestly with our confusion than to pretend that we understand everything.

Discussion:

This conversation explored how to distinguish between a response to Scripture that is the work of the Holy Spirit and one that is simply an emotional reaction; the limitations of different Bible-reading methods; the postmodern claim that meaning is determined by the reader; and the difficult Old Testament passages concerning the destruction of the Canaanites. John pointed out that our deep conviction that “mass killing is wrong” itself requires a standard of good and evil that exists above us. Discuss:

1) Is there any passage in the Old Testament that makes you uncomfortable, or even makes you want to skip it?

2) After today’s discussion, are you willing to continue facing that discomfort and seriously engage with the passage, or would you still rather put it aside for now? Why?

　　（外面开始下雨，几个人的伞还滴着水靠在门边，大家把外套搭在椅背上坐下）

一、这信仰到底是不是我的？

　　Jack：（把奶茶往桌上一放，闷闷地）我这几天一直在想一件事，越想越不安。如果我不是生在基督徒家庭，从小被我爸妈带去教会、送主日学，我今天会不会走进教会的门？大概率不会。那我现在信的这个，到底算不算「我自己的信仰」，还是只是我家庭的延续，换个地方继续被灌输而已？

　　Peter：（点头）我也想过，我是CBC，从小教会长大，圣经故事我闭着眼睛都能讲，可有时候我怀疑，我是真的信「耶稣是主」，还是只是习惯了礼拜天这套流程，跟习惯了每年感恩节吃火鸡差不多。

　　Tom：（半开玩笑，带点讽刺）你们俩至少还有个「从小」的版本。我是每次有人问我「你为什么信耶稣」，我脑子里立刻蹦出来的都是标准答案——「因为耶稣为我死而复活」「因为圣经这样说」，说得很顺，可我自己心里都觉得心虚，好像在背书，不是在讲一件我真正相信的事。

　　Jenny：那心虚具体是什么感觉？

　　Tom：就是，我讲完那句话，心里立刻冒出一个念头——「这是我真信的，还是我只是知道『该』这样回答」？我分不清楚。

　　John：（放下水杯，认真听着）你们仨问的其实是同一件事的不同角度——「什么才算我自己的信仰」。这个问题很重要，我想先说一句可能有点反直觉的话：几乎没有人的信仰是「完全靠自己、不受任何环境影响」产生的，包括我。说来惭愧，我信主头几年最大的动力，其实是想追一个很虔诚的女生，追到后来女生跑了，信仰倒留下来了——按你们这个逻辑，我这信仰的「出身」比你们还不纯，但我现在觉得它是我自己的，比当年任何时候都更是。

　　Jack：那这不就证明了我的担心是对的吗——大家的信仰说到底都是被环境塑造的，谈不上什么「真的相信」。

　　John：我要说的正好相反。「受环境影响」跟「不是真的相信」，是两件不一样的事。你数学学得好，是因为你有个好老师、好的教材，这不代表你算出来的答案就不是「你自己」算的。信仰的传递也是这样——神常常用父母、教会、群体，把福音带到我们面前，这是神安排的正常管道，不是信仰「不够真」的证据。

　　Peter：那怎么知道，我信的是不是真的，不只是「习惯」？

　　John：我问你一个问题——如果明天你爸妈突然告诉你，他们其实一直不信，只是为了「传统」才带你去教会，你会怎么反应？

　　Peter：（想了想）……我会很难过，但我大概不会因此就不信了。我信的东西，好像还是站得住的，跟他们信不信没关系。

　　John：那这个反应本身，就是一个信号——说明你心里那份相信，已经不完全等于「我爸妈信什么我就信什么」了，它已经有了自己的根，哪怕这个根一开始是别人替你种下的。欧文除了写治死罪，还写过一本讲跟神相交的书，里面谈到一件事——他说，神自己的灵会亲自向一个人的灵作见证，让他知道自己是神的儿女，这个见证不是靠推理算出来的，也不是靠「我从小就这样信」这种习惯撑出来的，是圣灵自己在一个人心里做的工作，罗马书第八章讲的就是这个。换句话说，你现在心里那份「这好像真的是我自己的」的确信，本身可能就是这个见证在起作用，不完全是你自己分析出来的结论。

　　Jack：那这个「见证」跟单纯的「感觉良好」怎么分？我也可能只是心理作用。

　　John：好问题，这个我们下半场可以再往下聊，先记住一点——圣灵的见证不是取代你的思考，是跟你诚实的思考一起工作的，所以你此刻这样认真地问、认真地查考，恰恰是这个过程的一部分，不是跟它对着干。

　　Jack：（犹豫了一下，声音低了点）那我可以问一个更具体、也更让我不安的问题吗……上学期World Religions那门课，教授讲比较宗教学的时候，把耶稣的复活跟其他古代宗教里「神明死而复活」的神话摆在一起讲，说这是古代近东很常见的一种叙事模板。我当时听完整节课都没怎么听进去，脑子里一直在想——如果这只是「模板」的一种，那我是不是从小被教的这套，其实也没那么特别？我甚至有点不敢跟我爸妈提这个问题，怕他们觉得我信仰出了问题。

　　Jenny：（有点吃惊）你憋了这么久没说？

　　Jack：说了怕被说「怀疑心太重」「读书读傻了」，从小教会给我的感觉就是，「有疑问」本身好像已经不太对。

　　John：Jack，我想先说一句——你刚才敢把这个问题讲出来，不是「信仰出了问题」的信号，反而是你认真对待信仰的信号。一个从来不问「这是不是真的」的信仰，跟一个问过、还愿意继续相信的信仰，分量是不一样的。

　　Tom：那到底怎么分？「有疑问」和「信仰垮了」的界线在哪？我也常常怀疑，怎么知道我是「健康地问问题」，还是已经在往外滑？

　　John：这个界线，我觉得不在「你问了多少个问题」，是在「你带着这些问题往哪里走」。往两个方向走，结果完全不一样——一个方向，是带着问题去查考、去找人讨论、去把这个问题问到底，哪怕暂时找不到答案，也还是委身在这个信仰群体里面继续找；另一个方向，是把「有疑问」当成一个方便的出口，问了几句就自己下结论「反正说不清楚，那就是假的」，然后就不再往下追了。前者是成长，后者其实是找了个体面的理由离开。

　　Jack：那你说的这个「往下追」，具体要追到哪去？我总不能靠自己一个人查考出整套神学。

　　John：不用一个人查，这正是为什么神把我们放在群体里、也留下了历世历代那么多认真处理过这些问题的人。就拿你说的那个「死而复活的神话模板」来说——这个问题其实早就有认真的学者处理过，不是什么新问题。你可以先看一件事：福音书不是把复活写成一个后来慢慢滚出来的传说，是在很早期的基督教见证里，就已经把耶稣的死、埋葬、复活、向门徒显现，当作历史事件正面宣告出来的——保罗在哥林多前书十五章，甚至直接把一串目击者的名字和还活着的群体摆出来，等于是说「你们不信可以去问」。大部分你教授讲的那类古代「死而复活」神话，压根不是这种历史记载的写法，是被当成象征、当成仪式背景来讲的故事，跟福音书作者一开始就宣称「这是真实发生在历史里的事」，性质不一样。我不是说这一个论证就能解决你所有的疑问，这个问题也值得你认真去查，而不是一句「古代神话模板」就打发过去；我想说的是——这条路是可以认真走下去的，不需要因为一堂课讲了三十分钟就把十几年的信仰连根拔起。二十世纪初普林斯顿神学院有一位神学家叫梅钦（J. Gresham Machen），他一直强调一件事，大意是——基督教从来不是一种「我觉得这样活着比较有意义」的生活态度，是建立在神在历史里真正做过的一件事上，耶稣真的降生、真的死、真的复活，这是一个客观的历史宣告，不是先从「我心里的感觉」出发的。这提醒我们，你现在这样查考、追问，追的不是「这套东西让不让我舒服」，是「这件事到底是不是真的发生过」，这才是问对了方向。

　　Jack：（松了口气）……这个我倒是没想过要这样去查，我一直以为「有疑问」就只能憋着，或者干脆算了。

　　John：憋着最伤人，因为憋久了，问题不会消失，只会在心里发酵成「反正没人能回答」的结论，那才是真正危险的地方。

　　Amy：（这次是真心好奇，不是挑衅）可你们说的这些「信号」都挺主观的，我更想问一个更根本的问题——凭什么说「相信耶稣」比「相信别的」更「真」？我从小家里没有任何信仰，我看很多人信不同的东西，各有各的一套说法，各自都觉得自己那套是「真的」。

　　Tom：（顺势）对，我Philosophy的TA上学期就讲，每个人的「意义系统」都是自己在某个文化环境里建构出来的，没有哪一个能证明自己比别的更「客观真实」，包括宗教信仰。

　　John：（不急）这个说法我完全理解，因为我大一的时候，也差点被这套话说服。我想请你们注意一件事——「所有信念都是被建构的，没有哪个更真」，这句话本身，是不是也是一个「信念」？

　　Jack：……好像是。

　　John：那这句话有没有豁免自己不被「建构」？如果它也只是这个时代文化建构出来的一种说法，那它凭什么比它想推翻的那些「更真」？如果它没有豁免自己，那这整套说法用来说服你的力量，其实就自己先垮掉了——它要嘛承认自己也只是一种「建构」，没资格评判别人；要嘛承认真的有些东西是超越建构、真实存在的，可如果连这一点都承认了，那「什么都是建构出来的、没有客观真实」这句话本身，也就站不住了。

　　Amy：（认真思考）……你这是说，这套「一切都是相对的」说法，其实没办法只讲自己，一讲出来就把自己也否定掉了？

　　John：对。我不是要用这个把你说服「所以基督教就是对的」，这个跳得太快。我想说的是——你不能靠「什么都是建构的」这句话，来回避「到底哪个是真的」这个问题，因为这句话本身没办法真的站在一个中立的地方，它自己也是一种立场，跟其他立场一样需要被检验。

　　Jack：那到底怎么检验？我信的这套，凭什么比别的更站得住？

　　John：这个问题，可能没办法在一次聚会里讲完，但我可以先给一个方向——你信的这套，能不能诚实地面对最难的问题，还是需要靠回避才能维持？圣经从不回避苦难、罪恶、死亡这些最难的问题，反而直接把它们摆在最中心。你可以拿这个去检验任何一套「意义系统」，包括你自己那套怀疑一切的立场——它经得住被自己那把刀反过来割一下吗？

　　Peter：（想了想，半开玩笑地）所以你的意思是，我们不用怕问问题，只怕问完问题以后，找个方便的理由就此躺平不再往下想？

　　John：（笑）差不多是这个意思。神不怕你的问题，祂比你更清楚答案，你怕的、躲的，通常不是「问题太难」，是怕问下去以后，可能要付出改变生活的代价。

讨论：

几个朋友聊到了信仰是不是家庭的延续、标准答案背后的心虚、课堂上比较宗教学带来的动摇、还有「一切都是被建构的」这类说法自己站不站得住脚。John说，「有疑问」不是信仰出问题的信号，往哪个方向走才是关键——是带着问题继续往下查考，还是把疑问当成一个方便离开的出口。请讨论：

1) 如果有人问你「你为什么信耶稣」，撇开你从小听惯的标准答案不说，试着用你自己的话说一说，你现在心里，那份相信到底建立在什么上面？

2) 你有没有一个一直没敢问出口、或者问了却没敢往下追的疑问？

二、如果什么都没了，我还站得住吗？

　　Grace：（叹气）我想接着刚才的问题往下问。我现在信仰能维持，很大程度是因为有团契、有一群人一起，还有John你这样的辅导员。可我大四了，明年毕业，这些都会散。我有点怕——如果哪天离开这个环境，一个人在陌生的城市工作，我的信仰还站得住吗，还是说它其实一直是靠着这些环境撑着的？

　　Paul：（低声，带点自己的经验）我可以先说我的故事。我大学信仰其实挺热心的，天天参加团契，什么都参与。工作以后，团契没有了，身边全是不信的同事，加班到很晚，礼拜天累得爬不起来，慢慢地就不去教会了。不是哪一天决定不信了，是一点一点地，信仰就淡了，跟手机电量掉光一样，你根本没注意到具体哪一刻没电的。

　　Grace：那你后来呢？

　　Paul：（苦笑）我现在又回来了，但走了不少弯路，也吃了不少苦头才回来的。我现在回头想，那时候我的信仰，很大一部分真的是靠「有人陪着、有活动填着」撑住的，一旦这些撑住的东西被抽走，底下其实是空的。

　　Jenny：那你身边，有没有跟你一样淡出去、但到现在还没回来的朋友？

　　Paul：（沉默了一下）有。我大学最好的一个哥们，跟我几乎是同一年信主、同一年淡出去的，我回来了，他到现在还是没回来。我这两年一直有联系他，偶尔约他吃饭，从来不劝他「快回教会」，就是好好当朋友。他不是不信有神，他说他只是「没有力气再回去面对那些期待」。说实话，我不知道他哪天会不会回来，我只能说，我不会放弃找他吃饭。

　　John：Paul讲的这两个例子，都很真实，也提醒我们——信仰淡出去这件事，没有一个保证「一定会怎样」的公式，有的人会回来，有的人这条路走得特别长。这不是要吓唬大家，是想让你们知道，Grace你的担心不是多余的，事实上，团契、教会群体，本来就是神安排来「陪伴」我们信仰的正常方式，不是可有可无的，圣经从来没说信仰是一件「一个人在房间里」就能维持好的事，希伯来书特别提醒不可停止聚会。所以你担心「离开团契信仰会撑不住」，这个担心本身是对的、是健康的，不该被压下去，反而应该趁着现在还有团契的时候，想清楚怎么带着这些根一起走。

　　Jack：那具体怎么带？总不能把John你打包带走吧。

　　John：（笑）带的不是某个人，是几件更根本的东西——第一，是你跟神之间那份不靠环境中介的、直接的关系，靠祷告、靠读经养成的，这是别人拿不走的。第二，是找到、也主动成为那个即使换了城市也愿意重新建立的信徒群体——毕业之后，找教会不是「可做可不做」的选项，是必须优先做的事，跟找房子、找工作一样重要，甚至更重要。

　　Sophia：（低声插话）可我不是快毕业的问题，我是研一，我高中毕业以后，离开家、离开原来的教会，去了外地念大学，就那样慢慢远离了两年多——中间没有人「陪」我，我也没有主动找教会，就那样飘着。

　　Tom：那你后来怎么想起回来的？

　　Sophia：（想了想）说不清楚，可能就是心里一直有个说不出来的空，直到有一天真的太难受了，才想起来该回教会看看。

　　John：Sophia你的经历，其实印证了Paul说的——「靠环境撑着」这件事，脆弱到只要环境一变，就可能慢慢散掉。所以我今天想强调的不是「你要更努力靠自己撑住」，是——你越早开始，靠祷告、靠读经、靠委身一个具体的信徒群体，把根扎深，那根就越经得住以后环境的变动。

　　Tom：（换个话题，有点不好意思）我想说一件更丢脸的事。我在大学里，其实一直不太敢承认自己是基督徒。不是觉得羞耻，是不知道怎么解释——尤其是我自己的生活也一堆问题，喝酒、拖延、周末睡懒觉不去教会，别人一问「你是基督徒」，我就觉得很别扭，好像我一说是，就得马上表现得很「圣人」，可我根本不是。

　　Jenny：我有同感。我室友知道我信教之后，有次开玩笑说「那你不能骂人了吧」，我当时脑子一片空白，不知道该怎么回，最后含糊地笑笑带过去了。

　　Jack：那种时候感觉自己好像在演一个「模范基督徒」的角色，演不好就很丢人。

　　John：这个别扭，其实来自一个误解——好像「是基督徒」等于「我已经活得很完美」，一旦别人看到我不完美，我这个身份就穿帮了。但福音从来不是这样说的。基督徒不是「已经活对了的人」，是「知道自己活不对、却被一位完美的主接纳」的人。你可以直接跟你室友说——「对，我信耶稣，也对，我常常做得不好，这两件事不矛盾，正因为我做不好，我才需要耶稣」。这句话说出来，比装出一副完美的样子，更接近真相，也更有力量。

　　Tom：（有点犹豫）可我这个「做得不好」，不是那种偶尔的小失误，是真的常年改不掉——每个礼拜五晚上跟哥们出去，回来都喝得挺多，第二天躺一整天，礼拜天教会基本就废了。我不是没试过改，大一还发誓要戒，结果没撑过一个月。这种反反复复的，是不是说明我压根不是真信？

　　John：Tom，我不会说这跟「真信不真信」直接挂钩，但我要老实告诉你，这个反反复复背后，有个很值得留意的规律。十七世纪有位清教徒叫托马斯·布鲁克斯（Thomas Brooks），他专门写过一本讲撒但怎么诱惑人的书，里面提到撒但常用的一个手法，大意是——当一个人下定决心不再碰某件具体的罪时，撒但很少直接硬碰硬地把他拉回去，反而会换一件看起来没那么严重、甚至暂时还能带来点缓解的事，把他重新勾进去。你有没有发现，你不喝酒的那几周，是不是在别的地方反而更失控——可能是打游戏打到更晚，可能是对身边人脾气更差？

　　Tom：（愣了一下，想了想）……还真是，大一那次戒酒，我记得那阵子跟室友吵架特别凶，动不动就炸，我以前没觉得这两件事有关系。

　　John：这就是布鲁克斯讲的那种诡计——罪不是一件件孤立的事，它们常常从同一个根长出来。对你来说，那个根可能是「周末必须靠点什么才能把一周的压力放下」，喝酒只是这个根冒出来的其中一根枝子，你光砍这一根枝子，根还在，它一定会从别处再冒出来。真正要往下走的，不是「这周我能不能忍住不喝」，是回到那个根——你信不信，就算你这周又没忍住，神对你的接纳也没有因此掉一分；也正因为知道自己接纳是白白的，你才有力量、也才甘心去认真对付这根，而不是硬撑着做样子给别人看。

　　Tom：（想了想）……这样说好像轻松一点，不是那种「必须撑住不然就完了」的压力。

　　Amy：（这次问得很认真）我一直旁听你们讲这些，我发现你们其实也常常觉得神很遥远、日子也过得挣扎。我想问一个我自己一直想不通的问题——这个世界上这么多苦难，战争、疾病、不公义，天天新闻里都是这些。如果神真的存在，而且真的良善，为什么祂看起来什么都不做，就那样任由这一切发生？

　　（一时安静）

　　John：这是我们能问的最重的问题之一，我不会用一句话把它打发掉。我先说一件事——基督教从来不是一个「假装苦难不存在」或者「苦难都是幻觉」的信仰，圣经里约伯记整整一卷书，就是在处理这个问题，而且到最后神也没有给约伯一个「你受苦是因为……」的解释，神给的是祂自己——祂让约伯看见，祂是那位掌管一切、又与他同在的神，这份「同在」本身，成了约伯能继续活下去的力量，不是一个逻辑上完美的解释。

　　Amy：那不就是逃避问题吗，用「同在」来代替真正回答「为什么」？

　　John：我理解这个质疑。但我想反过来问——如果一个世界观完全没有神，苦难说到底只是物质世界里的随机事件，那「不公义」这个词，其实也失去了它原本的重量，因为没有神，也就没有一个客观的「本该如此」的标准，苦难只是「发生了」，谈不上「不该发生」。可你我此刻在说「战争、疾病、不公义」的时候，心里明明是带着「这不该是这样」的愤怒——这份愤怒，恰恰需要一个「本该更好」的标准才立得住，而基督教给的答案，正是这个世界确实「本该更好」，因为神造的世界本来是好的，是罪把它弄坏了，而且神没有留在远处不管，祂亲自进到这个破碎的世界里，在十字架上，自己承受了这份苦难最深的重量。

　　Amy：（沉默）……我需要再想想这个。

　　John：不用今天就想通，这本来就不是一次能想透的问题。我只想说——你愿意这样认真地问，本身就是好事，福音经得起你这样问下去。

讨论：

这一场聊到了Paul团契散了信仰慢慢淡下去的经历、还有一个到现在都没回来的朋友、Tom不敢承认自己是基督徒又活得不完美的别扭、还有Amy关于苦难与神的良善的追问。John说，福音里的「基督徒」不是活对了的人，是知道自己活不对、却被接纳的人；不能只戒一件事却不管背后的根，也不能因为反反复复就否定自己的信仰。面对苦难，神给的不只是一个解释，是祂亲自进入了这份破碎。请讨论：

1) 如果明年这个时候，你身边没有了现在这些团契的朋友，你觉得自己的信仰，靠什么才能继续站得住？

2) 现在有什么是你愿意今天就开始做，为那一天预备的？

Lesson 4: Why Do I Still Believe in Jesus? — Genuine Faith and Identity

(It has started raining outside. A few umbrellas are still dripping by the door. Everyone hangs their coats over the backs of their chairs and sits down.)

1. Is This Faith Really Mine?

Jack: (Putting his milk tea down on the table, looking troubled.) There’s something I’ve been thinking about these past few days, and the more I think about it, the more uneasy I feel. If I hadn’t been born into a Christian family, if my parents hadn’t taken me to church and sent me to Sunday school from a young age, would I ever have walked through the doors of a church today? Probably not. So does what I believe now really count as “my own faith,” or is it just an extension of my family, being indoctrinated somewhere else?

Peter: (Nods.) I’ve thought about that too. I’m a CBC—I grew up in church. I could tell you all the Bible stories with my eyes closed. But sometimes I wonder whether I really believe that “Jesus is Lord,” or whether I’ve simply gotten used to the whole Sunday routine, kind of like how I’m used to eating turkey every Thanksgiving.

Tom: (Half-joking, with a touch of sarcasm.) At least you two have the “grew up with it” version. Whenever someone asks me, “Why do you believe in Jesus?” my brain immediately spits out all the standard answers—“Because Jesus died and rose again for me,” “Because the Bible says so.” I can say them very smoothly, but even I feel uneasy inside, like I’m reciting something from a textbook rather than talking about something I actually believe.

Jenny: What exactly does that uneasiness feel like?

Tom: It’s like, right after I say those words, another thought immediately pops into my head: “Do I really believe this, or do I just know that this is the ‘right’ answer to give?” I can’t tell the difference.

John: (Puts down his glass of water and listens carefully.) The three of you are really asking the same question from different angles: “What counts as my own faith?” That’s an important question. Let me start with something that may sound a little counterintuitive: almost no one’s faith is produced “entirely on their own, completely untouched by their environment,” including mine. I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but during my first few years as a Christian, one of my biggest motivations was that I wanted to pursue a very devout girl. Eventually she left, but the faith stayed. So if you use that logic, the “origin” of my faith is probably even less pure than yours. But now I believe that my faith is truly my own—more than it ever was back then.

Jack: But doesn’t that prove exactly what I’m worried about? Everyone’s faith is ultimately shaped by their environment, so how can we talk about “really believing”?

John: I’m saying almost the opposite. Being influenced by your environment and not really believing are two different things. If you’re good at math because you had a good teacher and good textbooks, that doesn’t mean the answer you worked out isn’t “your own” answer. The same is true of how faith is passed on. God often uses parents, churches, and communities to bring the gospel before us. That is a normal means God has appointed; it isn’t evidence that our faith is somehow “less real.”

Peter: Then how do I know whether what I believe is real, rather than just a habit?

John: Let me ask you a question. If your parents suddenly told you tomorrow that they never actually believed, and that they only took you to church because of “tradition,” how would you react?

Peter: (Thinks for a moment.) I’d be really sad, but I don’t think I’d stop believing because of that. What I believe still seems to stand on its own. It doesn’t really depend on whether they believe or not.

John: Then that reaction itself is a signal. It suggests that what you believe in your heart is no longer simply “whatever my parents believe, I believe too.” It has begun to put down roots of its own, even if someone else planted those roots in the beginning. Owen, besides writing about putting sin to death, also wrote a book about communion with God. In it, he talks about something very important: the Spirit of God Himself bears witness with a person’s spirit, assuring that person that he is a child of God. That witness isn’t something you calculate through logical reasoning, nor is it something sustained simply by the habit of having believed this way since childhood. It is the work of the Holy Spirit in a person’s heart. Romans 8 is talking about precisely this. In other words, that sense you have right now that “this really does seem to be my own faith” may itself be part of that witness at work. It isn’t necessarily just a conclusion you have reasoned your way into.

Jack: Then how do you distinguish that “witness” from simply “feeling good”? It could just be psychological.

John: Good question. We can go deeper into that in the second half. For now, just remember one thing: the witness of the Holy Spirit doesn’t replace your thinking. It works together with honest thinking. So the fact that you are seriously asking these questions and seriously examining them right now is actually part of the process; it isn’t working against it.

Jack: (Hesitates, then speaks more quietly.) Can I ask a more specific question—one that makes me even more uncomfortable? Last semester, in my World Religions class, the professor was talking about comparative religion and put the resurrection of Jesus alongside myths from other ancient religions about gods dying and rising again. He said this was a common narrative pattern in the ancient Near East. I could barely concentrate for the rest of the class. I kept thinking: if this is just one example of a common “template,” then maybe what I was taught growing up isn’t actually that unique after all. I’ve even been afraid to bring this up with my parents because I’m worried they’ll think there’s something wrong with my faith.

Jenny: (A little surprised.) You’ve kept that to yourself all this time?

Jack: I was afraid they’d say I have too many doubts, or that studying has made me stupid. Growing up in church, I somehow got the impression that having questions was already a sign that something was wrong.

John: Jack, let me say this first: the fact that you just had the courage to say this out loud is not a sign that your faith is broken. In fact, it may be a sign that you’re taking your faith seriously. A faith that has never asked, “Is this really true?” is different from a faith that has asked that question and is still willing to keep believing.

Tom: Then how do you tell the difference? Where is the line between “having questions” and “my faith falling apart”? I have doubts all the time too. How do I know whether I’m “asking healthy questions” or whether I’m already drifting away?

John: I don’t think the line is about how many questions you ask. It’s about where you go with those questions. There are two very different directions you can take. In one direction, you bring your questions into serious study, talk them through with people, and keep pursuing them—even if you can’t find an answer immediately—while remaining committed to this community of faith and continuing to search. In the other direction, you treat having questions as a convenient exit: you ask a few questions, decide, “Well, if this can’t be explained, then it must be false,” and stop pursuing it. The first can be growth; the second can actually become a respectable-sounding reason for leaving.

Jack: When you say “keep pursuing it,” how far are we supposed to pursue it? I can’t figure out an entire theology on my own.

John: You don’t have to do it alone. That’s exactly why God has placed us in a community and why He has left us with generations of people who have seriously wrestled with these questions. Take the “dying and rising god myth template” you mentioned. Scholars have been dealing seriously with that question for a long time; it isn’t a new problem. Start by looking at one thing: the Gospels don’t present the resurrection as a legend that gradually developed over time. In the very early Christian witness, Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection, and appearances to His disciples were already being proclaimed as historical events. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul even gives a list of witnesses and refers to groups of people who were still alive—as if to say, “If you don’t believe it, you can go ask them.” Most of the ancient “dying and rising” myths your professor was talking about simply aren’t presented as historical records in that way. They are told as symbolic stories or as part of a ritual background. That is different from the Gospel writers’ claim from the beginning that “this really happened in history.” I’m not saying that one argument settles all your questions. This is something worth investigating seriously, rather than dismissing it with the phrase “ancient mythological template.” What I’m saying is that this is a road you can keep walking down. You don’t have to tear up a faith you’ve held for more than a decade just because of a thirty-minute lecture. J. Gresham Machen, a theologian at Princeton Seminary in the early twentieth century, repeatedly emphasized something along these lines: Christianity is not simply a “way of life that I feel gives me more meaning.” It is grounded in something God actually did in history. Jesus really was born, really died, and really rose again. That is an objective historical claim, not something that begins with “how I feel inside.” And that reminds us that when you investigate and ask these questions, you aren’t merely asking, “Does this belief system make me comfortable?” You’re asking, “Did this actually happen?” That is the right direction to pursue.

Jack: (Relieved.) I honestly never thought about investigating it that way. I always thought that if you had questions, you either had to keep them to yourself or just forget about them.

John: Keeping them inside is what hurts the most. If you suppress questions for long enough, they don’t disappear. They ferment into the conclusion that “no one can answer this anyway.” That’s where the real danger lies.

Amy: (This time genuinely curious rather than confrontational.) But all these “signals” you’re talking about sound pretty subjective. I want to ask something more fundamental: what makes you say that believing in Jesus is more “true” than believing in something else? I grew up in a family with no religious faith at all. I see lots of people believing different things, each with their own explanations, and each of them thinks their own belief is “true.”

Tom: (Picking up on that.) Exactly. My Philosophy TA said last semester that everyone constructs their own “meaning system” within a particular cultural environment, and that none of them can prove themselves to be more “objectively true” than the others, including religious beliefs.

John: (Calmly.) I completely understand that argument, because I almost became convinced by it myself in my first year of university. But I want you to notice something: the statement “all beliefs are constructed, and none is more true than another”—isn’t that itself a “belief”?

Jack: …I guess it is.

John: Then does that statement exempt itself from being “constructed”? If it too is simply something constructed by the culture of our time, what makes it more true than the beliefs it is trying to overturn? If it doesn’t exempt itself, then the persuasive force of the whole argument collapses on itself. Either it has to admit that it too is merely a “construction” and therefore has no authority to judge other beliefs, or it has to admit that some things are real and exist beyond cultural construction. But if it admits that, then the statement “everything is constructed and there is no objective reality” can’t stand as it is.

Amy: (Thinking seriously.) So you’re saying that the idea that “everything is relative” can’t simply exempt itself from its own argument? The moment it makes that claim, it undermines itself?

John: Exactly. I’m not trying to use that argument to convince you that Christianity is therefore true—that would be too big a jump. What I’m saying is that you can’t use “everything is constructed” to avoid the question of “which one is actually true?” That statement itself cannot occupy some completely neutral position. It is a position, just like any other position, and it also needs to be examined.

Jack: Then how do we examine it? Why should the faith I believe in be more defensible than other beliefs?

John: That question probably can’t be answered completely in one meeting, but I can give you a direction to start with: can the faith you believe in honestly face the hardest questions, or does it have to avoid them in order to survive? The Bible never avoids the hardest questions of suffering, sin, and death. Instead, it puts them right at the center. You can use that as a test for any “meaning system,” including your own position of doubting everything: can it withstand having its own knife turned back on itself?

Peter: (Thinking, half-joking.) So you’re saying we don’t have to be afraid of asking questions. We just have to be careful not to ask the questions and then find some convenient excuse to stop thinking about them?

John: (Smiles.) That’s about it. God isn’t afraid of your questions. He knows the answers better than you do. What you’re usually afraid of isn’t that the question is too difficult. It’s that if you keep asking, you may eventually have to pay the cost of changing the way you live.

Discussion

The friends have talked about whether faith is simply an extension of one’s family, the uneasiness behind giving standard answers, the doubts raised by a comparative-religion class, and whether the claim that “everything is constructed” can actually stand on its own. John says that having questions is not itself a sign that faith is in trouble; what matters is which direction you take those questions—whether you continue investigating them, or use them as a convenient excuse to leave. Discuss:

1) If someone asks you, “Why do you believe in Jesus?” Put aside the standard answers you have heard since childhood and try to say, in your own words, what your own faith is actually grounded in right now.

2) Is there a question you have never dared to ask out loud, or a question you have asked but never dared to pursue further?

2. If Everything Were Taken Away, Would I Still Stand?

Grace: (Sighs.) I want to follow up on the question from earlier. A big part of what keeps my faith going right now is having a fellowship group, having a group of people around me, and having someone like you, John, as a mentor. But I’m a senior now, and I graduate next year. All of that is going to disappear. I’m a little afraid—if one day I leave this environment and work in an unfamiliar city by myself, will my faith still stand? Or has it actually been held up by all these circumstances this whole time?

Paul: (Quietly, drawing from his own experience.) I can tell my story first. My faith in university was actually pretty strong. I went to fellowship every day and participated in everything. After I started working, there was no fellowship group anymore, everyone around me was a non-Christian, I worked late into the night, and by Sunday I was too exhausted to get out of bed. Gradually I stopped going to church. It wasn’t that I decided one day that I no longer believed. My faith just faded little by little, like the battery on your phone running down. You don’t even notice exactly when it runs out.

Grace: What happened to you afterward?

Paul: (Smiles bitterly.) I’ve come back now, but it took a lot of detours and a lot of pain to get back. Looking back, I realize that a large part of my faith back then really was being held up by “having people around me” and “having activities to keep me engaged.” Once those things were taken away, there wasn’t much underneath.

Jenny: Do you have any friends who faded away like you did but still haven’t come back?

Paul: (Pauses.) Yes. One of my best friends from university came to faith in almost the same year I did and drifted away at almost the same time. I came back, but he still hasn’t. I’ve stayed in touch with him over the past two years and occasionally asked him out for a meal. I’ve never tried to persuade him to “come back to church.” I just try to be his friend. He doesn’t deny that God exists. He says he simply “doesn’t have the strength to go back and face all those expectations.” Honestly, I don’t know whether he’ll ever come back. All I can say is that I’m not going to stop asking him out for meals.

John: Both of Paul’s examples are very real, and they remind us that there is no formula guaranteeing what will happen when someone’s faith fades. Some people come back; for others, the road is very long. I’m not saying this to frighten you. I want you to know that Grace, your concern isn’t unnecessary. In fact, fellowship and the church community are normal means God has provided to accompany us in our faith. They aren’t optional extras. Scripture never says that faith is something you can maintain perfectly by yourself in a room. Hebrews specifically warns us not to give up meeting together. So your concern that your faith might not hold up after leaving your fellowship is actually a legitimate and healthy concern. You shouldn’t suppress it. Instead, while you still have this fellowship around you, you should think about how to take these roots with you when you leave.

Jack: How do you actually take them with you? We can’t exactly pack you, John, into a suitcase and take you along.

John: What you take with you isn’t one particular person. It’s a few things that are more fundamental. First, there is your direct relationship with God that doesn’t depend on your environment as an intermediary, cultivated through prayer and reading Scripture. No one can take that away from you. Second, find—and actively become part of—a community of believers that you are willing to rebuild even if you move to another city. After graduation, finding a church isn’t an optional item on the list. It needs to be a priority, just like finding housing or a job—perhaps even more important.

Sophia: (Quietly.) But my problem isn’t that I’m about to graduate. I’m only a first-year graduate student. After high school, I left home and my old church to attend university somewhere else, and I gradually drifted away for more than two years. No one was there to “walk with me,” and I didn’t take the initiative to find a church either. I just drifted.

Tom: So what made you think about coming back?

Sophia: (Thinks for a moment.) I can’t really explain it. Maybe there was always this emptiness inside that I couldn’t put into words. Then one day I was hurting so badly that I finally remembered that I should go back to church and see what it was like.

John: Sophia, your experience actually confirms what Paul was saying. Being “held up by your environment” is fragile enough that once the environment changes, things can gradually fall apart. So what I want to emphasize today isn’t “you need to try harder and hold yourself up.” It’s this: the earlier you begin putting down deeper roots through prayer, Scripture, and commitment to a concrete community of believers, the more those roots will be able to withstand changes in your circumstances later on.

Tom: (Changing the subject, a little embarrassed.) I want to admit something even more embarrassing. At university, I’ve actually been afraid to admit that I’m a Christian. It’s not that I’m ashamed of it. I just don’t know how to explain it—especially because my own life is full of problems. I drink, I procrastinate, I sleep in on weekends and don’t go to church. Whenever someone asks, “Are you a Christian?” I feel awkward, as if the moment I say yes, I’m supposed to immediately start acting like some kind of saint. But I’m not.

Jenny: I know what you mean. After my roommate found out that I’m a Christian, she once joked, “Then I guess you can’t swear anymore, right?” My mind just went blank. I didn’t know what to say, so I just laughed awkwardly and let it go.

Jack: It feels like you’re playing the role of a “model Christian.” If you don’t play the part well, it’s embarrassing.

John: That awkwardness actually comes from a misunderstanding—as if “being a Christian” means “I already live perfectly.” Once people see that I’m imperfect, it feels like my identity has been exposed as a fraud. But that’s never what the gospel says. A Christian isn’t “someone who has already learned to live rightly.” A Christian is someone who knows that he doesn’t live rightly, yet has been accepted by a perfect Lord. You can simply tell your roommate, “Yes, I believe in Jesus. And yes, I often don’t do very well. Those two things aren’t contradictory. In fact, it’s precisely because I don’t do well that I need Jesus.” Saying that is closer to the truth, and more powerful, than pretending to be perfect.

Tom: (Hesitates.) But my “not doing well” isn’t just an occasional little mistake. It’s something I’ve struggled with for years and can’t seem to change. Every Friday night I go out with my friends, drink quite a lot, sleep all day Saturday, and by Sunday I’m basically useless when it comes to church. It’s not like I haven’t tried to change. In my first year I even swore I’d quit drinking, but I didn’t make it through a month. When I keep going back and forth like this, doesn’t that mean I’m not really a Christian in the first place?

John: Tom, I wouldn’t say that this directly proves whether your faith is genuine or not. But I do want to tell you honestly that there’s a pattern behind this repeated struggle that is worth paying attention to. In the seventeenth century, a Puritan named Thomas Brooks wrote a book specifically about how Satan tempts people. He points out one tactic Satan commonly uses: when a person makes up his mind to stop committing a particular sin, Satan rarely tries to drag him straight back into that same sin head-on. Instead, he may switch to something that seems less serious, or that even provides some temporary relief, and use that to draw the person back in. Have you ever noticed that during those weeks when you weren’t drinking, you were perhaps losing control somewhere else—maybe staying up even later playing video games, or becoming much more short-tempered with the people around you?

Tom: (Taken aback, then thinking.) …Actually, yes. When I tried to quit drinking in my first year, I remember getting into really intense arguments with my roommates. I’d blow up over almost anything. I never thought those two things might be connected.

John: That’s the kind of strategy Brooks was talking about. Sin isn’t made up of isolated little compartments. Different sins often grow from the same root. For you, that root might be the belief that “I need something to help me let go of the pressure of the week.” Drinking is just one branch growing out of that root. If you only cut off that one branch, the root is still there, and it will eventually grow another one somewhere else. The real issue isn’t simply “Can I manage not to drink this week?” It’s going back to that root: do you really believe that even if you fail again this week, God’s acceptance of you has not dropped by a single degree? And precisely because you know that your acceptance is freely given, you can have the strength—and the willingness—to seriously deal with that root, rather than desperately trying to keep up appearances for everyone else.

Tom: (Thinks for a moment.) …That actually makes it feel a little lighter. It’s not the pressure of “I have to hold it together or everything is over.”

Amy: (This time asking very seriously.) I’ve been listening to all of you talk, and I’ve noticed that you also often feel that God is distant and that life is a struggle. There’s something I’ve never been able to make sense of myself. There is so much suffering in the world—war, disease, injustice. Every day the news is full of these things. If God really exists, and if He is truly good, why does He seem to do nothing and simply allow all of this to happen?

(There is a moment of silence.)

John: That is one of the heaviest questions we can ask. I’m not going to dismiss it with a single sentence. Let me say one thing first: Christianity has never been a faith that pretends suffering doesn’t exist or that suffering is an illusion. The entire book of Job is devoted to wrestling with this question. And in the end, God doesn’t give Job an explanation saying, “You suffered because…” What God gives him is Himself. He allows Job to see that He is the God who rules over all things and is also present with him. That presence itself becomes the strength that enables Job to keep living; it isn’t a logically perfect explanation.

Amy: Isn’t that just avoiding the question? Using “God’s presence” to replace a real answer to “Why?”

John: I understand the objection. But let me turn the question around. If a worldview has no God at all, then suffering is ultimately just a random event in the material world. In that case, the word “injustice” actually loses the weight it originally carries, because without God there is no objective standard of what “ought to be.” Suffering simply “happened”; there’s no basis for saying that it shouldn’t have happened. Yet when you and I talk about “war, disease, and injustice,” there is clearly an anger in our hearts that says, “This should not be this way.” That anger itself requires some standard of “it ought to be better” in order to make sense. And Christianity’s answer is precisely that this world really ought to be better, because God originally created the world good, and sin has broken it. And God did not remain far away and leave us to deal with the brokenness ourselves. He entered this broken world Himself and, on the cross, bore the deepest weight of that suffering.

Amy: (Silent.) …I need to think about that some more.

John: You don’t have to figure it all out today. This isn’t a question that can be fully worked through in one meeting. I just want to say this: the fact that you’re willing to ask the question this seriously is itself a good thing. The gospel can withstand you continuing to ask.

Discussion

This session included Paul’s experience of gradually drifting away from faith after his fellowship group disappeared, as well as his friend who still hasn’t returned; Tom’s discomfort about admitting that he is a Christian while knowing that his own life is far from perfect; and Amy’s questions about suffering and the goodness of God. John says that the “Christian” in the gospel is not someone who has already learned to live rightly, but someone who knows that he does not live rightly and yet has been accepted. We cannot simply quit one particular sin while ignoring the root underneath it, nor should repeated failure automatically lead us to deny our faith. In the face of suffering, God gives us not merely an explanation, but enters into the brokenness Himself. Discuss:

1) If this time next year you no longer have the fellowship friends who are around you now, what do you think your faith would have to rest on in order to continue standing?

2) What is there that you are willing to begin doing today to prepare for that day?

　　（Tom和Amy一起走进来，两人手还牵着，Amy有点不好意思地松开手）

一、基督徒谈恋爱，到底有什么不一样？

　　Jack：（笑）哟，才校园情侣没几个月，牵手都还不好意思了？

　　Amy：（脸红）不是……是不知道在你们这里牵手合不合适。

　　Jenny：（笑）合适合适，你们俩已经是团契公认的官方情侣了。

　　Peter：（叹气，语气有点酸）羡慕，我到现在都没谈过恋爱，你们俩都快一年了吧？

　　Jenny：一年零两个月了，我记得清清楚楚，因为Tom那天晚上在我们群里发喜讯发到半夜，还配了七八张照片。

　　Tom：（不好意思）那天是真的开心嘛。

　　Amy：（有点好奇）我一直想问，你们基督徒谈恋爱，到底有什么不一样？我身边非基督徒的朋友谈恋爱，也讲三观合不合、也讲尊重对方，我不太明白「基督徒的恋爱」具体差在哪，总不会只是「一起去教会」这么简单吧？

　　John：（把手里那杯还没喝完的咖啡放下，笑着接话）这个问题问得好，我先说我不同意的答案——不是「一起去教会」，也不是「不能接吻」，这些顶多是表面的差异。

　　Tom：（笑）那你说说，不然我跟Amy这一年到底哪里「基督徒」了？

　　John：我觉得核心的差别，是「你为什么在一起」，还有「出了问题的时候，你们往哪里去」。很多恋爱关系，说白了核心逻辑是「你能不能满足我」——满足我的安全感、满足我的自尊、满足我不想一个人的孤独。这个逻辑本身没有坏到不能谈，几乎所有恋爱一开始都带着这个成分。但基督徒的恋爱，如果是健康的，核心逻辑会慢慢变成——我们两个人一起，是不是能帮助彼此更像基督，更认识神、更被神改变。

　　Amy：（皱眉）那如果只谈「帮助彼此更像基督」，听起来好严肃，谈恋爱不就是想开心、想被爱吗？

　　John：想开心、想被爱，这不是错的，神造我们本来就渴望被爱、渴望亲密关系，这个渴望是好的。我要说的不是「不能享受恋爱」，是——当出问题的时候，比如吵架了、对方让你失望了、这段关系让你没那么开心了，你们两个是各自去处理自己的情绪、找台阶下，还是愿意一起回到神面前，老实说「我哪里伤了你，我哪里需要改」。

　　Jenny：（想起什么）我表姐跟她男朋友，两个人都说自己是基督徒，也一起去教会、一起participate敬拜团，看起来特别登对。但每次私下吵架，都是各自去找自己的闺蜜、兄弟吐槽对方多差，从来没有两个人一起祷告过，甚至有一次我表姐跟我说，「我们俩在教会看起来很般配，其实私下没什么共同语言」。后来分了，她说，「我们连信仰这一点都没能真正共享，只是两个都信主的人在一起而已」。

　　Jack：那你说的「一起回到神面前」，具体是长什么样？会不会又是那种「两个人牵手祷告十分钟就和好」的鸡汤画面？

　　John：（笑）不一定长得那么画面感，我认识一对夫妻，结婚快十年了，他们跟我说，他们吵得最凶的一次，是为了买房子的事，两个人几乎要冷战。后来是丈夫先开口，不是说「我们祷告吧」，是说「我发现我这几天讲话很凶，是因为我心里怕我们会做错决定，怕自己不够能干」，然后老婆也说了自己害怕的地方。他们说，那次没有立刻解决买房的问题，但两个人的心先合在一起了。这才是我说的「往哪里去」——不是有没有做祷告的仪式，是愿不愿意在冲突里，先老实面对自己里面的东西，而不是只顾着赢这场架。

　　Jenny：这就是我表姐跟她前男友缺的那一块。

　　John：对，标签相同不代表核心相同。

　　Peter：（换个话题，有点犹豫）John，我不是在谈恋爱，我是……一直单身。有时候我真的会觉得，是不是我哪里有问题，是不是不够好才没人喜欢我。我知道理智上不该把「被爱」跟「有没有价值」画等号，但心里就是控制不住这么想。

　　Jack：（半开玩笑）Peter你人挺好的，可能只是你们CS系男生比例太失衡了。

　　Peter：（苦笑）这个我知道，但那不是重点，重点是……我发Ins的时候，看到高中同学一个个都有对象了，晒合照、晒纪念日，我心里那种「是不是我不够好」的感觉，真的挥之不去。而且我妈那边也开始念叨了，说什么「你表哥都订婚了」，好像单身是一种要被治疗的病。

　　Amy：（点头）这个我也懂，虽然我不是基督徒，但我们心理学课上，教授讲依恋类型（attachment style），说一个人对亲密关系的焦虑，很大程度上是童年跟父母的依恋模式决定的。我上完那节课，反而更焦虑了，因为我开始怀疑，我是不是「回避型依恋」，是不是我自己有问题才谈不好恋爱。

　　John：这个提醒我想到一件事——依恋类型这些研究，其实能帮我们看清楚很多真实的东西，比如为什么我们会用某种方式反应、为什么某些关系模式特别让我们不安，这些都是有用的观察，我不会说它是假的。但这类理论能回答的，是「你为什么会有这种反应模式」，回答不了的，是「你到底值不值得被爱」这个问题。就算你被诊断出「回避型依恋」，这也只是描述了你的一种反应习惯，不能决定你有没有价值。

　　Peter：那到底怎么样才能真的相信自己「有价值」，而不是嘴上说说？

　　John：这个感觉，我完全理解，而且我不想轻描淡写地说「你很好，别多想」，因为那种感觉不是靠一句安慰就能消失的——我大学单身了整整四年，前女友分手理由是「我们更适合当朋友」，一开始我心里翻译成「我不够好」翻译了大概一年。我想问你一件事——如果你现在马上有了对象，那种「我不够好」的感觉，会彻底消失吗，还是只是被压下去一阵子？

　　Peter：（想了想）……可能会消失一阵子，但我猜过一阵子又会冒出别的，比如「我配不配一直被爱」之类的。

　　John：这就是问题的核心——如果「被爱」是用来证明「我有价值」，那这个价值感会一直是悬空的，因为它靠的是另一个人持续地选择你、持续地不离开你，而人是会变的、会累的、甚至会犯错离开的。神给你的身份，不是靠一个人来证明你够好——严格说，神爱你，从来不是因为你条件够好、够格被爱，基督十字架上要显明的，恰恰是你不需要先证明自己值得，神就在你还不配的时候主动爱了你。这不是要你「不谈恋爱也无所谓」的鸡汤，是说，你的价值感如果先扎根在这里，你以后不管单身还是有对象，那份不安全感都会松动一些。清教徒传统很喜欢讲一件事——我们不只是被神像法官一样宣判「无罪」，还被接进了祂的家。巴刻（J. I. Packer）说过，被神收养作儿女，是整个福音所给出的最高的一项特权。你不是被捞出来之后晾在旁边，是被当成亲生儿女疼爱。

　　Peter：（叹气）道理我懂，但知道跟感觉到，中间差好远。我妈昨天又发微信说「你表哥订婚了」，我看到那条消息的时候，道理什么的完全想不起来，就是很难受。

　　John：我同意，这条路不是听一次道理就走完的，是要一次一次在这个感觉冒出来的时候，重新选择相信福音说的，而不是相信朋友圈、或者你妈的微信告诉你的。

　　Jack：（换个角度）那我问个更直接的——关于身体界限这件事，说实话，我现在守着，很大一部分是因为怕犯罪、怕搞砸，而不是因为我真的理解这些界限本身有什么美善。这种心态，算是……有问题吗？

　　John：这是个很诚实的问题，我遇到很多学生也是这样。先说结论——「怕犯罪」不是完全没用，圣经里也讲敬畏神，但如果只停在「怕」，这个界限会很脆弱，因为怕是可以被压过去的，尤其是感情浓烈的时候。

　　Jack：（老实说）说实话，上一段感情里我确实有过差点越界的时候，那次真的不是靠什么「理解美善」拦住我的，是突然想到「要是团契的人知道了怎么办」，那种怕丢脸的感觉硬生生拦住了我。现在想想，那次拦住我的理由，其实挺不属灵的。

　　John：至少它拦住了你，这不是坏事，我不会说「因为动机不纯，所以那次守住不算数」。但你自己也感觉到了——靠「怕丢脸」撑住的防线，遇到没人看得见的时候，或者感情更深的时候，可能就撑不住了。

　　Amy：（好奇）那「理解界限的美善」是什么意思？我作为一个不算基督徒的人，说实话我看不出这些界限哪里「美」，只觉得是一堆规矩。

　　John：我试着这样说——身体的界限，圣经讲的核心不是「性是脏的、危险的，要小心」，而是「性是要指向一种完全的、公开的、一辈子的委身」，是在婚姻的约里，两个人把整个自己交托给对方，不留后路。在这个约之外提前使用它，某个角度说，是在还没有那份完全委身的保障时，就把最脆弱的自己交出去，很容易受伤，也容易把对方当成满足自己的工具，而不是要一辈子珍惜的人。这不是「神设了一堆规矩考验你」，是神在保护一件祂看为宝贵的事。

　　Amy：（若有所思，但没被完全说服）……这个说法比我以前听过的「等到结婚」版本好一点，但我还是觉得，两个人愿意、互相尊重，为什么一定要等一张证书？

　　John：这个问题很诚实，我今天没办法三句话说服你，我们下半场可以接着聊这个。我先回Jack——如果你能从「怕犯罪」，慢慢走到「理解这是在保护一件美好的事」，你守这个界限的时候，会从「忍着不做」变成「我在活出神看为美的东西」，那个动力会完全不一样。这里其实没有什么「中立地带」——范泰尔那一派的护教学一直强调，人做的每一件事，包括怎么对待自己的身体，从来不是一件「先中立、再选边站」的事，它已经是在敬拜点什么了。你要么是在用身体敬拜那位造你身体的神，要么是在用身体敬拜别的东西——可能是感觉、可能是被需要的证明、可能是别人怎么看你。不存在「先不管信仰，单纯讲身体」这回事。

讨论：

这一场里，Amy问基督徒谈恋爱到底有什么不一样，Peter说出单身让他觉得「自己不够好」的挣扎，Jack坦白自己守身体界限更多是出于怕犯罪而不是理解美善。John说，基督徒恋爱的核心差别不是标签，是「你为什么在一起」和「出问题时往哪里去」；也说，被爱不能拿来证明自己的价值，那个价值早已经在基督里被确立了。请讨论：

1) 从「谈恋爱的核心逻辑」「单身与价值感」「守界限的动机」这三件事里，哪一个你感受最深，或者最想追问？

2) 愿意的话，跟大家说说你自己（或者身边朋友）在这件事上的真实经历。

二、当爱不是想象中那样，我该怎么办？

　　Jack：（接着上半场的话题）说到「等到结婚」，我室友（不信主的）听我说这个，直接说我「压抑」，说什么都要有个证书才能做，太不现代了。我当时被问得哑口无言，只能说「这是我的信仰」，但这个答案感觉很没说服力，好像我自己也不太信服。

　　Amy：（点头）我之前也这么想，我们Gender Studies课上教授讲得更直接，说贞洁这种观念，从历史上看，本质上是父权社会用来控制女性身体、确保财产和血统继承的一套工具，跟什么「美善」没关系，纯粹是权力结构留下来的遗迹，只是现在包装得比较温和而已。我一开始听Tom讲这些的时候，心里其实是有点抗拒的，觉得是不是在给我洗脑。

　　Tom：（有点尴尬）我从来没想过要给你洗脑……

　　John：（对Amy）我完全理解这个疑虑，而且历史上教会确实也有滥用「贞洁」这个词去控制人、尤其是控制女性的例子，这些是真实发生过的伤害，不是我要否认或者轻描淡写的。但我想请你想一件事——你刚才说，「两个人愿意、互相尊重就够了」，「同意」（consent）是你判断这件事对不对的标准，对吗？

　　Amy：对，我觉得只要双方同意，没有伤害到谁，就没有谁有资格说这不对。

　　John：那我想追问——为什么「同意」是重要的？为什么不能是「谁力气大、谁有权、谁能说服对方，谁就可以做」？

　　Amy：（有点不耐烦）当然不能这样，那是剥削，是不尊重人。

　　John：你说「不尊重人」，其实已经预设了一件事——每一个人都有一种不能被随便侵犯的尊严，人不是可以被随便使用的物件，即使对方愿意、即使力量悬殊也没关系，也不代表可以不顾这个人本身的完整跟脆弱。这个「人有尊严、不该被当工具用」的信念，其实不是从「我们只是进化出来的、追求生存繁衍的动物」这个说法里长出来的——如果人真的只是这样，那身体、性，说到底也只是延续基因的工具而已，「同意」凭什么比「有效繁衍」更重要，凭什么比「基因传播效率」更重要？我不是说你信的这套没有good intention，是想指出，你其实也在借用一个「人有超越肉体、值得被珍惜」的信念，这个信念，圣经会告诉你，是因为人是照着神的形象造的。

　　Amy：（沉默了一下）……我没有从这个角度想过，我一直觉得「同意」是理所当然的标准，没想过它本身也需要一个理由撑着。

　　Jack：（插话）那这样说的话，是不是就能反驳我室友了？下次他再说我压抑，我就问他「同意」凭什么重要？

　　John：（笑）你可以问，但别指望一句话就把人问倒，这更多是帮你自己想清楚，而不是拿来赢辩论的武器。而且我要老实说，这个追问只能让人看到「你的标准也需要一个更深的根基」，没办法直接证明「所以基督教是对的」，那是更长的一段路，今天没办法走完。

　　Amy：（若有所思）……我需要再想想，这个说法我没办法立刻接受，但我承认，它让我没办法像刚才那么理直气壮了。

　　Tom：（换回自己的角度，有点艰难）那我问个更贴身的——Amy现在对信仰感兴趣，但还没信，我们俩感情挺好的，但我心里其实一直有个坎——如果她一直不信，我们两个继续走下去，是不是就是在明知故犯？可如果我因为这个跟她分手，感觉又太狠了，她现在明明在慢慢靠近信仰。

　　Amy：（有点难受）……你从来没跟我说过你在纠结这个，我一直以为我们挺好的。

　　John：Tom，我很感谢你愿意在这里说出来，这个张力是真实的，我不会假装它不存在。圣经确实提醒信徒不要跟不信的人「同负一轭」，这不是要贬低Amy的价值，也不是说不信的人就不值得爱，是因为婚姻是要一起走一辈子最深处的路，如果两个人对「人生最终的意义、最终的依靠」有根本不同的答案，这条路会走得特别辛苦，尤其是遇到难处的时候，比如孩子的教育、比如面对生死这样的事。

　　Amy：（低声）那你的意思是，我们俩没有未来？

　　John：我没有资格替你们两个做这个决定，我只想说两件事。第一，这不代表你现在就要「表演信主」来配合这段感情，那样对你、对信仰都不诚实，神要的是你自己真实地被祂吸引，不是为了留住一段关系。第二，Tom，你现在已经在纠结这件事了，这个纠结本身就是个信号，值得你们两个诚实地聊一聊，而不是一直往前走，指望以后自然会解决，也不要用「反正她可能以后会信」这种模糊的期待，来逃避现在就要面对的问题。

　　Tom：（叹气）……这个我确实一直在逃避，怕一聊就要面对分手的可能，也怕伤到她。

　　（Amy沉默了一会儿，转向Tom，声音有点发抖）

　　Amy：Tom，我想问你一件事，你老实回答我——你现在跟我在一起，是不是……有一部分原因，是希望有一天能把我「带来信主」？如果是这样，我会觉得，我好像不是被你当成一个完整的人在爱，是一个待完成的project。

　　Tom：（愣住，然后很认真地）不是。至少……不完全是。我是真的希望你能认识神，因为我觉得那是好的事，但我爱你，不是因为你「还没信」这件事，是因为你这个人，你笑起来的样子、你半夜陪我改论文的耐心、你会记得我提过一次的小事——这些跟你信不信没有关系，我从一开始喜欢的就是这些。

　　Amy：（眼眶有点红）那你刚才说的「明知故犯」……听起来就是在说，我们这样在一起本身就是个错误。

　　Tom：（急忙解释）我不是这个意思，我是说……我怕的不是「现在」，是怕以后。怕我们真的走到结婚那一步，遇到很难的事——比如生病、比如吵得很凶的时候，我会本能地想靠祷告、靠信仰撑过去，而你可能完全没有那个依靠，那种时候我们会不会其实是各自在面对，而不是一起面对。

　　Amy：（沉默了一下）……我没有从这个角度想过，我一直以为你担心的是「我们现在做的事对不对」，没想过你担心的是「以后」。

　　John：（轻声插话）Tom，你愿意把这个「怕」说出来，而不是继续含糊地纠结，这本身就是很不容易的一步。Amy，我也想请你想一件事——你刚才问「是不是把你当成project」，这个警觉是对的，值得被认真对待。但同时，Tom现在纠结的，其实不是「要不要爱你」，是「怎么爱你才是对你负责任的方式」，这两件事不一样。

　　Amy：（想了想，声音平静了一些）那……我们现在应该怎么办？我不觉得我准备好现在就说「好，我信了」，那样对我自己也不诚实，就像你说的。

　　Tom：（松了口气，但也有点难过）我也不知道具体该怎么办，我只知道，继续假装这件事不存在，比现在说出来更糟。

　　John：我没办法替你们两个把这件事解决，今天说开，不代表今天就要有结论。你们可以给自己一点时间，定期诚实地聊这件事，而不是每次话到嘴边又咽回去。这段关系接下来往哪里走，最终还是要看Amy自己有没有真的被神吸引，那不是Tom能替你决定，也不是靠拖时间能拖出来的。

　　Jack：那如果真的走到「必须做决定」那一步，是不是就一定要分手？

　　John：我不会给你们一个「一定要」的公式，这不是我能替他们两个决定的事。我能说的是，逃避这个问题不聊清楚，比诚实面对它，风险更大——因为逃避不会让张力消失，只会拖到伤害更大的时候才爆发。

　　Jenny：（换个角度）说到「一直往前走」，我想到我另一个朋友的事——不是恋爱，是Hook-up。我们宿舍隔壁那个女生，她自己也说过，不想要「恋爱那么多责任」，就跟几个人保持那种关系，她嘴上说「我很清楚自己在做什么，不后悔」，社交媒体上也经常发那种很洒脱、很自信的照片。但上学期她有一次喝多了，跟我说，她其实每次那种关系结束之后，都会觉得更空、更没有安全感，只是不敢在别人面前说，怕显得自己「不够酷」。

　　Peter：这跟我们平时刷Ins看到的甜蜜情侣照片，是不是也有点关系？我是说，我们一边看着朋友圈里全是秀恩爱的、随意约会的内容，一边又觉得这些都很正常，好像不这样才是奇怪的那个。

　　John：这是个很敏锐的观察。社交媒体给我们两个错觉，一个是「所有人都过得比我幸福」，另一个是「随意的关系是常态，认真对待反而显得老土」。这两个错觉合在一起，会不知不觉地调整你对「什么样的关系是正常的」的期待，你可能嘴上说自己不在乎，但心里的标准已经被悄悄挪动了。

　　Jack：这跟我们第一课讲的「手机、球赛填洞」是不是一个道理？

　　John：非常像，只是这里被抓来填洞的，是最贴身、最容易让人误以为「这就是爱」的东西——身体的亲密。而且这个洞更危险，因为身体的亲密感很容易被误读成情感上真的被爱、被珍惜，实际上可能只是荷尔蒙制造出来的错觉，退潮之后，那个空虚感反而更强。

　　Peter：（想到欧文那次讨论）那这个是不是也是「同一个根长出来的不同枝子」？

　　John：很可能是。而且我想多说一句——就算是在教会长大、很看重「守贞洁」的基督徒，也不代表这个根就不存在了。我认识一些学生，严格守住了不能有身体接触这条线，全团契都夸他自律，可他们私下可能陷在色情内容或者幻想里出不来，因为真正没被处理的，是那个「靠占有一个身体、占有一种感觉，来确认自己是被爱的」的核心问题，外面的规矩守住了，里面那个根照样在长，只是换了一个更隐蔽、更没人看得见的地方冒出来。我们上次说过，一个人不能只单独治死一样罪，却放着别的罪不管——这里也是一样，「不跟人发生关系」这件事本身不等于「贞洁」，如果心里那个用身体的感觉证明自己被爱、被需要的欲望没有被福音摸到，它只是换了地方活着。

　　Tom：（认真）那具体怎么办？总不能又是「靠意志力守住」吧，我们已经知道这个不太管用。

　　John：意志力能帮一时，但撑不久。真正持久的，是你越来越清楚、越来越信——你不需要靠身体的亲密、也不需要靠任何一段感情，来证明自己被爱、有价值，因为在基督里，这件事已经被定了。这不是让你冷感，是让你带着自由去爱人，而不是带着「我必须抓住点什么」的饥渴去爱人。

　　Jenny：（想到最开始那个话题，声音低下来）那……我想说另一件事，是我一个很要好的朋友，上个学期被她男朋友劈腿加PUA，那种伤害不是身体上的，是整个人被操控、被打压到不敢相信自己值得被好好对待，她现在看到镜子里的自己都会想哭。我现在还没走出来陪她走的那种感觉，心里又愤怒又无力，我想问——神是公义和慈爱的，那祂为什么允许这种事发生在一个信祂的人身上？

　　Peter：（有点手足无措）那……我们要不要说点什么鼓励她的话？

　　John：（对Peter摇摇头）先别急着给答案。Jenny，这个问题，我没办法给你一个能马上解开的答案，如果我现在给你一套「神的美意」的说法，可能反而是在伤口上撒盐。我能说的是，神对伤害人、操控人的行为，从来不是无所谓的态度，圣经里神一次又一次为受欺压的人发怒、为他们伸冤。你朋友受的伤，神看见，而且在意，这不是一句空话。

　　Jenny：那我该怎么陪她？

　　John：不用急着让她「走出来」，也不用急着帮她「理性分析」这段关系哪里出了问题，她现在最需要的，可能只是有人不评判地相信她说的话，陪着她，让她知道自己不是疯了、不是反应过度。至于「为什么神允许」这个问题，我们可以一起带着它，不需要现在就有答案，但可以一起把它带到神面前，慢慢地、诚实地。

讨论：

这一场从Amy质疑「贞洁」是不是父权社会的控制工具开始，到Tom坦白跟未信的Amy在一起心里的挣扎，再到Jenny朋友被劈腿加PUA的伤害。John用「同意为什么重要」追问了「一切价值都是相对的」这个想法，也提醒大家，守住外在的界限不等于心里的根被处理了。请讨论：

1) 从「贞洁到底是不是压迫」「和未信的人在一起怎么办」「陪伴受伤的朋友」这三件事里，哪一个是你现在或者身边朋友正在经历的？

2) 愿意的话，跟大家说说具体是什么情况，你现在心里最大的困惑或者挣扎是什么。

Lesson 3: Dating, Singleness, and Boundaries: Why Is This So Complicated? — Love and the Body

(Tom and Amy walk in together, still holding hands. Amy gets a little embarrassed and lets go.)

1. What’s Different About Christian Dating?

Jack: (laughing) Oh, look at you two. You’ve only been a campus couple for a few months, and you’re still shy about holding hands?

Amy: (blushing) No… I just wasn’t sure if holding hands was okay around you guys.

Jenny: (laughing) Of course it’s okay. You two are already the fellowship’s officially recognized couple.

Peter: (sighs, sounding a little jealous) I’m jealous. I’ve never even been in a relationship. You two have been together almost a year, right?

Jenny: One year and two months. I remember exactly because Tom posted the news in our group chat that night and kept posting pictures until midnight. Like seven or eight of them.

Tom: (embarrassed) I was just really happy that day.

Amy: (curious) I’ve actually been meaning to ask this. What’s really different about Christian dating? My non-Christian friends talk about whether they’re compatible, whether they share the same values, and whether they respect each other. I don’t really understand what’s specifically different about “Christian dating.” It can’t just mean “go to church together,” right?

John: (puts down the coffee he hasn’t finished and smiles) That’s a good question. Let me start with what I don’t think the answer is. It’s not “you go to church together,” and it’s not simply “you can’t kiss.” Those are, at most, surface-level differences.

Tom: (laughing) Then tell us what the difference is. Otherwise, after being together for a year, what exactly makes Amy and me “Christian”?

John: I think the key difference is why you’re together, and where you go when things go wrong. A lot of relationships, when you get right down to it, are built around the question, “Can you meet my needs?” Can you give me security? Can you make me feel good about myself? Can you keep me from feeling lonely? There’s nothing inherently evil about those desires. Almost every relationship starts with some of that. But if Christian dating is healthy, the core question gradually becomes: “As these two people walk together, are they helping each other become more like Christ, know God more deeply, and be changed by Him?”

Amy: (frowns) But if the whole point is “helping each other become more like Christ,” that sounds so serious. Isn’t dating supposed to be about having fun and being loved?

John: Wanting to have fun and be loved isn’t wrong. God made us with a desire to be loved and to have close relationships. That desire is good. What I’m saying isn’t “you’re not allowed to enjoy being in love.” It’s this: when things go wrong—when you argue, when your partner disappoints you, when the relationship stops making you happy—do you each just deal with your own emotions and find a way to move on, or are you willing to come back to God together and honestly say, “Here’s where I hurt you. Here’s where I need to change”?

Jenny: (remembering something) My cousin and her boyfriend both say they’re Christians. They go to church together and even serve on the worship team together. From the outside, they looked like the perfect couple. But whenever they argued privately, they would each go to their own friends and complain about how terrible the other person was. They never actually prayed together. One time my cousin told me, “At church, we look like we’re perfect for each other, but when we’re alone, we barely have anything to talk about.” They eventually broke up, and she said, “We never really shared our faith. We were just two Christians dating each other.”

Jack: So when you say “come back to God together,” what does that actually look like? Is it going to be one of those cheesy scenes where two people hold hands, pray for ten minutes, and suddenly everything is fine?

John: (laughs) It doesn’t necessarily look that dramatic. I know a married couple who have been married for almost ten years. They told me the biggest fight they ever had was over buying a house. They were almost giving each other the silent treatment. Eventually, the husband spoke first. He didn’t say, “Let’s pray.” He said, “I’ve realized I’ve been really harsh with you these past few days because I’m afraid we’ll make the wrong decision. I’m afraid I’m not capable enough.” Then his wife talked about what she was afraid of too. They told me they didn’t solve the house-buying problem that night, but their hearts were brought back together first. That’s what I mean by “where you go.” It’s not about whether you perform some prayer ritual. It’s whether, in the middle of conflict, you’re willing to honestly face what’s going on inside you instead of just trying to win the argument.

Jenny: That’s exactly what my cousin and her ex were missing.

John: Exactly. Having the same label doesn’t mean you share the same core.

Peter: (changes the subject, hesitating) John, I’m not dating anyone. I’m… just single. Sometimes I honestly wonder if there’s something wrong with me. Like maybe I’m not good enough, and that’s why nobody likes me. I know logically that I shouldn’t equate “being loved” with “having value,” but I can’t seem to stop myself from feeling that way.

Jack: (half-joking) Peter, you’re a pretty good guy. Maybe it’s just because there are way too many guys in your CS program.

Peter: (laughs bitterly) I know that, but that’s not really the point. The point is… whenever I post something on Instagram and see one former high school classmate after another getting into relationships, posting couple photos and anniversary posts, I can’t shake this feeling of, “Maybe I’m just not good enough.” And my mom has started making comments too. She’ll say things like, “Your cousin is already engaged.” It’s like being single is some kind of disease that needs to be cured.

Amy: (nods) I get that too. I’m not a Christian, but in my psychology class, our professor talked about attachment styles and how a person’s anxiety around intimacy can be strongly connected to their attachment patterns with their parents growing up. After that class, I actually became more anxious, because I started wondering, “Am I avoidantly attached? Is there something wrong with me that’s why I can’t make relationships work?”

John: That reminds me of something. Research on attachment styles can actually help us see a lot of real things—why we respond in certain ways, why certain relationship patterns make us especially anxious. Those are useful observations, and I’m not saying they’re false. But theories like that can answer the question, “Why do I tend to respond this way?” They can’t answer the question, “Am I actually worthy of being loved?” Even if someone identifies you as having an avoidant attachment style, that only describes a pattern in how you tend to respond. It doesn’t determine your value.

Peter: Then how do I actually believe that I have value instead of just saying the words?

John: I completely understand that feeling, and I don’t want to brush it off by saying, “You’re a great person. Don’t overthink it.” That kind of pain doesn’t disappear because someone gives you a nice sentence. I was single for all four years of university. My ex broke up with me by saying, “I think we’re better as friends.” For about a year, I automatically translated that in my head as, “I’m not good enough.” So let me ask you something: if you suddenly got into a relationship tomorrow, would that feeling of “I’m not good enough” completely disappear, or would it just be pushed down for a while?

Peter: (thinks for a moment) …Probably disappear for a while. But I guess eventually something else would come up, like, “Do I really deserve to be loved?” or something like that.

John: Exactly. That’s the heart of the problem. If being loved is what you use to prove that you have value, then your sense of worth will always be unstable, because it depends on another person continuing to choose you and continuing not to leave you. But people change. They get tired. They make mistakes. Sometimes they leave. The identity God gives you isn’t something another person has to prove for you. Strictly speaking, God doesn’t love you because you meet some standard and therefore deserve to be loved. The cross of Christ shows exactly the opposite: you didn’t have to prove that you were worthy first. God loved you while you were still undeserving. This isn’t some cheesy message saying, “Who cares if you’re single?” It means that if your sense of worth is rooted here first, then whether you’re single or in a relationship, that insecurity can gradually loosen its grip. The Puritan tradition often emphasized something important: we’re not merely declared “not guilty” by God as though He were a judge. We’re brought into His family. J. I. Packer said that being adopted as God’s children is one of the highest privileges the gospel gives us. You’re not rescued and then left standing off to the side. You’re loved and cared for as a son or daughter.

Peter: (sighs) I understand the idea, but knowing something and actually feeling it are so far apart. My mom texted me yesterday saying, “Your cousin is engaged.” When I saw that message, I couldn’t think about any of this theology. I just felt awful.

John: I agree. This isn’t a road you finish by hearing the right answer once. It’s something you have to come back to again and again. Every time that feeling rises up, you choose again to believe what the gospel says instead of what Instagram—or your mom’s text messages—are telling you.

Jack: (takes the conversation in another direction) Then let me ask something more directly. When it comes to physical boundaries, honestly, a big part of why I’m trying to keep them right now is because I’m afraid of sinning and messing things up, not because I really understand what’s good about the boundaries themselves. Is that… a problem?

John: That’s a very honest question. A lot of students I’ve talked to feel the same way. Let me give you the short answer first: being afraid of sin isn’t completely useless. The Bible does talk about the fear of God. But if fear is the only thing holding you back, your boundaries will be fragile, because fear can be pushed aside—especially when emotions and attraction are intense.

Jack: (honestly) To be real, in my last relationship there was a time when we almost crossed a line. What stopped me wasn’t some deep understanding of why the boundary was good. I suddenly thought, “What if people in the fellowship found out?” That fear of being embarrassed basically stopped me. Looking back, the reason I stopped wasn’t exactly spiritual.

John: At least it stopped you, and that’s not a bad thing. I’m not going to say, “Your motivation wasn’t pure, so keeping that boundary doesn’t count.” But you already see the problem. A boundary held together by fear of embarrassment may not hold when no one is watching, or when the relationship becomes more emotionally intense.

Amy: (curious) So what does it mean to “understand the goodness of the boundary”? As someone who isn’t really a Christian, honestly, I don’t see what’s so “good” about these boundaries. They just look like a bunch of rules.

John: Let me put it this way. The biblical idea behind physical boundaries isn’t “sex is dirty and dangerous, so be careful.” It’s that sex is meant to point toward a complete, public, lifelong commitment. Within the covenant of marriage, two people give themselves fully to each other without keeping a backup plan. To use that gift outside that covenant is, in one sense, to give the most vulnerable parts of yourself to another person before there is the protection and commitment of that lifelong covenant. That can leave people deeply hurt, and it can also make it easier to treat the other person as someone who satisfies your needs rather than someone you are committed to treasure for life. It’s not that God made a bunch of rules just to test you. He is protecting something He considers precious.

Amy: (thoughtful, but not completely convinced) …That explanation is better than the “just wait until marriage” version I’ve heard before. But I still don’t get it. If two people both want it and respect each other, why does it have to wait for a piece of paper?

John: That’s an honest question. I’m not going to convince you in three sentences. We can keep talking about it in the second half. But let me come back to Jack. If you can slowly move from “I’m afraid of sinning” to “I understand that this is protecting something good and beautiful,” then keeping the boundary will change from “I’m forcing myself not to do this” to “I’m choosing to live out something God considers beautiful.” The motivation is completely different. And there really isn’t a neutral middle ground here. The apologetic tradition associated with Cornelius Van Til has repeatedly emphasized that everything we do—including how we treat our own bodies—is never simply something we do from a completely neutral position before deciding what we believe. It already reflects what we worship. Either you’re using your body to worship the God who created your body, or you’re using your body to worship something else—maybe a feeling, maybe the need to prove that someone wants you, maybe other people’s approval. There’s no such thing as putting faith aside and talking about the body as though the two had nothing to do with each other.

Discussion

In this part, Amy asked what is really different about Christian dating. Peter talked about how being single can make him feel that he isn’t good enough, and Jack admitted that much of his motivation for keeping physical boundaries comes from fear of sin rather than understanding what is good about those boundaries. John said that the key difference in Christian dating isn’t the label but “why you’re together” and “where you go when things go wrong.” He also said that being loved cannot be used to prove your worth, because your identity and value have already been established in Christ. Discuss:

1) Of these three issues—the core purpose of dating, singleness and your sense of worth, and the motivation behind keeping boundaries—which one connects with you most deeply, or which one do you most want to ask about?

2) If you’re willing, share your own experience—or something you’ve seen a friend go through.

2. What Do I Do When Love Isn’t What I Imagined?

Jack: (continuing the conversation from the first half) Speaking of “waiting until marriage,” when I told my roommate about this, he’s not a Christian, and he immediately said I was “repressed.” He said that needing some piece of paper before you can do anything is so old-fashioned. I didn’t really know how to answer. All I could say was, “It’s part of my faith.” But honestly, that answer didn’t sound very convincing. I’m not sure I was even convinced by it myself.

Amy: (nods) I used to think that too. In our Gender Studies class, the professor put it even more directly. She said that historically, the idea of sexual purity was basically a tool used by patriarchal societies to control women’s bodies and make sure property and family lines were passed down properly. It had nothing to do with some idea of “goodness.” It was basically a leftover from old power structures, just packaged in a softer way today. When I first heard Tom talk about these things, part of me actually resisted. I wondered if I was being brainwashed.

Tom: (a little awkward) I never meant to brainwash you…

John: (to Amy) I completely understand why you would have that concern. And historically, there really have been cases where churches abused the language of “sexual purity” to control people, especially women. Those were real harms, and I’m not going to deny or minimize them. But let me ask you to think about something. You just said, “If two people both want it and respect each other, that should be enough.” So consent is the standard you use to decide whether something is right or wrong, correct?

Amy: Yeah. I think if both people consent and no one is being harmed, then no one else has the right to say it’s wrong.

John: Then let me ask one more question. Why is consent important? Why couldn’t the rule simply be, “Whoever is stronger, whoever has more power, or whoever can convince the other person gets to do whatever they want”?

Amy: (a little impatient) Obviously not. That would be exploitation. It would be disrespectful.

John: When you say “disrespectful,” you’re already assuming something important: every human being has a kind of dignity that shouldn’t be violated or treated casually. A person isn’t an object that can simply be used. Even if someone agrees to something, even if there’s a huge difference in power, that doesn’t mean you can ignore that person’s dignity and vulnerability. That belief—that human beings have dignity and should never be treated merely as tools—doesn’t naturally come from the idea that we’re simply animals that evolved to survive and reproduce. If human beings are ultimately nothing more than that, then bodies and sex are, at the end of the day, just tools for passing on genes. Why should consent matter more than successful reproduction? Why should it matter more than genetic efficiency? I’m not saying your view doesn’t come from good intentions. I’m pointing out that you’re also relying on a belief that human beings have a value beyond their physical bodies and are worthy of being treated with care. The Bible would tell you that this is because human beings are made in the image of God.

Amy: (quiet for a moment) …I’ve never thought about it that way. I always assumed that consent was obviously the standard. I never thought about the fact that even that standard needs some kind of foundation.

Jack: (jumps in) So does that mean I can use this to shut down my roommate? Next time he says I’m repressed, I can ask him, “Why does consent matter?”

John: (laughs) You can ask him, but don’t expect one question to completely defeat someone in an argument. This is more about helping you understand your own position than giving you a weapon to win debates. And I want to be honest: this question only shows that your standard also needs a deeper foundation. It doesn’t directly prove that Christianity is true. That’s a much longer conversation, and we’re not going to finish it today.

Amy: (thoughtfully) …I need to think about this. I’m not ready to accept it right away, but I admit it makes it harder for me to be quite as confident about my original position.

Tom: (shifts back to his own situation, struggling a little) Then let me ask something more personal. Amy is interested in Christianity but doesn’t believe yet. Things between us are really good, but there’s something I’ve been struggling with. If she never believes, should we keep moving forward knowing that this relationship isn’t really what it should be? But if I break up with her because of that, it feels so harsh. She’s actually slowly becoming more interested in faith.

Amy: (a little hurt) …You’ve never told me you were struggling with this. I thought we were doing pretty well.

John: Tom, I really appreciate you being willing to say this out loud. That tension is real, and I’m not going to pretend it isn’t. The Bible does warn believers not to be “unequally yoked” with unbelievers. That isn’t about saying Amy has less value, and it isn’t saying that non-Christians aren’t worth loving. It’s because marriage means walking together through the deepest parts of life for the rest of your lives. If two people have fundamentally different answers about the ultimate meaning of life and what they ultimately depend on, that can make the road especially difficult, particularly when hard things come—like raising children or facing illness and death.

Amy: (quietly) So are you saying there’s no future for us?

John: I don’t have the right to make that decision for either of you. I only want to say two things. First, this doesn’t mean you should start pretending to believe just to make the relationship work. That wouldn’t be honest with you or with the faith. God wants you to genuinely be drawn to Him, not to pretend in order to keep a relationship. Second, Tom, the fact that you’re already struggling with this is a signal that the two of you need to talk honestly about it. Don’t just keep moving forward hoping the problem will somehow solve itself. And don’t use the vague hope that “maybe she’ll believe someday” to avoid dealing with something you already know you need to face.

Tom: (sighs) …I really have been avoiding this. I’m afraid that talking about it means we might have to break up, and I’m afraid of hurting her.

(Amy is silent for a moment, then turns toward Tom, her voice slightly trembling.)

Amy: Tom, I want to ask you something, and I want you to answer honestly. Is part of the reason you’re with me because you hope that someday you can “bring me to faith”? Because if that’s true, I think I’d feel like you’re not loving me as a complete person. I’d feel like I’m just some unfinished project.

Tom: (stunned, then very seriously) No. At least… not completely. I really do hope you’ll come to know God, because I genuinely think that would be good for you. But I don’t love you because you “haven’t believed yet.” I love you because you’re you—because of the way you smile, the patience you have when you stay up late helping me edit my papers, the way you remember little things I mentioned once. Those things have nothing to do with whether you believe or not. Those are the things I liked about you from the beginning.

Amy: (eyes a little red) Then when you said “knowingly doing something wrong”… it sounded like you were saying that being together like this is already a mistake.

Tom: (quickly) That’s not what I meant. I’m not really afraid of “right now.” I’m afraid of what happens later. What if we actually get to the point of getting married and then something really hard happens—like one of us gets sick, or we have a huge fight? My instinct might be to turn to prayer and my faith to get through it, while you might not have that same source of support. What if, in those moments, we’re actually facing life separately instead of facing it together?

Amy: (quiet for a moment) …I’ve never thought about it from that angle. I always thought you were worried about whether what we’re doing right now is right or wrong. I didn’t realize you were thinking about what might happen later.

John: (gently) Tom, being willing to say that fear out loud instead of continuing to keep it vague is already a difficult and important step. Amy, I also want you to think about something. Your concern about being treated like a “project” is legitimate, and it deserves to be taken seriously. But at the same time, what Tom is struggling with isn’t whether he should love you. He’s asking what it means to love you responsibly. Those are two different questions.

Amy: (thinks for a moment, then speaks more calmly) So… what are we supposed to do now? I don’t think I’m ready to say, “Okay, I believe,” because that wouldn’t be honest with myself. Just like you said.

Tom: (relieved, but also a little sad) I don’t know exactly what we’re supposed to do either. I just know that pretending this issue doesn’t exist would be worse than talking about it.

John: I can’t solve this for the two of you. Talking about it honestly today doesn’t mean you have to reach a conclusion today. You can give yourselves some time and make a point of talking about it honestly from time to time instead of swallowing the conversation every time it gets uncomfortable. Where this relationship goes from here ultimately depends on whether Amy herself is genuinely drawn to God. That isn’t something Tom can decide for you, and it’s not something you can produce simply by waiting long enough.

Jack: But if you really get to the point where you have to make a decision, does that automatically mean you have to break up?

John: I’m not going to give you a formula that says “you must” or “you must not.” That’s not a decision I can make for them. What I can say is that avoiding the issue is riskier than honestly facing it. Avoiding the tension won’t make it disappear. It usually just pushes the problem down until it explodes later, when the damage can be much greater.

Jenny: (takes the conversation in another direction) Speaking of “just moving forward,” something else came to mind. This happened to a friend of mine—not dating, but a hookup situation. There’s a girl who lives next door to us in residence. She’s said herself that she doesn’t want “all the responsibility that comes with a relationship,” so she’s had those kinds of casual relationships with several people. She always says, “I know exactly what I’m doing, and I don’t regret it.” She posts pictures on social media that make her look really carefree and confident. But last semester she got drunk one night and told me that after each of those relationships ends, she actually feels more empty and less secure. She just doesn’t dare say that around other people because she’s afraid they’ll think she’s “not cool enough.”

Peter: Is that connected to the romantic couple photos we see all over Instagram? I mean, we’re constantly seeing people showing off their relationships and casual dating, and it starts to feel completely normal. Like you’re the weird one if you’re not doing it.

John: That’s a really perceptive observation. Social media gives us two illusions. One is, “Everyone else is happier than I am.” The other is, “Casual relationships are normal, and taking relationships seriously is old-fashioned.” Put those two illusions together, and they quietly change your expectations about what a “normal” relationship is supposed to look like. You might say you don’t care, but your internal standard may already have been quietly shifted.

Jack: Is this basically the same thing we talked about in the first lesson—using your phone or sports to fill the emptiness inside?

John: Very similar. The difference is that here, what’s being used to fill the emptiness is something much more intimate and much easier to mistake for “love”—physical intimacy. And that makes it more dangerous, because physical intimacy can easily be mistaken for actually being loved and valued emotionally. Sometimes it’s really just a powerful physical and hormonal experience creating the feeling. When that feeling fades, the emptiness can actually feel even stronger.

Peter: (remembering the discussion from before) So is this also just another branch growing from the same root?

John: Very possibly. And I want to add something. Even Christians who grew up in church and take sexual purity very seriously can still have the same root problem. I know students who have strictly kept the physical boundary everyone talks about, and the whole fellowship praises them for being so self-controlled. But privately, they may be trapped in pornography or sexual fantasies because the deeper issue was never dealt with. The real problem was the desire to possess someone’s body, or possess a certain feeling, in order to prove to yourself that you are loved. The outside rule may be kept, but the root inside is still growing. It just comes out somewhere more hidden, somewhere no one can see. We talked about this last time: you can’t deal with one particular sin while leaving all the other sins untouched. It’s the same here. Not having sex with someone doesn’t automatically mean you’re living in sexual purity. If the desire to use physical feelings to prove that you’re loved or needed hasn’t been touched by the gospel, then it’s still alive. It has simply found somewhere else to grow.

Tom: (seriously) So what do we actually do? Surely the answer can’t just be “try harder and use more willpower.” We already know that doesn’t work very well.

John: Willpower can help for a while, but it won’t carry you forever. What lasts is becoming increasingly convinced—and increasingly confident—that you don’t need physical intimacy, or any particular relationship, to prove that you are loved or valuable. In Christ, that question has already been settled. That doesn’t make you cold or emotionless. It actually frees you to love people without coming to them desperately thinking, “I have to get something from this person.”

Jenny: (thinking back to the beginning, her voice becoming quieter) There’s something else I want to talk about. A close friend of mine was cheated on by her boyfriend last semester, and he also manipulated and emotionally abused her. The damage wasn’t physical. It was like he slowly controlled her and tore her down until she stopped believing she deserved to be treated well. Even now, when she looks in the mirror, she sometimes wants to cry. I’m still walking through this with her, and honestly, I feel both angry and helpless. I want to ask: if God is just and loving, why does He allow something like this to happen to someone who believes in Him?

Peter: (a little helpless) Should we… say something encouraging to her?

John: (shakes his head at Peter) Don’t rush to give an answer. Jenny, I can’t give you an answer that will make that question disappear right now. If I gave you some explanation about “God’s good plan” at this moment, I might actually just be rubbing salt into the wound. What I can say is that God is never indifferent to people being harmed or manipulated. Again and again in the Bible, God shows His anger toward oppression and speaks of defending those who are being mistreated. The hurt your friend has experienced is seen by God, and it matters to Him. That isn’t just an empty phrase.

Jenny: Then how should I be there for her?

John: Don’t rush her into “getting over it,” and don’t rush to analyze the relationship for her and explain everything that went wrong. What she may need most right now is simply someone who will believe what she says without judging her, stay with her, and help her know that she isn’t crazy and she isn’t overreacting. As for the question, “Why would God allow this?” we can carry that question together. It doesn’t have to be answered today. But we can bring it honestly before God together, slowly and truthfully.

Discussion

This part began with Amy questioning whether the idea of sexual purity is really just a tool of patriarchal control, followed by Tom opening up about his struggle over being in a relationship with Amy while she does not yet believe. Then Jenny talked about the hurt her friend experienced after being cheated on and emotionally manipulated. John used the question “Why is consent important?” to push deeper into the idea that all values are merely relative, and he also reminded everyone that keeping an external boundary does not necessarily mean the deeper desires in our hearts have been dealt with. Discuss:

1) Of these three issues—whether sexual purity is actually oppressive, what to do when you’re in a relationship with someone who doesn’t share your faith, and how to walk alongside a friend who has been hurt—which one are you or someone close to you dealing with right now?

2) If you’re willing, share what the situation actually looks like and what your biggest question or struggle is right now.

　　（这周下过雨，几把伞还在门边滴水，桌上放着 Jack 顺路买的一盒甜甜圈）

一、基督徒让我失望的时候，我该往哪里去？

　　Tom：（把手机推到桌子中间，气鼓鼓的）你们看到没有，那个网上很火的牧师，被爆出来挪用教会的钱，还跟同工有不清不楚的关系。评论区都在骂，我看了半天，心里挺不是滋味的。

　　Jack：看到了，我室友还专门发给我，加了一句「你们基督徒不都这样」。

　　Tom：他这么说的时候，你怎么回？

　　Jack：（苦笑）我当时其实没什么好回的，因为……我自己也见过类似的事。我教会有个执事，平时讲道、带查经一套一套的，结果私下对下面做事的人特别刻薄，讲话很伤人，我们几个年轻人私下都说，宁可他别讲道了。

　　Amy：（Tom的女朋友，第一次来聚会，坐得有点靠外）那我可以说句可能不太中听的话吗？我不是基督徒，我是因为Tom才来的。说实话，每次看到这种新闻，我心里想的都是——如果神真的在，为什么这些人还能一边讲台上讲得那么感人，一边私底下这样。我不是想挑衅，我是真的想不通。

　　Peter：（叹气）这不公平吧？一个人做错事，凭什么整个信仰都要背锅？我又没让他去偷教会的钱。

　　John：（原本坐在角落安静听着，这时抬起头接话）你说得对，Peter，一竿子打翻一船人确实不公平——但我要老实说，神也不是「随便啦」的态度。圣经里有句话，是先知拿单指着大卫说的，说他犯的那件事，让仇敌大得亵渎耶和华的机会。神很在意祂的名被这样糟蹋，这不是轻描淡写的事。

　　Amy：（有点意外）等等，神会为这个生气？我一直以为，宗教嘛，反正劝人向善，做不到也没什么大不了，谁不是嘴上一套、做起来又是另一套。

　　John：如果基督教只是「一套劝人向善的道理」，那你说的没错，说到做不到，顶多算说话不算数。但基督教从一开始讲的就不是「一套道理」，是「这位神真的在意祂的百姓怎么代表祂」——所以你们对那个牧师的愤怒，某个角度上，其实是跟神的心一致的，不是你们太敏感、太苛刻。

　　Jenny：（沉默了一下，声音低下来）John，那我可以说一件事吗……我其实不只是「看到别人的事」而已。我高三那年，教会的一个姐妹知道我家里的事——我爸妈那阵子在闹离婚——她答应我保密，结果没过多久，团契里好几个人都知道了，还有人私下问我「你还好吗」，那种被当成话题议论的感觉，我到现在想起来都很难受。那一年我差点就不去教会了，甚至有一阵子想，如果这就是「教会」，那耶稣大概也没那么可信。

　　Peter：（有点意外）你从来没跟我们说过这个。

　　Jenny：（勉强笑笑）说出来才发现，我好像一直把「那个姐妹让我失望」跟「神让我失望」混在一起，分不清楚。

　　John：这个混淆，我遇到过太多学生有一样的挣扎，我完全理解为什么会这样——因为你认识神，很大一部分是透过那些代表祂的人，所以当那个人伤了你，感觉上好像神也在里面伤了你。但我想请你想一件事：那个姐妹泄露你的事，是耶稣教她这样做的吗？还是她自己心里那个爱说话、想显得自己知道内幕的软弱，在那一刻赢了？

　　Jenny：（想了想）……当然不是耶稣教她的，圣经里明明讲要谨守口舌。

　　John：那你看，伤害你的，其实不是耶稣的教导，反而是那个姐妹没有活出耶稣的教导。如果你因为这件事离开信仰，某个角度说，是让那个让你受伤的人，替耶稣背了这个锅，而耶稣自己反而是那个教她「不要这样做」的那一位。这不代表你受的伤不算数，你受的伤是真的，值得被承认、被难过，我不是要你现在就说「没关系」。但这两件事——「这个人让我失望」和「神/信仰是假的」——是两件不同的事，值得分开来看。

　　Jenny：（眼眶有点红）……我好像从来没有人这样跟我讲过，我以为伤我的和信仰是一回事。

　　Amy：（若有所思，插话）可是……John，我还是没完全被说服。你说「伤害你的不是耶稣的教导」，这个逻辑我懂。但站在我这个外人的角度，我看到的不是「一个姐妹没做好」，我看到的是——这种事在教会里好像特别常见，八卦、议论、拉帮结派，跟我们宿舍楼那些事其实没什么两样。如果基督徒跟普通人一样会做这些事，那我为什么要多花时间搞清楚耶稣是谁，直接过我自己的生活不是一样吗？

　　John：（没有回避）这是个很诚实的问题，Amy，谢谢你愿意说出来。我等一下想跟大家一起把这个问题往下挖一层，因为它其实比「这个牧师做错事」更根本——它问的是，如果基督徒本来就会犯错，那基督教到底还有什么用。这个我们下半场会专门谈，先让我把这半场剩下的事说完，好吗？

　　Amy：（点头）好。

　　Jack：（想了想，换个角度）那老一辈基督徒呢？我不是说泄密那种事，是……我家教会几个长辈，天天拿他们那一套标准要求我——该读什么专业，说CS、Business才算「祝福家人」，我要是说自己对别的感兴趣，他们就摇头叹气；交朋友也要管，说这个太世俗、那个教会不够「纯正」。我知道他们是关心我，但那种被审判的感觉，真的很压抑，有时候比外面那些丑闻更让我想离开教会。

　　Tom：（半开玩笑，带点课堂腔调）说到这个，我们Sociology课上讲过，每一代人的「道德标准」其实都是那个时代的产物，我爸妈那一辈觉得读CS才叫成功，是因为他们那个年代移民过来穷怕了，跟圣经没关系，是文化，跟我这代人根本不是一套价值体系。所以Jack你被要求，某种意义上是两代人的文化冲突，不是「圣经」跟「你」的冲突。

　　John：这个观察有一半是对的，Tom，我不否认这里面确实有很大一块是文化、是那一代人的恐惧和面子，不是圣经的要求。但我要提醒一句——「这是文化产物，不是圣经」这句话本身，也可以反过来问你自己：你觉得「该尊重每个人自己的选择」，会不会也是你这个时代、这个社会灌给你的一套「文化产物」，而不是什么客观对的事？如果什么都能被拆穿成「不过是某个时代的产物」，那你我坐在这里讲的每一句话，包括你现在这句，也逃不过这个拆法。

　　Tom：（愣了一下，没立刻接话）

　　John：我不是要否定你的观察，Jack这件事上，我觉得你的委屈是真的，我们要一起去分辨。一个笨但管用的办法——问自己，长辈的这个要求，是能从圣经具体讲出道理的，还是「大家都这样」「面子上过不去」「我们那个年代都是这样」。前者你可以认真考虑，甚至顺服；后者你可以尊重他们的感受，但不代表你要照做。福音给你的身份，不是靠读对专业、嫁娶对的人来的，是基督已经把你接纳了。你不需要用「让长辈满意」去换那个已经白白给你的接纳。

　　Jack：（松了口气，但仍有保留）……这个我需要回去慢慢想，毕竟我爸妈还是每周都会问我GPA。

　　Peter：那具体怎么办？下次我爸又开始念叨我该转专业的时候，我总不能当场就跟他说「这是你的文化产物」吧，那家里能吵翻天。

　　John：（笑）那肯定不行，讲道理的方式也很重要。我建议先不急着当场辩，先自己安静下来问：这件事上，我心里到底是「因为怕让爸妈失望」而顺服，还是「因为我真的信这是对的」而顺服？如果是前者，你顺服了也不会真正踏实，只是把「靠爸妈的认可活着」换了个说法。如果你发现自己是被「怕」推着走，那更需要先回到神那里，让福音先安顿你，再去跟爸妈谈，那时候你讲出来的话，才不是「我在跟你们对着干」，是「我在向神负责，也愿意听你们的建议」。

讨论：

这一场里，几个朋友聊到了网上曝光的牧师丑闻、Amy作为一个还未信主的朋友对教会八卦的失望、Jenny被教会姐妹泄密的伤害、还有Jack被长辈用文化标准要求的压抑。John提醒Jenny，「那个人让我失望」和「神/信仰是假的」是两件需要分开来看的事。请讨论：

1) 想一想，身边有没有让你对教会、对基督徒失望甚至受伤的人或事——可能是网上看到的，也可能是像Jenny、Jack那样很贴身的经历，甚至是像Amy一样，作为旁观者对教会某些行为感到失望。那件事，在你心里，多大程度上是「某个人让我失望」，多大程度上又悄悄变成了「所以信仰本身也不可信」？

2) 愿意的话，跟大家说说是什么事，以及你现在怎么看这两者之间的关系。

二、如果基督徒都这样，还有盼望吗？

　　Tom：（半开玩笑，半认真）行吧，那我接着上半场没问完的问题——如果基督徒里到处都是这种事，从网红牧师到教会执事，再到Jack说的长辈，那是不是刚好证明了，这套「信仰」从头到尾就是场骗局？我们Poli Sci的Seminar上礼拜刚好在讲这个，教授说所谓「道德」「善恶」，从头到尾都是权力的游戏，谁掌握话语权，谁就定义什么是罪、什么是圣洁，宗教史上到处都是这种双标——十字军、宗教裁判所，历史上这种例子一大把。基督徒骂别人罪，自己犯罪的时候一堆借口，这不正好印证了？

　　Jack：（点头附和）我是觉得，至少这说明，「信」跟「行」是两回事，光有一套漂亮的道理没用。

　　Amy：（认真地）我同意Tom。而且说实话，我觉得如果一套东西讲得再好听，做的人做不到，那这套东西对我来说就没有实际意义。我不需要一套「理论上完美」的东西，我需要看得见、摸得着的东西。

　　John：（没有立刻反驳）Tom、Amy，我想先问一件事——Tom你刚才用了「双标」「骗局」这两个词，你在说那个牧师、那些长辈的时候，心里是真的觉得他们做错了，还是只是「他们被抓到了，输了这场权力游戏」？

　　Tom：（愣了一下）……当然是真的觉得他们做错了。

　　John：那我想请你想清楚一件事——如果道德真的只是权力的游戏，谁掌握话语权谁说了算，那你刚才那句「他们做错了」，凭什么成立？如果一切只是权力，那牧师赢了就是赢了，你现在骂他，不也是想抢回话语权而已吗？你的愤怒里面，其实藏着一个你自己都没有意识到的假设——真的有一种「不该这样对人」的标准，不是谁力气大谁说了算。

　　Tom：（皱眉，想反驳但一时说不出）……那也可能只是我自己也在玩这场权力游戏，我在道德上占领高地而已。

　　John：这个说法你也可以套用在任何一句话上，包括你自己说的每一句话——包括你现在讲的这套「一切都是权力」的理论。如果什么都能被解释成「只是想抢话语权」，那你这句话本身，是不是也只是你想抢话语权？这套理论一旦彻底套用到底，它会连自己都吃掉，没有一句话能站得住，包括它自己。我不是要跟你辩赢，是想让你看到——你今天那股「这不公平」的感觉，其实不是因为你信了什么理论，是因为你心里，一直都知道有一种「不该这样」的真实标准，这标准不是你发明的，也不是那个牧师发明的，是你们两个都要向它交账的。

　　Amy：（沉默了一下）……可我还是觉得，就算真的有这样一个标准，那也不代表这个标准就是「基督教说的那个神」。也可能只是人类演化出来的、为了群体能活下去的一套本能而已，跟神没关系。

　　John：这个问题问得很好，我没办法在这半小时里跟你讲完整套论证，但我可以给你一个方向想——如果道德真的只是演化出来的、为了让群体活下去的本能，那它的作用就该是「有用」，不是「真」。可你我在说「那个牧师做错了」的时候，讲的不是「这样做对群体存续不利」，是「这样做本身就是不该的，哪怕对群体有利也不该」。演化能给你「有用」的本能，给不出「不该」这种超出利益计算的真实感。你我心里那种「不该」的分量，比一套生存本能重得多，这份重量，从哪里来的，是我想留给你们回去自己想的问题——我今天没办法替你们信，但我想让你们看清楚，这不是一个可以轻轻带过的问题。

　　Peter：（若有所思）所以……我们对那些人生气，其实不是「反对信仰」，反而恰恰是因为信仰里那个「神在意公义」的标准，已经在我们心里了？

　　John：对，而且这也直接回答了你的问题，Tom——基督教从来没说过信了就不会再犯罪，圣经讲的刚好相反。我要说一件我今天还没说的事：Peter，上个月小组作业，你们组有个不信主的同学，工作分配特别不均，你心里其实很不爽，但嘴上没说，反而在他不在的时候，跟另外两个组员吐槽他「态度有问题」，这事你还记得吗？

　　Peter：（有点尴尬）你怎么知道这个……对，我记得，后来那个同学不知道怎么听说了，我们后面合作就很尴尬，我那天晚上想，我平时嘴上说自己是基督徒，结果做的事，跟我们今天骂的那个牧师，其实是一个性质。

　　Jenny：（叹气）我也是，说实话我室友知道我是基督徒，但她从来没跟我提过信仰的事，我猜她大概觉得「基督徒也就那样」，因为她好几次看到我因为due赶不完在崩溃大哭，情绪很差的时候讲话也很冲，跟我平时在团契的样子完全不一样。有一次她还半开玩笑地说：「你们信主的不是应该更平安吗，怎么比我压力还大。」我当时笑笑带过去了，但心里挺不是滋味的。

　　Tom：（半开玩笑，半认真）所以我们今天骂的那个牧师，跟Peter、Jenny，其实半斤八两？

　　John：（不回避）某个角度说，是的，程度不一样，但性质是一样的——都是自己嘴上信的，跟实际活出来的，对不上。我们今天骂那个牧师、那个执事，很容易，因为他们的事被摆到台面上了；但每一个信主的人，包括在座每一位、也包括我自己，身上都有这个落差，只是有没有被人看见而已。说个不太光彩的事给你们壮壮胆——我上周开车被加塞，路怒到差点在Broadway上追那辆车，追到一半突然意识到我车上挂着团契的名牌，那一刻真的很想找个地缝钻进去。所以不是我站在这里居高临下地讲道理，我自己昨天可能才刚犯完。

　　Jack：那这样是不是说明，基督教就是没用的？信了这么久，还是这样，那信跟不信有什么差别？

　　John：这就是我想澄清的地方——十九世纪普林斯顿神学院有一位神学家叫贺智（Charles Hodge），他讲过一个很重要的区分，叫「有形的教会」和「无形的教会」。大意是——我们眼睛能看见的教会，也就是每周聚会、报名受洗、挂名会友的那个群体，里面一定会混杂着真信和假信的人，这是没办法在这辈子彻底分清楚的；但「无形的教会」，是神自己认识、真正重生得救的那一群人，这个名单只有神知道。他讲这个不是要我们对有形教会失望，是要提醒我们，不要把「这个人挂名是基督徒」直接等同于「这个人真的重生了」，那个牧师的事被揭发，恰恰说明教会从来不是靠「筛掉坏人」来证明自己是真的，是靠福音本身。

　　Jenny：那这不是更让人绝望吗？如果连教会里的人都分不清真假，那到底要怎么样才算「活出信仰」？

　　John：贺智讲这个区分，不是要让你对每个人都心生怀疑，是要把你从「靠教会里的人有多完美，来判断信仰是不是真的」这个死胡同里拉出来。骄傲、爱面子、论断人、贪心、情绪失控，这些根在信主的人身上都还在，只是这一刻从这个人身上冒出来，下一刻可能从另一个人身上冒出来，我自己也不例外。这不是给谁开脱的理由，是要你们看清楚——不该因为「教会里还有罪」就震惊，反而应该震惊的是，神竟然愿意跟一群这样的人立约、住在他们中间。基督教从来没说信了就不会再犯罪，它讲的刚好相反——是因为知道人人都有罪，所以福音才不是「你要表现好，神才要你」，是「你还在罪中的时候，基督已经为你死了」。如果哪天教会里全是完人，那才真的说明这套道理是假的，因为它自己讲的就是「这是一群蒙恩的罪人」，不是「这是一群完美的人」。

　　Amy：（想了想，语气软下来）……这个说法我倒是第一次听到，跟我以前想的「宗教就是要教人变好」不太一样。听起来你们讲的，好像重点根本不在「谁表现更好」。

　　John：对，重点从来不在「谁表现更好」，是在「谁愿意承认自己撑不住、需要被接住」。这也是为什么Amy你今天看到的这些让你失望的事，我不会叫你「多给点时间就好了」，我反而想请你问一个更前面的问题——如果连基督徒自己都承认「我们做不到」，那你觉得，一个「承认自己做不到、却相信有人替他做到了」的信仰，跟一个「假装自己做得到」的信仰，哪一个更值得你认真考虑？

　　Amy：（沉默）……我需要再想想，这个问题跟我原来想的方向不太一样。

　　Tom：（沉默一下，没有反驳，只是若有所思）……这个说法我倒是第一次听到有人这么讲，之前听到的都是「基督徒要做光做盐、做好榜样」，从来没人跟我说「教会本来就是一群还在犯罪的人」。

　　John：会做光做盐，是因为被恩典改变了，这是真的，我不是要否定这个。但那不是靠我们表演出来的，是恩典慢慢做的工，而且永远做不完，这辈子都做不完。

　　（门被轻轻推开，Grace走进来，眼睛有点红，大家都安静下来）

　　Grace：（声音有点哑）不好意思，我来晚了……我奶奶昨天晚上突然走了，心脏的事，很突然，我人在这边都没能回去。

　　Jenny：（马上起身，扶她坐下）Grace……你还好吗？要不要先坐一下？

　　Grace：（勉强笑了一下）我没事，就是……我其实不知道自己现在是什么感觉，一会儿觉得很难过，一会儿又觉得很麻木，坐在这里听你们说话，突然就绷不住了。

　　Peter：（有点手足无措，看向John）我们……要不要说点什么安慰她？

　　John：（对Peter摇摇头，然后对Grace）Grace，你不需要现在就整理好情绪，也不需要现在给我们一个「答案」，我们就在这里陪着你。

　　（沉默了几秒）

　　Grace：（低声）我这几天脑子里一直转一个问题……我奶奶信主信了快五十年，教会里的人都知道她，很多人的信仰都是被她带出来的。可就是这样一个人，走的时候，家里人一个都没在旁边，是保姆发现的。我不是不信神有主权，可我心里就是忍不住问——神，祢真的顾念她吗？她这么爱祢，祢就让她这样孤零零地走？

　　Tom：（本想说点什么鼓励的话，但看John没开口，也没接话）

　　John：（没有立刻回答，过了几秒才开口）Grace，我没有一个能马上让这个问题消失的答案，如果有人现在跟你说「一切都有神的美意」，我完全理解你可能会想直接走出这个房间。

　　Grace：（苦笑）……是有人这么跟我说过，我当时真的很想直接挂电话。

　　John：我想说的，可能没那么有安慰效果，但我觉得是真的——耶稣自己的朋友拉撒路死的时候，圣经记着，耶稣哭了。祂不是不知道自己马上要让拉撒路复活，祂完全知道，可祂还是站在坟墓前哭。神不是站在远处看着我们的痛苦、冷冷地说这一切都在计划之中，祂自己进到了这个痛苦里面，甚至后来自己也死了。

　　Jenny：（小声）可这解决不了「为什么」的问题啊……为什么神不能让她走的时候，身边有人陪着？

　　John：这个「为什么」，我今天没办法给你们一个完整的答案，我也不想装作我有。神的主权跟神的良善，从来不是圣经里一道能被我们完全算清楚的数学题，我们只能看见拼图的一小块，看不见全部。我能说的是，神没有承诺我们，爱祂的人就不会经历这样的事，祂承诺的是——不管这件事有多痛，祂都在里面，而且十字架已经证明了，祂不是一个对苦难无动于衷的神，祂自己承受过最深的孤单，被父离弃、被门徒抛下、独自死去。有一天，所有这些不能被人回答的「为什么」，会有一个最终的交代，那一天以前，我们能做的，是彼此陪着，像今天这样。

　　Peter：（迟疑地）Grace，那……你现在需要我们做什么？

　　Grace：（想了想）不需要你们说什么让我立刻好起来的话，就……让我今天可以在这里哭一下，不用马上就没事，就好。

　　（大家安静地坐着，Jenny轻轻握住Grace的手）

　　Amy：（轻声，有点犹豫）我可以留下来一起坐一会儿吗？我没有信主，不知道该说什么，但我不想现在就走。

　　Grace：（看向她，点点头）谢谢你。

　　John：（过了一会儿，轻声）我们可以为Grace的奶奶、为Grace的家人祷告，不是求一个「为什么」的答案，是求神此刻就在Grace心里，陪着她走过这几天。

讨论：

这一场从Tom提出「道德只是权力游戏，基督教是骗局」的说法开始，到Amy作为旁观者质疑「说得好听做不到就没意义」，再到Peter、Jenny承认自己私下的言行也曾让人对信仰失望，再到Grace带着奶奶骤逝的消息来到团契、John没有给答案只是陪着她。请讨论：

1) 这一路听下来，从「别人的虚伪证明信仰是假的」，到「我自己可能也是让人失望的那一个」，再到「苦难临到一个爱神的人身上，神在哪里」——哪一段最戳中你？

2) 愿意的话，跟大家说说为什么，以及你希望自己接下来怎么去回应它。

Lesson 2: Why Do Some Christians Disappoint Me? — Sin and Grace

(It rained this week. A few umbrellas are still dripping by the door, and there’s a box of donuts that Jack picked up on the way sitting on the table.)

1. When Christians Disappoint Me, Where Do I Go?

Tom: (pushes his phone into the middle of the table, clearly upset) Did you guys see this? That pastor who’s been all over the internet got exposed for misusing church money and having an inappropriate relationship with someone on his staff. Everyone in the comments is tearing him apart. I’ve been reading it for a while, and honestly, it just leaves me feeling really uncomfortable.

Jack: Yeah, I saw it. My roommate actually sent it to me with a message: “Aren’t all you Christians basically like this?”

Tom: What did you say to him?

Jack: (laughs bitterly) Honestly, I didn’t really know what to say, because… I’ve seen something similar myself. There’s a deacon at my church who’s really polished when he preaches and leads Bible studies, but privately he’s really harsh toward the people working under him. The way he talks to people can be really hurtful. A few of us younger people have actually said privately that we’d rather he just stop preaching.

Amy: (Tom’s girlfriend; this is her first time at the fellowship, and she sits a little farther away from the group) Can I say something that might not sound very nice? I’m not a Christian. I’m here because of Tom. Honestly, whenever I see news like this, what goes through my mind is: if God really exists, then why can these people stand up there and give such moving sermons while living like this in private? I’m not trying to provoke anyone. I genuinely don’t understand.

Peter: (sighs) That doesn’t seem fair, though. If one person does something wrong, why does the whole faith have to take the blame? I didn’t tell him to steal money from the church.

John: (He has been sitting quietly in the corner listening. Now he looks up and joins in.) You’re right, Peter. Throwing everyone into the same boat just because of one person really isn’t fair. But I also want to be honest: God doesn’t have a “whatever, it’s fine” attitude about this either. There’s a passage in the Bible where the prophet Nathan confronts David and tells him that what David did gave the enemies of God an opportunity to blaspheme the Lord. God cares deeply about what happens to His name when people who claim to represent Him do things like this. It’s not something He takes lightly.

Amy: (a little surprised) Wait. God gets angry about that? I always thought religion was basically about encouraging people to be good. If people don’t live up to it, then so what? Everyone says one thing and does another sometimes.

John: If Christianity were simply “a set of teachings about being a good person,” then you’d be right. If you say something but don’t live up to it, at most you could say you’re being inconsistent. But Christianity has never been just “a set of ideas.” From the beginning, it has said that the real God actually cares about how His people represent Him. So in one sense, your anger toward that pastor is actually consistent with God’s own concern. You’re not necessarily being too sensitive or too judgmental.

Jenny: (goes quiet for a moment, then speaks more softly) John, can I tell you something? I’m actually not just talking about things I’ve seen happen to other people. When I was in Grade 12, a woman at my church knew what was happening in my family—my parents were going through a divorce at the time. She promised me she would keep it private, but before long, several people in the fellowship knew about it. Some people even came up to me privately and asked, “Are you okay?” I still remember how awful it felt to realize that my personal situation had become something people were talking about. That year, I almost stopped going to church. For a while, I even thought, “If this is what church is like, then maybe Jesus isn’t as trustworthy as I thought.”

Peter: (a little surprised) You’ve never told us about this.

Jenny: (forces a small smile) Saying it out loud makes me realize that I’ve probably been mixing up “that woman disappointed me” with “God disappointed me.” I never really separated the two.

John: I’ve seen so many students struggle with exactly that confusion, and I completely understand why it happens. A lot of the way we come to know God is through people who represent Him. So when one of those people hurts you, it can feel like God Himself is somehow the one who hurt you. But let me ask you to think about something: Did Jesus teach that woman to expose your private situation? Or was it her own weakness—the part of her that wanted to talk, or wanted to feel like she knew something other people didn’t—that won in that moment?

Jenny: (thinks for a moment) …Of course not. Jesus didn’t teach her to do that. The Bible clearly tells us to control our speech.

John: Exactly. So look at what happened. What hurt you wasn’t Jesus’ teaching. It was that woman failing to live according to Jesus’ teaching. If you walk away from the faith because of what happened, then in a sense, the person who hurt you ends up taking Jesus’ place. She becomes the one you blame for what you believe about Jesus, even though Jesus Himself is the one who teaches people not to do what she did. That doesn’t mean your hurt doesn’t matter. It does matter. What happened to you was real, and you have every right to grieve it. I’m not asking you to say, “It’s okay,” right now. I’m saying that these are two different things: “This person disappointed me” and “God or Christianity must therefore be false.” They deserve to be looked at separately.

Jenny: (her eyes become a little red) …I don’t think anyone has ever explained it to me that way. I thought the person who hurt me and my faith were basically the same thing.

Amy: (thoughtfully) But… John, I’m still not completely convinced. I understand your logic when you say, “The person who hurt you wasn’t following Jesus’ teaching.” But from the outside, what I see isn’t just “one person failed.” I see this kind of thing happening in churches all the time—gossip, people talking behind each other’s backs, cliques. Honestly, it’s not that different from what happens in my residence building. If Christians do these things just like everyone else, then why should I spend extra time figuring out who Jesus is? Why not just live my own life?

John: (doesn’t avoid the question) That’s a very honest question, Amy. Thank you for being willing to say it. I want us to dig one level deeper into that question in the second half, because it’s actually more fundamental than “that pastor did something wrong.” What you’re really asking is: if Christians still make mistakes, then what is Christianity actually good for? We’re going to spend the second half talking about that. For now, let me finish what we need to talk about in this first half, okay?

Amy: (nods) Okay.

Jack: (thinks for a moment, then approaches it from another angle) What about older Christians? I’m not talking about someone leaking private information. I mean… there are a few older people at my church who constantly use their own standards to judge me. They tell me what I should study. They say things like, “If you study CS or Business, that’s how you bless your family.” If I say I’m interested in something else, they shake their heads and sigh. They even try to control who I’m friends with. This person is too worldly, that church isn’t “pure” enough. I know they care about me, but being constantly judged like that is really suffocating. Sometimes it makes me want to leave the church even more than some of the scandals we hear about.

Tom: (half-joking, with the kind of academic tone he picked up in class) Actually, we talked about this in Sociology. Every generation’s “moral standards” are shaped by the culture of its time. My parents’ generation thinks studying CS means you’re successful because they immigrated here during a time when they were scared of being poor. That has more to do with culture than the Bible. Their generation and mine don’t have exactly the same value system. So in a sense, Jack, what you’re experiencing is a cultural conflict between generations, not really a conflict between “the Bible” and “you.”

John: I think you’re half right about that, Tom. I’m not denying that a lot of this really does come from culture, fear, and concern about what other people think, rather than from anything the Bible actually requires. But I want to point out one thing: when you say, “That’s just a cultural product, not something from the Bible,” you can turn that question back on yourself. Do you think “everyone should be respected in their own choices” might also be a “cultural product” that your generation and your society have given you? What makes it objectively right? If everything can be reduced to “just a product of a particular time and culture,” then everything we’re saying here—including what you just said—can be reduced in exactly the same way.

Tom: (is caught off guard and doesn’t respond immediately)

John: I’m not trying to dismiss your observation. Jack, I think your frustration is real, and we need to work through it carefully. One simple but useful way to do that is to ask yourself: Can this expectation from an older Christian actually be supported by a specific teaching from the Bible, or is it really just “everyone does this,” “it would look bad if we didn’t,” or “that’s just how things were when we were growing up”? If it’s the first, then you should seriously consider it and may even need to submit to it. If it’s the second, you can respect their feelings without necessarily doing what they want. Your identity in the gospel doesn’t come from choosing the right major or marrying the right person. Christ has already accepted you. You don’t need to earn that acceptance by making your elders happy.

Jack: (looks relieved, but still has some reservations) …I need to think about that. My parents still ask me about my GPA every week.

Peter: So what am I actually supposed to do? Next time my dad starts telling me I should switch majors, I can’t exactly say, “That’s just your cultural conditioning.” That would start a huge fight at home.

John: (laughs) Definitely don’t say it like that. The way you communicate matters too. I’d suggest that you don’t rush into an argument right there. First, take some time by yourself and ask: “When I obey my parents in this situation, am I doing it because I’m afraid of disappointing them, or because I genuinely believe what they’re asking is right?” If it’s the first, then even if you obey, you probably won’t have real peace. You’ve just changed the way you’re trying to live for your parents’ approval. If you realize that fear is driving you, then you especially need to go back to God first and let the gospel settle your heart. Then talk with your parents. At that point, what you say won’t be, “I’m fighting against you.” It will be, “I’m responsible to God, and I’m still willing to listen to your advice.”

Discussion

In this part, the friends talked about a pastor’s scandal that was exposed online, Amy’s disappointment as someone who doesn’t yet believe in Jesus when she sees gossip and other problems in the church, the hurt Jenny experienced when a woman at church shared something she had promised to keep private, and the pressure Jack feels when older Christians impose cultural expectations on him. John reminded Jenny that “this person disappointed me” and “God or Christianity must therefore be false” are two different things that need to be separated. Discuss:

1) Think about someone or something in your own life that has made you disappointed in, or even hurt by, the church or by Christians. It might be something you saw online, something personal like Jenny’s or Jack’s experience, or even something like Amy’s experience of being an outsider looking at the church. To what extent, in your heart, was it “this person disappointed me”? And to what extent did it quietly become “therefore Christianity itself can’t be trusted”?

2) If you’re willing, share what happened and how you see the relationship between those two things now.

2. If Christians Are Like This, Is There Any Hope?

Tom: (half-joking, half-serious) Okay, then let me go back to the question I didn’t finish in the first half. If there’s this much of this kind of thing among Christians—from famous pastors online, to church deacons, to the older Christians Jack was talking about—doesn’t that actually prove that this whole “faith” is just a scam? We talked about this in our Poli Sci seminar last week. The professor said that what we call “morality,” “good,” and “evil” are basically games of power. Whoever controls the conversation gets to define what counts as sin and what counts as holiness. There are examples of this all throughout religious history—the Crusades, the Inquisition, all kinds of double standards. Christians condemn other people for sinning, but when they sin themselves, they always seem to have an excuse. Doesn’t that prove the point?

Jack: (nods) I think at the very least it shows that “believing” and “living it out” are two different things. Having a nice set of teachings doesn’t mean much if nobody actually lives by them.

Amy: (seriously) I agree with Tom. And honestly, if a system sounds great but the people who follow it can’t actually live it out, then it doesn’t have much practical meaning for me. I don’t need something that is “perfect in theory.” I need something I can actually see and experience.

John: (doesn’t immediately argue back) Tom, Amy, let me ask you one thing first. Tom, you used the words “double standard” and “scam.” When you talk about that pastor and those older Christians, do you genuinely think what they did was wrong, or do you simply think they “got caught and lost the power game”?

Tom: (caught off guard) …Of course I genuinely think they did something wrong.

John: Then I want you to think carefully about something. If morality really is nothing more than a game of power—if whoever controls the conversation gets to decide what’s right and wrong—then what makes your statement, “They did something wrong,” actually true? If everything is just about power, then if that pastor has the power, he wins. And if you criticize him, aren’t you just trying to take the power back? There’s actually an assumption hidden inside your anger that you may not have noticed: there really is a standard that says, “You should not treat people this way.” It isn’t simply a matter of whoever has more power getting to make the rules.

Tom: (frowns, wanting to argue back but unable to respond immediately) …Maybe I’m just playing the same power game. Maybe I’m just trying to claim the moral high ground.

John: You can apply that explanation to literally any statement, including your own. You can even apply it to this theory that “everything is about power.” If everything can be explained as “you’re just trying to gain power,” then isn’t that statement itself just another attempt to gain power? Once you apply that theory all the way to the end, it eats itself. No statement can stand, including the theory itself. I’m not trying to win an argument with you. I want you to see something: that feeling you had today that “this isn’t right” isn’t simply because you’ve adopted some theory. It’s because deep down, you already know there is some real standard of “this should not happen.” You didn’t invent that standard, and that pastor didn’t invent it either. Both of you are accountable to it.

Amy: (quiet for a moment) …But even if there really is some kind of moral standard, that doesn’t mean the standard comes from “the God Christianity talks about.” Maybe it’s just something human beings evolved because it helped groups survive. Maybe it has nothing to do with God.

John: That’s a really good question. I can’t give you the whole argument in thirty minutes, but I can give you something to think about. If morality is really just an instinct that evolved because it helped groups survive, then its function would be to be “useful,” not necessarily to be “true.” But when you and I say, “That pastor did something wrong,” we’re not saying, “That behaviour is bad for the survival of the group.” We’re saying, “What he did was wrong in itself. He shouldn’t have done it even if, somehow, it benefited the group.” Evolution may explain why we have certain useful instincts, but it doesn’t by itself explain the sense of “should not” that goes beyond calculating what benefits us. The weight we feel when we say “this should not happen” seems heavier than a mere survival instinct. Where that weight comes from is something I want you to go home and think about. I can’t make you believe it today, but I want you to see that this is not a question we can simply brush aside.

Peter: (thoughtfully) So… when we get angry at people like that, it’s not necessarily because we’re rejecting Christianity. In a sense, it could actually be because the Christian belief that “God cares about justice” has already given us that standard inside us?

John: Exactly. And that also directly answers your question, Tom. Christianity has never said that once you believe, you’ll stop sinning. The Bible actually says the opposite. Let me tell you something I haven’t brought up tonight. Peter, remember that group project last month? There was a non-Christian student in your group, and you were really unhappy because the work wasn’t being divided fairly. You didn’t say anything to him directly, but when he wasn’t there, you complained about him to the other two people and said he had a bad attitude. Remember that?

Peter: (embarrassed) How did you know about that…? Yeah, I remember. Somehow that student heard about it, and things became really awkward between us afterward. That night I thought, “I go around saying I’m a Christian, but what I did was basically the same kind of thing we’re criticizing that pastor for.”

Jenny: (sighs) Same for me. Honestly, my roommate knows I’m a Christian, but she’s never really asked me about my faith. I’m guessing she probably thinks, “Christians are basically like everyone else.” She’s seen me completely break down because I couldn’t finish an assignment before the deadline, and when I’m stressed I can be really harsh with people. I’m completely different from the person she sees at fellowship. One time she even joked, “Aren’t Christians supposed to have more peace? Why do you seem more stressed than I am?” I laughed it off at the time, but it really bothered me.

Tom: (half-joking, half-serious) So the pastor we were criticizing today and Peter and Jenny are basically all in the same boat?

John: (doesn’t avoid the question) In one sense, yes. The degree is different, but the basic problem is the same: what we say we believe doesn’t always match the way we actually live. It’s easy to criticize that pastor or that deacon because their actions have been put on public display. But every Christian, including every person sitting here—and me too—has this same gap between what we say and how we live. The only question is whether other people happen to see it. Let me tell you something that isn’t exactly flattering, just so you know you’re not alone. Last week someone cut me off while I was driving, and I got so angry that I almost chased the car down Broadway. Halfway through, I suddenly realized I had the fellowship’s name tag hanging in my car. I honestly wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. So I’m not standing here above you giving you a lecture. I may have done something embarrassing myself just yesterday.

Jack: Then doesn’t that mean Christianity is useless? If you’ve believed for this long and you’re still like this, what’s the difference between believing and not believing?

John: This is the part I really want to clarify. There was a nineteenth-century theologian at Princeton Seminary named Charles Hodge who made an important distinction between the “visible church” and the “invisible church.” Basically, the church we can see—the group that gathers every week, gets baptized, and has its name on the membership list—will always contain a mixture of genuine believers and people who only appear to believe. We cannot completely separate the two in this life. But the “invisible church” is the group of people whom God Himself knows as truly regenerated and saved. Only God knows that complete list. Hodge wasn’t saying this to make us disappointed in the visible church. He was reminding us not to assume that “this person is officially a Christian” automatically means “this person has truly been born again.” The fact that this pastor was exposed doesn’t prove that Christianity is fake. It actually shows that the church has never depended on filtering out every bad person in order to prove that the gospel is true. Its foundation is the gospel itself.

Jenny: Doesn’t that make things even more hopeless? If we can’t even tell who in the church is genuine and who isn’t, then what does it actually mean to “live out your faith”?

John: Hodge’s distinction isn’t meant to make you suspicious of everyone around you. It’s meant to pull you out of a dead end—the idea that you can determine whether Christianity is true by looking at how perfect the people in the church are. Pride, caring too much about what people think, judging others, greed, losing control of our emotions—those things are still present in people who genuinely believe. One moment they may show up in one person, and the next moment they may show up in someone else. I’m no exception. That isn’t an excuse for anyone’s behaviour. It’s meant to help you understand something: we shouldn’t be shocked that there is still sin in the church. What should actually amaze us is that God is willing to make a covenant with people like us and live among us. Christianity has never said that once you believe, you will never sin again. It says the opposite. It is precisely because everyone is sinful that the gospel is not, “You have to perform well enough for God to want you.” It is, “While you were still a sinner, Christ died for you.” If one day you walked into a church and found nothing but perfect people, that would actually be evidence against what Christianity teaches, because Christianity says the church is a community of sinners who have received grace, not a community of perfect people.

Amy: (thinks for a moment, her tone becoming softer) …That’s actually the first time I’ve heard Christianity explained that way. It’s very different from the way I used to think about religion—as basically something that teaches people to become better. The way you’re describing it, the main issue isn’t really “Who behaves better?”

John: Exactly. The issue has never been “Who performs better?” It’s “Who is willing to admit that they can’t hold themselves together and need someone to hold them up?” That’s also why, Amy, when you see these things that disappoint you today, I’m not going to tell you, “Just give it more time and you’ll see.” Instead, I want you to ask a question that goes one step further back. If Christians themselves admit, “We can’t do this perfectly,” then which kind of faith do you think is more worth seriously considering: a faith that says, “Admit that you can’t do it, but believe that someone has done it for you,” or a faith that says, “Pretend you can do it”?

Amy: (quiet for a moment) …I need to think about that. That’s not really the direction I was expecting this conversation to go.

Tom: (quiet for a moment, not arguing, just thinking) …I’ve never heard anyone put it that way either. Most of what I’ve heard is, “Christians need to be salt and light,” “Christians need to set a good example.” Nobody ever told me, “The church is basically a group of people who are still struggling with sin.”

John: We are called to be salt and light because grace changes us. That part is true, and I’m not denying it. But it isn’t something we perform by our own strength. It’s something grace gradually works in us, and that work is never finished in this life.

(The door opens quietly. Grace walks in, her eyes a little red. Everyone becomes quiet.)

Grace: (her voice is a little hoarse) Sorry I’m late… My grandma passed away suddenly last night. It was a heart problem. It happened so suddenly that I couldn’t even get home in time.

Jenny: (immediately gets up and helps her sit down) Grace… are you okay? Do you want to sit down for a bit?

Grace: (forces a small smile) I’m okay. It’s just… I don’t really know what I’m feeling right now. One minute I’m really sad, and the next I feel completely numb. I was sitting here listening to you guys, and suddenly I just couldn’t hold it together anymore.

Peter: (a little helpless, looking at John) Should we… say something to comfort her?

John: (shakes his head at Peter, then speaks to Grace) Grace, you don’t need to sort out your emotions right now, and you don’t need to give us some kind of “answer.” We’re just going to stay here with you.

(There is silence for a few seconds.)

Grace: (quietly) There’s a question that’s been going around in my head for the past few days… My grandma had been a Christian for almost fifty years. Everyone at church knew her, and a lot of people actually came to faith because of her. But when she died, not one person in her family was there. Her caregiver was the one who found her. I’m not saying I don’t believe that God is sovereign, but I can’t stop asking… God, do You really care about her? She loved You so much, and You let her die alone like that?

Tom: (was about to say something encouraging, but seeing that John hasn’t spoken, he stays quiet.)

John: (doesn’t answer immediately; after a few seconds, he speaks) Grace, I don’t have an answer that can make that question disappear right now. And if someone were to tell you, “Everything happens for a reason, and God has a good plan,” I completely understand if you just wanted to walk out of this room.

Grace: (gives a bitter little smile) …Someone already said that to me. Honestly, I really wanted to hang up the phone.

John: What I want to say may not feel as comforting, but I believe it’s true. When Jesus’ friend Lazarus died, the Bible says Jesus wept. He knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. He knew exactly what was going to happen, and He still stood there and cried at the tomb. God isn’t standing far away, watching our suffering and coldly saying, “It’s all part of the plan.” He entered into our suffering Himself. And eventually, He Himself died.

Jenny: (quietly) But that doesn’t answer the “why” question. Why couldn’t God have made sure someone was there with her when she died?

John: I can’t give you a complete answer to that “why” today, and I don’t want to pretend that I can. God’s sovereignty and God’s goodness are not a mathematical problem that we can completely solve. We can only see one small piece of the puzzle; we can’t see the whole picture. What I can say is that God never promised that people who love Him would never experience something like this. What He has promised is that no matter how painful something is, He is there in the middle of it. And the cross proves that He is not a God who is indifferent to suffering. He Himself experienced the deepest loneliness—abandoned by the Father, deserted by His disciples, and dying alone. One day, all those “whys” that no one can answer will finally have an answer. Until that day comes, what we can do is stay with one another, just like we’re doing tonight.

Peter: (hesitantly) Grace, then… what do you need us to do right now?

Grace: (thinks for a moment) I don’t need you to say something that’s supposed to make me feel better right away. I just… want to be able to sit here and cry today. I don’t want to have to be okay immediately. That’s all.

(Everyone sits quietly. Jenny gently holds Grace’s hand.)

Amy: (softly, a little hesitant) Can I stay here with you guys for a while? I’m not a Christian, and I don’t really know what to say, but I don’t want to leave right now.

Grace: (looks at her and nods) Thank you.

John: (after a while, quietly) We can pray for Grace’s grandma and for Grace’s family. We’re not going to ask God to give us an answer to the “why.” We’re going to ask Him to be with Grace right now and walk with her through these days.

Discussion

This part began with Tom saying, “Morality is just a game of power, so Christianity is a scam,” followed by Amy questioning whether a faith that sounds good but isn’t lived out has any real meaning. Peter and Jenny then admitted that their own private words and actions have sometimes made other people disappointed in Christianity. Finally, Grace arrived at the fellowship after the sudden death of her grandmother, and John did not give her an easy answer. He simply stayed with her. Discuss:

1) As you listen through this whole section—from “Other people’s hypocrisy proves that faith is false,” to “Maybe I’m also one of the people who disappoints others,” and finally to “When suffering comes to someone who loves God, where is God?”—which part speaks to you most deeply?

2) If you’re willing, share why, and how you hope to respond to it from here.

　　（周五晚上，大学团契活动室的灯光很明亮，桌上摆着几包薯片和一箱饮料。团契辅导员John还没有到，先到的几个人已经开始聊起来了。）

一、我是不是被控制了？

　　Peter：（把手机反扣在桌上，叹气）我昨晚又刷到两点。CPSC 210的project明明周五就due，我一个字没写。

　　Jenny：刷什么刷到两点？

　　Peter：也没干嘛，就是Reels，划一下，下一个；再划一下，下一个。中间还看了三条完全一样的猫视频，就因为算法觉得我会喜欢。我一开始跟自己说，写完这一part就奖励自己刷十分钟。结果两个小时过去，project一个字没多，我还觉得更累，不是更放松。

　　Tom：（耸肩）那不是很正常吗，我们不都这样？你想太多了吧。

　　Peter：我知道大家都这样，但我心里有个声音一直说：你这不是放松，是逃避。我是真的怕交不出project，怕到干脆不想面对，于是就划手机。可我又分不清，我是真的累了需要喘口气，还是在骗自己拖延。

　　John：（推门进来，放下东西，顺口接话）这个问题，我到这个年纪也一样分不清。

　　Tom：（半开玩笑）John哥你也失控？

　　John：（笑）我发现一个笨办法，不是看「我在做什么」，是看「我做完之后到底发生了什么」，你是不是更有能力回到该做的事情，还是更加不想面对它？但很多时候我们说的「放松」，做完之后是更空、更烦躁、更不想面对——这种，多半不是休息，而是麻醉。

　　Tom：这也太主观了吧。我打Valorant打完是爽的，那算休息还是麻醉？

　　John：不一定跟「爽不爽」绑定，不只是看当下爽不爽，也要看它在你生命中扮演了什么角色，以及做完以后，你有没有更自由地回到该做的事情上。你打完那盘，是可以放下、去洗漱、去睡觉，还是心里空落落的，还想再排一把、再刷一条？

　　Tom：（沉默一下）……后者比较多，尤其是输了那盘还想扳回来。但那不能证明游戏有问题，可能只是我这周赶due压力大而已。

　　John：有可能。我不是说游戏有问题，是说，当一件事变成你「必须靠它才能撑过去」的东西，它在你生命中的位置就变了。

　　Jenny：（小声，带点不好意思）那我知道那种感觉。我刷小红书跟Ins，嘴上说随便看看，但每次刷完看到别人宿舍布置得那么好看、假期又去了哪里旅游，我心里都更焦虑，觉得自己这也不够那也不够。可我还是忍不住点开，一天能点好几十次。为什么会这样？

　　Jack：（半开玩笑）你这是欲望的死循环——越焦虑越想看，看完更焦虑。

　　Jenny：对，就是这样，但我讲不清楚为什么，中文词汇不太够……那种感觉我懂，但说不出道理。

　　Peter：（转向John）那到底怎么分辨「享受一个爱好」跟「被它控制」？有没有具体一点的信号？

　　Tom：（抢话，有点不服气）我先说我的标准——如果我不打游戏还能正常过日子、按时交作业，那就没被控制，对吧？

　　John：那是一个信号，但太晚了。我倒觉得更早的信号，是你被打断的时候的反应。比如你正刷着剧，室友叫你帮个忙，或者你想起该祷告了，那一刻你心里冒出来的是「好，等一下也没事」，还是一股烦躁、抗拒、几乎生气的感觉？

　　Jack：还有一个信号，我自己也有——你愿不愿意让人看见你花在这上面的时间。我手机有个屏幕使用时间统计，我每次看到那个数字，第一反应是把它划掉，而不是给别人看。这算不算一个信号？

　　John：（点头）这是个很好的信号。躲躲藏藏，有时是一个值得追问的信号：我为什么不想让别人知道？我是在隐藏罪，还是只是害怕被误解、被控制？我到底在保护什么？

　　Tom：（仍有点抗拒）可这样说的话，几乎所有让人开心的事都能被你说成「被控制」，那是不是什么都不能好好享受了？

　　John：（认真地，不急着反驳）Tom，这个担心是对的，我要是给你的印象是「小心，什么都可能是偶像」，那我传达错了。享受一件好东西，跟被它控制，中间那条线不是「你多喜欢它」，也不是「它能不能被放下」，更要看你是不是开始靠它得到那些只有神才能成为你根基的东西——你的满足、保障、身份、安慰或者盼望。游戏、视频、朋友圈可以让我们享受神所赐的普遍恩典，问题出在我们把它们放到了只有神才应该占的位置，让这些东西成了我们确认自己「今天过得好不好」、「我值不值得被喜欢」的唯一来源。它们扛不住这个位置，因为它们从来不是为了承担这个位置而被造的。

　　Tom：（想了想，没有立刻反驳，但也没完全服气）……我需要再想想。这个屏幕使用时间的事，我其实也不太敢看我自己的。

　　Peter：（想起什么）说到「什么才对」……我上周Philosophy 100的Tutorial，TA讲后现代那一段，说什么「宏大叙事」（grand narrative）都靠不住，每个文化、每个人对「好的生活」的定义都不一样，没有谁能说自己那套是唯一对的。我当时听着觉得挺有道理，下课路上就顺手把这套用在自己身上——那我说「我被手机控制了」，会不会也只是我给自己套的一个「叙事」？说不定对另一个人来说，天天刷两小时就是他的normal，谁有资格说这不对？

　　Jack：（笑）你这是把哲学课当借口继续刷手机吧。

　　Peter：（不好意思地笑）也不是完全没有，但我是真的会被这个说法绕进去——如果什么都是「对我而言」真实，那「逃避」 vs 「放松」这种分辨，是不是也只是我自己给自己贴的标签，没有客观对错？

　　John：这个问题问得好，而且比Tom刚才那个还要往下扎一层。Tom问的是「哪种应对方式更有效」，你现在问的是「有没有一个不靠我自己定义的标准，来判断什么是对的」。这其实是两个不同的问题。

　　Jenny：（皱眉）那这两个有什么不一样？我平时根本分不出来。

　　John：Tom那个问题，心理学、社会学都在研究——心理学可以观察冥想、运动，以及祷告所带来的某些心理体验，可以研究这些做法怎样影响人的情绪、压力和行为，但这些经验研究本身不能最终回答：人为什么活着、什么是真正的善、我们最终应该敬拜谁。

　　Peter：那你的答案是什么？

　　John：（诚实地）我没办法当场证明给你看，这不是三句话能说服人的事。但我想请你注意一件事——你说「什么都是各自的叙事，没有谁的更对」的时候，你自己心里其实还是分得出「逃避」跟「放松」的不一样，你今天一开始进门就说「我怕这不是放松，是逃避」，那句话里已经藏着一个判断——你认定「逃避」是不好的、「放松」是好的。如果真的一切都只是各自的叙事、没有客观对错，你为什么还会因为「逃避」而不安？

　　Peter：（愣了一下）……因为感觉不对。

　　John：那种「感觉不对」，往深里追，其实是在说——你心里知道有一个「应该」的样子，你现在的生活没有活出那个样子。这个「应该」似乎不是你自己发明的叙事，如果是你自己发明的，你随时可以改写它、让自己心安理得。可你改写不了，你还是会内疚、会不安。这至少说明，你自己的主观感觉似乎不能解释完这个问题。你为什么会觉得有一个「应该」？这个「应该」到底从哪里来？

　　Tom：（插话）可万一那个「应该」也是被家庭、教会、文化塑造出来的呢？我从小去教会，我这个「内疚感」会不会只是从小被训练出来的反应，不是什么「客观真实」？

　　John：这是个诚实的质疑，我不会假装它不成立，说实话我大一上Philosophy 101的时候，也拿这句话怼过我们团契的辅导员，效果拔群，直接把他问住了半分钟——所以Tom，你不是第一个想到这招的人。我只能说——如果连「觉得不对」这种感觉都能被完全解释成「被训练出来的」，那你此刻质疑我、质疑教会教导的这个念头，是不是也是被你的Philosophy课、被这个时代的文化训练出来的？如果相对主义说一切判断都只是被文化塑造出来的，那我们还得继续追问：这个「一切都是被塑造的」判断本身，又凭什么是对的？所以，如果把相对主义进行到底，它会把自己也吃掉，有点像那种自己咬自己尾巴的蛇。护教学家范泰尔（Cornelius Van Til）常年讲的就是这个——他说，没有人真的活在「中立」的立场上，每个人骨子里要么承认神是那个让一切判断、一切理性都站得住的根基，要么就是在借用这个根基的同时，嘴上否认它存在。你刚才那句「这只是被训练出来的」，其实也是站在某个「应该客观」的立场上说话，你没办法真的做到彻底中立。我不是要用这个把你说服，是想说——这条路走到最后，其实并不会让人真的更自由，只是把「该信什么」从教会手里，换到了这个时代的另一套叙事手里而已。

　　Peter：（慢慢地）……所以你不是说「不能怀疑」，是说「怀疑」这件事本身，也需要一个立足点，不然怀疑到最后连自己站在哪都不知道。

　　John：对，我完全鼓励你怀疑、追问，福音经得起这些问题。我只是不希望你们把「后现代」这套工具，用来把所有让自己不舒服的真相都挡在外面，包括挡住神。

讨论：

刚才几个朋友聊到了拖延赶due、刷短视频、比较别人的生活、打游戏输赢，也聊到了「什么都是各自的叙事，没有客观对错」这种想法。John提到了两个具体的信号：做完之后是「更有力气」还是「更空虚」，被打断时是「能放下」还是「抗拒到几乎生气」；Jack又补了第三个：你愿不愿意让别人看见你花在这上面的时间。请讨论：

1) 用这三个信号——事后感受、被打断的反应、愿不愿意被看见——检视一下自己最近的手机、游戏、追剧习惯，你觉得自己更靠近「享受」，还是更靠近「逃避」？愿意的话，跟大家说说是什么让你有这个感觉。

2) Peter提到，自己在哲学课上学到的「后现代」思路，会不会让他连「逃避不对」这种感觉都开始怀疑。你在学校的课堂上，有没有遇到过类似的、让你开始怀疑信仰或道德判断的说法？当时你是怎么处理这个张力的？

二、什么才能让我满足？

　　Jack：（自嘲）说到「不敢看数字」，我跟你们说个更丢人的。上周末Canucks输了，我那一整天心情都是坏的，室友跟我说话我都爱理不理，晚饭也没什么胃口。我自己都觉得——这至于吗？一场球赛而已，我又不认识那些球员。

　　Tom：正常吧，我上周排位掉了一个段位，一晚上心情全毁，第二天上课都没听进去。

　　Jack：可我后来仔细想，我那天的反应，跟我上次微积分考砸了的反应，其实差不多重。这就有点奇怪了——一场球赛，怎么能跟我准备了几个月的考试占同样的分量？

　　Jenny：（若有所思）可能不是球赛本身重要，是那场球赛那一刻，好像代表了「今天到底顺不顺」？

　　John：这个观察很准。心情被一场比赛整个接管，往往不是那件事本身有多重要，是它悄悄坐上了一个不属于它的位置——那个决定「我今天过得好不好」的位置。

　　Tom：（这次是真的不服气）那照这个逻辑，是不是打游戏看剧都要提心吊胆、时刻反省？「无论做什么都要为荣耀神而行」——难道打游戏之前还要先祷告一下才能玩？这不就是另一种规矩，跟我妈以前管我一样，最后谁还敢放松？

　　Peter：（帮腔）对啊，这样听起来，信主之后好像什么都不能痛快享受了。

　　John：我懂你们担心什么，如果「为神的荣耀而活」变成「打游戏前先做属灵体操」，那真的很累，也不是圣经原本的意思。

　　Tom：那到底怎么理解？

　　John：我问你，Tom，你有没有过这种时刻——你在做一件很享受的事，心里不需要逃避，也没有觉得必须靠它证明什么，就是单纯地享受神给你的恩赐；做完以后，你也能够放下它，回到该做的事情上？

　　Tom：……有。上次周末我们几个打了几个小时排位，赢了以后一起在Discord里笑了半天，后来我就关掉电脑睡觉了，第二天照样起来做该做的事。

　　John：那至少说明那一次你是在享受，而不是完全被它牵着走。问题不是「打游戏」这件事，是——你打游戏的时候，心是自由的，还是在靠它填一个「洞」？如果是前者，享受就是享受；如果是后者，问题不在游戏，是那个洞需要被别的东西填。这个「洞」，就是人离开神以后，就会不断从受造物里寻找满足、安慰、身份和安全感。

　　Jack：（想了想）所以不是「能不能做」的问题，是「靠什么活着」的问题。

　　Peter：那如果我发现自己经常是「填洞」，是不是干脆就该把游戏卸载、把追剧App删了？

　　John：（摇头）如果只是删App，可能撑一个礼拜。因为，如果心里真正的问题没有被处理，有时就会换一样东西继续承担原来那个功能，可能是别的App，也可能是别的东西。

　　Jack：（点头）我室友就是这样。他上学期发现自己刷Instagram刷到影响睡眠，直接把App全删了，还买了个Opal锁手机，狠了整整两周，我们都觉得他挺厉害。结果第三周他把App全装回来了，比之前刷得更凶，还多了个毛病——开始疯狂网购，说是「奖励自己坚持了两周」。

　　Peter：（笑）这也太惨了。

　　Jack：他自己也很崩溃，说感觉自己好像「戒断」了手机，却什么都没解决，只是换了个东西逃避而已。

　　Jenny：不是所有的方法都不管用吧？我室友Amy也是因为刷手机刷到快挂科，她学期初就开始跟她们查经班的一个学姐做accountability，每周固定报一次自己的屏幕使用时间，学姐也不是审判她，就是问问、陪她祷告。这学期她真的好很多，屏幕时间从每天六七个小时降到两三个小时，人也精神很多。

　　Tom：那不就证明这个方法有效吗？

　　Jenny：（犹豫）有效，但……也没有完全好。上次期中周她还是整晚整晚地刷，跟学姐报告的时候，她说她其实有点想少报一点、或者干脆那周不报了，怕学姐失望。她自己也说，感觉像是从「手机」换成了「怕让人失望」在管着她，压力小了一点，但那个「靠外面的东西撑着才不崩」的感觉，好像还在，只是换了个形状。

　　John：（点头）这正是我想说的下一件事。Amy找accountability，方向是对的，这不是白做的，神也真的会用这样的关系帮助我们——但如果只到这一步就停下来，她可能开始把「学姐会不会失望」当成了自己必须靠着才能撑住的东西。那个「必须靠外面的东西才能撑过去」的核心，其实没有被处理，只是换了一个更体面、看起来更属灵的外壳。

　　Jack：这么说，那些方法（删App、找人监督、锁手机）到底有没有用？

　　John：有用，但它们的位置要摆对。它们是「先抽出手边的那根柴」，能帮你争取一点空间、少一点马上跌倒的机会，这是好的、是智慧的，我完全鼓励你们用。但它们解决不了「为什么我一空虚就要抓东西」这个更深的问题。这就是我等一下想跟你们说的——一个人没办法只处理某一件事上的问题，却放着心里那个更根本的东西不管。

　　Tom：（挑刺，带着点上课学来的腔调）可是这样讲会不会太绝对了？我们Sociology课教授上周才讲，每个人应对压力的方式不一样，有人靠祷告，有人靠冥想，有人靠运动，这些都只是不同的coping mechanism，没有哪个比哪个更「真」，只是对不同的人有效或没效而已。你凭什么说基督徒这套就比较对？

　　John：（没有立刻反驳）这个说法我上大学的时候也信过一阵子。我完全同意，不同的应对方式确实对不同的人「有效」，冥想、运动这些确实能让很多人真的感觉好一点，这不是假的。我想问的不是「哪个更有效」，是「有效」到底是什么意思——是让你当下感觉好一点，还是真的解决了那个让你一直要抓东西填的洞。我刚才说的「填洞」，指的不是「有没有用」，而是那个洞会不会真的被填满、你会不会真的不再需要一直去抓。这是两个不同的问题，前一个心理学可以研究，后一个却不是心理学能够回答的。

　　Jenny：（想了想）我表姐去年开始看心理咨询，她说真的对她的焦虑有帮助，睡得比以前好很多。这个不算数吗？

　　John：当然算啊。我们不能因为心理学不是圣经，就说它观察到的东西全是假的。她焦虑减轻了、睡得好了，这些都是真的。问题是——你有没有想过，「心理学」其实不是一套东西？里面有很多不同的理论，而且它们对「人心里为什么会出现这些洞？怎么填这些洞？」，给出的答案差别可以非常大。

　　John：说实话，我也常常分不清，这不是一次分辨完就一劳永逸的事，是要不断诚实地问自己的。

　　Jenny：（转移话题，有点犹豫）那我可以问一个不太一样的吗……我最近花钱越来越大手大脚。温哥华什么都贵，我这学期光租房加保险就快一千二了，可我心里越焦虑，越想在网上买点衣服、买点护肤品让自己开心一下。买完是开心，但没多久又更焦虑，然后又想买。上个月我信用卡账单，光是网购就快四百刀，我都不敢跟爸妈说。

　　Peter：这不就跟手机一样吗？焦虑→做点什么→短暂舒服→更焦虑。

　　Jack：而且你也不敢让人看见那个账单，跟我不敢看屏幕使用时间一样。

　　John：（点头）你们已经看出规律了，这就是敬拜的规律——不管是手机、球赛、还是购物，人心一旦焦虑、空虚，就会本能地伸手抓一个东西来填。抓到的那一刻会舒服，但那个东西撑不住你，很快你又空了，又要再抓一次，而且越抓越不敢让人知道。偶像不一定是你嘴上说「我最爱它」的东西。偶像往往是你实际拿来获得满足、身份、安全感和盼望的东西。所以虽然手机、球赛、购物本身不是偶像，但它们都可能成为偶像。

　　Jack：那我们是不是应该一个一个来？先把手机这件事处理好，再处理购物，再处理别的？

　　John：这个想法很自然，但我要老实说，我不太相信这样行得通，而且不只是我个人的经验，十七世纪有一位叫约翰·欧文（John Owen）的牧师，专门写过一本讨论「治死罪」的书，他里面有一句话我一直记着，大意是——一个人不可能只单独治死一样罪，却放着别的罪不管；因为你若不是真心追求在神面前全面的圣洁，那你在某一件事上看起来「戒掉了」，其实也不是真的被治死，只是暂时被压下去、或者换了个地方冒出来而已。

　　Peter：（想到Jack室友的例子）就像Jack室友那样，手机戒了，网购冒出来了。

　　John：对，就是这个意思。欧文的意思不是说「你不用努力戒手机了，反正没用」，他其实特别强调要认真、具体地对付每一样具体的罪，不能笼统地说「我要变得更圣洁」就算了。他要说的是——如果你处理手机这件事的时候，心里真正在意的只是「我要把这一件事管好」，而不是被那个更根本的问题——我到底信不信神真的顾念我、我需不需要靠别的东西证明自己够好——挑战到，那手机这件事就算暂时压住了，心里的问题仍然没有被处理，很可能还会在别的地方表现出来。网购、拼命刷成绩证明自己、甚至看起来很「属灵」的忙碌服事，都可能是同一个根的不同枝子。

　　Tom：（认真起来，不再是抬杠的语气）那照这个说法，是不是意味着，永远没有真的「戒掉」的一天？

　　John：（诚实地）有些具体习惯，当然可能真的被戒掉；有些罪也会在我们的生命中明显地失去力量。但我们不能期待在今生把罪的根彻底拔干净，我们会一直在跟它打交道。我不想给你们一个「信主之后就再也不被这些东西缠住」的假承诺。但欧文说的不是「没有盼望」，他反而是说——治死罪不是靠「管好一件事」的技巧，是要一直被福音本身摸到那个更深的地方：我到底信不信，神已经在基督里完全接纳我了，不需要我靠手机、靠球赛、靠购物、靠成绩去证明什么。这件事没有一次做完，是要一直被提醒、一直回到这一点上。

　　Jenny：所以就算我把购物这件事管好了，如果心里那个「我不够好、要靠东西证明自己」的问题没有被处理，它还是会从别的地方冒出来？

　　John：很可能会。这不是要吓唬你们，是想让你们知道——如果哪天你们发现自己「戒」掉了一样东西，却在别的地方更失控，不要觉得奇怪，也不要因此就否定自己「完全没有长进」，这恰恰说明你们摸到了那个更深的根，这时候更需要的不是换一套新的自我管理方法，是重新回到福音——神接纳我，不是因为我管好了自己。

　　Tom：（沉默一下，没有反驳，只是若有所思）……我不知道我信不信这个，但我承认，我确实没有从游戏里得到过那种「够了」的感觉。

　　John：（不追问，让这句话留在那里）那就够了，今天不用马上信，先带着这个问题回去想。

　　Peter：（沉默了一下，还是忍不住问）可是……知道了这些道理，下次我又想刷手机逃避的时候，我具体要做什么？总不能就靠「想起来神爱我」这一句话吧，那时候脑子根本转不过来。

　　John：老实说，没有一招就灵的办法，我要是给你们一个技巧清单，那又变回另一种「必须做对才行」的规矩了。但我自己会做几件很笨的事，可能对你们有用。第一，那个想逃的冲动上来的时候，先别急着划手机，就老实跟神说一句：「我现在很累，很怕，我想靠这个逃开。」

　　Jenny：这个我试过。上次期中考前我真的这样说了，结果呢？我还是把手机拿起来了，照样刷了一个多小时。说了又怎样，感觉没什么用。

　　John：（没有立刻反驳）这个反馈很真实。我想澄清一下——说这句话，不是一个能马上让你放下手机的开关。它的作用不是「阻止你划手机」，是让你在划手机的时候，心里知道自己在做什么，而不是麻木地滑下去、假装什么都没发生。这两者感觉上差不多，但一个是继续骗自己，一个是清醒地知道自己在挣扎，提醒自己再问一句：「如果我现在不需要靠手机逃开，我今天应该顺服神去做什么？」有时候答案很普通——关掉手机，把project打开，先做十分钟。

　　Tom：（挑刺）那这跟自己给自己做心理建设有什么区别？我心情不好的时候也会跟自己说「没事的，冷静一下」，这算不算也是「祷告」？神到底有没有真的在听，还是我只是在自言自语让自己感觉好一点？

　　John：（诚实地）如果你问的是能不能用实验室里的方法证明神在听，我当然不能这样证明。我们的把握不是来自祷告之后感觉有没有变好，而是来自神自己的应许。我们相信祂听祷告，不是因为我们用实验验证了祂，而是因为祂在祂的话语中启示自己，并且借着基督使我们可以坦然来到祂面前。

　　Tom：（皱眉）我是觉得吧，每次都要跟人说「我又刷手机逃避了」「我又控制不住自己了」，那种感觉挺怪的，好像在团契里要交作业、汇报进度一样，甚至有点像博同情。而且万一说出去的事变成八卦怎么办？

　　Jack：（有点被戳到，但也认同）说实话我今天说屏幕使用时间那一下，心跳是有点快的。但也没有很可怕，大家没有笑我。

　　John：Tom说的风险是真实的，团契如果变成「汇报进度」或者传闲话，那是团契本身出了问题，不是这件事本身错了。我说的「不要一个人扛」，不是要你逢人就交代自己的挣扎，是至少让一两个信得过的人知道——你自己选，选那个不会拿你的软弱去说三道四的人。

　　John：第三，是花时间常常提醒自己，福音到底在说什么——神接纳我们，不是因为我们已经改变完全；恰恰因为已经在基督里蒙接纳，我们才有自由诚实地面对罪、与罪争战。基督已经为我们舍命，所以我不需要靠手机、成绩、球赛、购物或者别人的肯定来证明自己有价值。

　　Tom：（叹气）这句话我都听过不下一百遍了，从小听到大。「神爱你」「神先接纳你」——听多了跟鸡汤有什么区别？我妈也常说这些，但该管我的时候一样管。

　　John：如果只是把这句话当成一句可以反复播放的slogan，那确实会变成鸡汤，我同意。真正有用的时候，是你抓着这句话，去对付一个很具体的、你正在相信的谎言——比如「我这次没考好，我很没用」「我这周又逃避了，我大概不是真基督徒」。这句话不是用来让你感觉良好的口号，是用来直接反驳那个谎言的。如果没有对上具体的谎言，确实只是空话。

　　Peter：（老实说）那我说实话，我觉得我下次可能还是会刷手机。

　　John：（笑，没有否认）我也觉得会。这些不是保证书，我没办法跟你说「做到这三点，你就再也不会逃避了」，那是骗你们的。我能说的是，这是我自己一直在做、也一直做不好的事，而且我做了十年，还是常常做不好。

　　Tom：那如果十年都做不好，图什么？

　　John：（沉默一下，认真地）不是为了「做好」，是因为每一次这样做，哪怕当下没什么感觉，那种「必须靠它才能撑过去」的东西，会一点一点松开一些。不是马上发生，而是慢慢发生。我没办法向你证明这个，只能说这是我自己十年下来，能诚实告诉你们的。

讨论：

这几个朋友聊到了球赛输赢左右一整天心情、「为神的荣耀而活」会不会变成另一种规矩、花钱买东西却越买越焦虑、越不敢让人知道，也听到了两个室友的故事——一个删App后换成网购，一个找了accountability但压力换了个形状。John引用约翰·欧文的话说，若不治死所有的罪，就不能真正治死任何一个罪，因为很多看起来不一样的行为，可能是同一个根长出来的不同枝子。请讨论：

1) 想想你最近一次因为一件「小事」（一场比赛、一局游戏、一次网购）整个心情被左右的经历，那件小事是不是也悄悄坐上了「决定我今天好不好」的位置？

2) 你有没有过「戒掉」一样东西、却在另一件事上更失控的经历（不一定跟手机有关，可能是别的）？听完欧文那句话，你觉得那两件事背后，会不会是同一个根？

3) John说，福音不是「我终于把自己管好了，所以神接纳我」，而是我在基督里蒙神接纳，因为基督已经为罪人死了。对你来说，这句话具体能反驳你心里的哪一个谎言？

Lesson 1: Are Games, My Phone, and Binge-Watching Controlling Me?——Entertainment and Idols

(Friday evening. The lights in the university fellowship room are bright. A few bags of chips and a case of drinks are sitting on the table. Fellowship counselor John hasn’t arrived yet, and the people who got there early have already started chatting.)

1. Am I Being Controlled?

Peter: (puts his phone face down on the table and sighs) I was scrolling until 2 a.m. again last night. My CPSC 210 project was due Friday, and I hadn’t even written a single word.

Jenny: What were you scrolling until two?

Peter: Nothing really. Just Reels—swipe, next one; swipe, next one. At one point I watched three completely identical cat videos just because the algorithm thought I’d like them. At first I told myself, “I’ll finish this part, then I’ll reward myself with ten minutes of scrolling.” Two hours later, I hadn’t added a single word to my project, and I actually felt more tired, not more relaxed.

Tom: (shrugs) Isn’t that pretty normal? Don’t we all do that? Maybe you’re overthinking it.

Peter: I know everyone does it, but there’s this voice in my head that keeps saying, “This isn’t relaxing. You’re avoiding something.” I’m genuinely afraid I won’t finish the project, and I get so anxious that I’d rather not face it, so I start scrolling. But I can’t tell anymore whether I’m actually tired and need a break, or whether I’m just fooling myself and procrastinating.

John: (walks in, puts his things down, and joins the conversation) Honestly, I still have trouble telling the difference myself.

Tom: (half-joking) John, you lose control too?

John: (laughs) I’ve found one pretty simple way to look at it. Don’t just ask, “What am I doing?” Ask, “What happens after I do it?” Do I actually feel more able to get back to what I need to do, or do I want to avoid it even more? A lot of the time, what we call “relaxing” leaves us feeling emptier, more restless, and even less willing to face what we need to face. When that happens, it’s probably not really rest. It’s more like numbing yourself.

Tom: Isn’t that pretty subjective, though? I feel great after playing Valorant. Is that rest, or is that numbing myself?

John: It’s not necessarily about whether you feel good in the moment. You also have to look at what role it’s playing in your life, and whether afterward you’re actually more free to get back to what you need to do. After you finish that game, can you put it down, brush your teeth, and go to bed? Or do you feel kind of empty and want to queue up for one more game, or watch one more video?

Tom: (pauses) …The second one, most of the time. Especially if I lost and want to win one back. But that doesn’t prove gaming is the problem. Maybe I’m just stressed because I have so many deadlines this week.

John: That could be true. I’m not saying gaming itself is the problem. I’m saying that when something becomes something you “have to rely on just to get through,” its place in your life has changed.

Jenny: (quietly, a little embarrassed) I know exactly what you mean. I scroll Xiaohongshu and Instagram, telling myself I’m “just taking a quick look.” But every time I see someone with a perfectly decorated apartment or see where someone went on vacation, I actually feel more anxious. I start thinking, “I don’t have enough of this, I’m not good enough at that.” And yet I still can’t stop opening the apps. I probably check them dozens of times a day. Why does that happen?

Jack: (half-joking) That’s the vicious cycle of desire—the more anxious you get, the more you want to look, and the more you look, the more anxious you get.

Jenny: Exactly. That’s how it feels, but I can’t really explain why. I don’t have enough Chinese vocabulary to explain it… I understand the feeling, but I can’t really explain the reasoning behind it.

Peter: (turns to John) So how do we actually tell the difference between enjoying a hobby and being controlled by it? Are there any specific signs?

Tom: (jumps in, a little defensive) Let me give you my standard. If I can still live a normal life and hand in my assignments on time when I’m not gaming, then I’m not being controlled, right?

John: That’s one sign, but I think it comes pretty late. I think an earlier sign is how you react when you’re interrupted. Say you’re watching a show and your roommate asks you to help with something, or you suddenly remember that you were supposed to pray. In that moment, what happens inside you? Do you think, “Sure, no problem. Just give me a minute”? Or do you immediately feel annoyed, resistant, maybe even almost angry?

Jack: There’s another sign I’ve noticed in myself. Are you willing to let other people see how much time you spend on it? My phone has a Screen Time report. Every time I see that number, my first reaction is to swipe it away instead of showing it to someone else. Does that count as a sign?

John: (nods) That’s actually a really good sign. When we hide something, sometimes it’s worth asking, “Why don’t I want other people to know? Am I hiding sin, or am I just afraid of being misunderstood or controlled? What exactly am I protecting?”

Tom: (still a little resistant) But if you put it that way, almost anything that makes people happy could be described as “something that controls them.” So are we not allowed to enjoy anything anymore?

John: (seriously, without immediately pushing back) Tom, that’s a fair concern. If I’ve given you the impression that “you have to be careful because almost anything could become an idol,” then I haven’t explained it well. The line between enjoying something good and being controlled by it isn’t simply about how much you like it, and it isn’t simply about whether you can put it down. The deeper question is whether you’re starting to rely on it for things that only God can ultimately be for you—your satisfaction, security, identity, comfort, or hope. Games, videos, and social media can all be ways we enjoy God’s common grace. The problem comes when we put them in a place that belongs only to God, and they become the source we use to decide whether “I’m having a good day” or “I’m worth being liked.” They can’t carry that kind of weight, because they were never created to carry it.

Tom: (thinks for a moment; he doesn’t argue back right away, but he’s still not completely convinced) …I need to think about that. Honestly, I’m not even very comfortable looking at my own Screen Time numbers.

Peter: (remembering something) Speaking of “what’s right”… In my Philosophy 100 tutorial last week, the TA was talking about postmodernism and said that you can’t really trust any “grand narrative.” Every culture and every person has a different definition of what a “good life” looks like, and no one gets to say their version is the only correct one. At the time, it sounded pretty convincing. On my way home, I just applied the same idea to myself—when I say, “I’m being controlled by my phone,” maybe that’s just a “narrative” I’m putting on myself. Maybe spending two hours scrolling every day is completely normal for someone else. Who gets to say it’s wrong?

Jack: (laughs) Are you using your philosophy class as an excuse to keep scrolling?

Peter: (laughs awkwardly) Not completely… But I really do get stuck on this idea. If everything is only “true for me,” then is the difference between “avoiding something” and “taking a break” just a label I’m putting on myself? Is there actually any objective right or wrong?

John: That’s a really good question, and actually it goes one level deeper than Tom’s question. Tom was asking, “Which way of dealing with things is more effective?” You’re asking, “Is there some standard outside myself that tells me what is actually right?” Those are two different questions.

Jenny: (frowns) What’s the difference? Honestly, I can’t usually tell them apart.

John: Tom’s question is something psychology and sociology can study. Psychology can look at meditation, exercise, and prayer, and study how these practices affect people’s emotions, stress levels, and behaviour. But those empirical studies cannot ultimately answer questions like: Why are we here? What is truly good? Who should we ultimately worship?

Peter: So what’s your answer?

John: (honestly) I can’t prove it to you on the spot. This isn’t something three sentences are going to settle. But I want you to notice something. When you say, “Everything is just a different narrative, and no one’s version is more right than anyone else’s,” you still seem to be able to tell the difference between avoiding something and taking a break. You walked in tonight and immediately said, “I’m afraid this isn’t really rest. I think I’m avoiding something.” That statement already contains a judgment. You’re saying that avoidance is bad and rest is good. If everything really is just a personal narrative, with no objective right or wrong, then why are you bothered by the fact that you’re avoiding something?

Peter: (stares for a moment) …Because it feels wrong.

John: That feeling that “something is wrong,” if you follow it deeper, is really saying that you know there is some kind of “should.” There is a way you think life should be, and you know you’re not living that way right now. And that “should” doesn’t seem to be something you simply invented yourself. If you had invented it, you could rewrite it whenever you wanted and make yourself feel completely justified. But you can’t. You still feel guilty. You still feel uneasy. At the very least, that suggests your subjective feelings don’t fully explain what’s going on. Why do you have this sense that there is a “should”? Where does that “should” come from?

Tom: (interrupts) But what if that “should” was shaped by your family, your church, and your culture? I grew up going to church. What if my feeling of guilt is just something I was trained to feel from childhood? What if it isn’t some kind of objective reality?

John: That’s an honest challenge, and I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t matter. Honestly, when I was a first-year student taking Philosophy 101, I used to throw exactly that argument at my fellowship leader. It worked pretty well—I actually managed to leave him speechless for about thirty seconds. So, Tom, you’re definitely not the first person to think of that. All I can say is this: if even the feeling that “something is wrong” can be completely explained as something we were socially conditioned to feel, then what about the thought you’re having right now—the thought that challenges me and challenges what the church teaches? Couldn’t that thought also have been shaped by your philosophy class and by the culture you live in? If relativism says that every judgment is simply the product of cultural conditioning, then we still have to ask: what makes the judgment “everything is culturally conditioned” itself true? If you take relativism all the way to its logical conclusion, it ends up undermining itself. It’s kind of like a snake biting its own tail. The apologist Cornelius Van Til talked about this for years. His point was that no one actually lives from a completely “neutral” position. At the deepest level, we either acknowledge God as the foundation that makes our reasoning and our judgments possible, or we deny that foundation while still depending on it. Even when you say, “That’s just something I was conditioned to believe,” you’re still making a judgment from some standard of what should be objectively true. You can’t actually become completely neutral. I’m not saying this to win an argument or force you to agree with me. I’m saying that if you follow this road all the way to the end, it doesn’t actually make you more free. It simply moves the question of “What should I believe?” from the church to another narrative—the narrative of the culture around you.

Peter: (slowly) …So you’re not saying we shouldn’t question things. You’re saying that even questioning itself needs some kind of foundation. Otherwise, if I keep questioning everything, eventually I don’t even know where I’m standing anymore.

John: Exactly. I completely encourage you to question and keep asking hard questions. The gospel can handle those questions. I just don’t want you to use postmodernism as a tool for blocking out every truth that makes you uncomfortable—including God.

Discussion

The group has talked about procrastinating on assignments, scrolling short videos, comparing their lives with other people’s, and getting caught up in winning and losing games. They also talked about the idea that “everything is just a different narrative, and there is no objective right or wrong.” John mentioned two specific signs: after you do it, do you feel “more energized” or “more empty”? When you’re interrupted, can you “let it go,” or do you become so resistant that you’re almost angry? Jack added a third: are you willing to let other people see how much time you spend on it? Discuss:

1) Using these three signs—how you feel afterward, how you react when interrupted, and whether you’re willing to let other people see it—take an honest look at your recent habits with your phone, gaming, or binge-watching. Do you think you’re closer to “enjoying” these things, or closer to “escaping”? If you’re comfortable sharing, what makes you think that?

2) Peter talked about how the postmodern ideas he learned in philosophy class made him start questioning even his own feeling that “avoidance is wrong.” Have you ever encountered something in a university class that made you question your faith or your moral beliefs? How did you deal with that tension?

2. What Can Actually Satisfy Me?

Jack: (self-mocking) Speaking of “not wanting to look at the numbers,” let me tell you something even more embarrassing. The Canucks lost last weekend, and I was in a terrible mood the entire day. I barely responded when my roommate talked to me, and I didn’t even have much of an appetite at dinner. I actually thought to myself, “Seriously? It’s just a hockey game. I don’t even know these players.”

Tom: That’s normal. I dropped a rank in my game last week, and it completely ruined my night. I couldn’t even focus in class the next day.

Jack: But later, when I really thought about it, my reaction that day was almost as strong as when I completely bombed my calculus exam. And that’s what felt weird—how can one hockey game carry almost the same weight as an exam I spent months preparing for?

Jenny: (thoughtfully) Maybe it wasn’t the hockey game itself that was so important. Maybe in that moment, the game somehow represented, “Is everything going well for me today?”

John: That’s a really good observation. When one game can completely take over your mood, the problem usually isn’t how important the event itself is. It’s that something has quietly taken a position it was never meant to have—the position of deciding, “Is my day going well or not?”

Tom: (this time genuinely pushing back) But if we follow that logic, are we supposed to be constantly worried and examining ourselves every time we play a game or watch a show? “Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God”—does that mean I have to pray before I play a game? Isn’t that just another set of rules, like the way my mom used to control me? At the end of the day, who’s even going to feel comfortable relaxing?

Peter: Exactly. The way you’re putting it, it sounds like once you become a Christian, you’re not allowed to really enjoy anything anymore.

John: I understand what you’re worried about. If “living for God’s glory” turns into “doing a spiritual exercise before you play a game,” then yeah, that would be exhausting. And that’s not what the Bible means.

Tom: Then how should we understand it?

John: Let me ask you, Tom. Have you ever had a moment when you were doing something you really enjoyed, but you weren’t trying to escape from anything, and you didn’t feel like you had to use it to prove something about yourself? You were simply enjoying something God had given you, and afterward you were able to put it down and go back to what you needed to do?

Tom: …Yeah. Last weekend, a few of us played ranked for a few hours. After we won, we were laughing in Discord for a while, and then I shut down my computer and went to bed. The next day I got up and did what I needed to do.

John: Then at least in that situation, it sounds like you were enjoying it rather than being controlled by it. The issue isn’t “gaming.” The deeper question is: when you’re gaming, are you actually free, or are you using it to fill a “hole”? If it’s the first one, then enjoy it. Enjoying something is not automatically wrong. But if it’s the second one, the problem isn’t really the game. It’s the hole that needs to be filled by something else. That “hole” is what happens when people turn away from God and start looking to created things for satisfaction, comfort, identity, and security.

Jack: (thinking) So it’s not really a question of “Can I do this?” It’s a question of “What am I living on?”

Peter: Then if I realize I’m often using things to “fill a hole,” should I just uninstall the game and delete all my streaming apps?

John: (shakes his head) If you only delete the apps, you might make it a week. Because if the real problem in your heart hasn’t been dealt with, sometimes you’ll just find something else to do the same job. It might be another app, or it might be something completely different.

Jack: (nods) That’s exactly what happened to my roommate. Last semester he realized he was scrolling Instagram so much that it was affecting his sleep. He deleted all the apps right away, even bought an Opal device to lock his phone, and went really hard for two whole weeks. We all thought he was doing great. Then in the third week, he reinstalled everything and was scrolling even more than before. And he picked up another habit—he started online shopping like crazy. He said he was “rewarding himself for making it through two weeks.”

Peter: (laughs) That’s brutal.

Jack: He was pretty frustrated with himself too. He said it felt like he had “quit” his phone, but he hadn’t actually solved anything. He had just found something else to escape into.

Jenny: Not every method is useless, though, right? My roommate Amy was also spending so much time on her phone that she was almost failing her classes. At the beginning of the semester, she started doing accountability with an older girl from her Bible study. Every week, she reports her Screen Time, and the older girl doesn’t judge her. She just asks questions and prays with her. Amy really has been doing much better this semester. Her Screen Time has dropped from six or seven hours a day to two or three, and she has a lot more energy too.

Tom: Doesn’t that prove the method works?

Jenny: (hesitates) It works, but… she’s not completely better. During midterm week, she was still scrolling all night. When she reported to the older girl, she said she actually wanted to leave some of the time out, or just skip reporting that week, because she was afraid the older girl would be disappointed in her. She said it felt like she had switched from being controlled by her “phone” to being controlled by “the fear of disappointing someone.” The pressure was a little different, but that feeling of “I need something outside myself to keep me from falling apart” was still there. It had just changed shape.

John: (nods) And that’s exactly what I want to talk about next. Amy getting an accountability partner was a good step. It wasn’t pointless, and God really can use relationships like that to help us. But if she stops there, she may start treating the question, “Will my older sister be disappointed in me?” as something she has to rely on in order to hold herself together. The deeper issue—“I have to rely on something outside myself to get through this”—hasn’t really been dealt with. It has just been given a more respectable, more “spiritual-looking” outer shell.

Jack: So does that mean those methods—deleting apps, having someone keep you accountable, locking your phone—are actually useful or not?

John: They are useful, but we have to put them in the right place. They’re like “pulling out the piece of wood that’s right next to the fire.” They can give you some breathing room and reduce the chance that you’ll immediately fall again. That’s good. That’s wise. I absolutely encourage you to use those tools. But they don’t solve the deeper question: “Why do I reach for something whenever I feel empty?” That’s what I want to talk about next. You can’t just deal with the problem in one particular area while leaving the deeper thing in your heart untouched.

Tom: (picking at the argument, with a tone he picked up from class) But isn’t that a little too absolute? Our Sociology professor literally said last week that everyone deals with stress differently. Some people rely on prayer, some meditate, some exercise. These are all just different coping mechanisms. None is necessarily more “true” than another; it just works for some people and not for others. What makes you think the Christian approach is more correct?

John: (doesn’t immediately argue back) I believed something similar when I was in university too. And I completely agree that different coping strategies really can work for different people. Meditation and exercise really can make a lot of people feel better. That’s not fake. What I’m asking isn’t “Which one is more effective?” It’s “What does effective actually mean?” Does it mean making you feel better in the moment, or does it mean actually dealing with the hole that keeps making you reach for something to fill it? When I talk about “filling the hole,” I’m not simply asking whether something helps. I’m asking whether the hole will actually be filled, whether you’ll actually become less dependent on constantly reaching for something. Those are two different questions. Psychology can study the first one, but the second is not something psychology itself can answer.

Jenny: (thinking) My cousin started seeing a counsellor last year. She said it really helped with her anxiety, and she sleeps much better now. Doesn’t that count?

John: Of course it counts. We can’t say that because psychology isn’t the Bible, everything psychology observes must be false. If her anxiety has gone down and she’s sleeping better, those are real things. The question is—have you ever thought about the fact that “psychology” isn’t actually one single system? There are many different theories within psychology, and they can give very different answers to questions like, “Why do these holes appear in people’s hearts?” and “How should those holes be filled?”

Tom: Like what?

John: Take Freud, for example. He put a lot of emphasis on the unconscious, childhood experiences, and inner conflicts. But Jung and Adler developed their own theories. Later there was behaviourism, with people like Watson and Skinner. Then came Rogers and humanistic psychology, as well as Beck’s cognitive therapy. Today, if you go to a counsellor, you might encounter CBT, psychodynamic therapy, family therapy, attachment theory, or a combination of several approaches.

Jenny: So which one does a counsellor actually believe?

John: That’s where it gets interesting. Some people mainly follow one approach, while others combine several. For example, suppose the same person says, “I feel completely useless.” A CBT therapist might first ask, “Are you taking one failure and turning it into ‘There’s something wrong with me as a person’?” A psychodynamic therapist might ask, “Why do you so easily feel like you’re not good enough? Have you felt this way before?” A humanistic therapist might focus more on, “How do you really see yourself? Are you always living according to the person other people want you to be?”

Tom: Then that gets pretty complicated, doesn’t it? Same person, three counsellors, three different explanations. What are we supposed to do?

John: Exactly. And that’s where we as Christians need to learn discernment. A theory may have observed part of the truth, but that doesn’t mean its answers to “Who are human beings really? What is our deepest problem? What does real change look like?” are the final answers. We can listen carefully, and we can learn from useful observations and methods, but we shouldn’t automatically accept an entire view of humanity, value system, and solution to our problems.

Tom: So what you’re really saying is that psychology can help us understand some things about human beings, but it isn’t the final “user manual for humanity”?

John: (laughs) Yeah, that’s basically what I mean. A counsellor might help us discover that we’re afraid of rejection, but their explanation isn’t necessarily neutral. If they tell you, “The reason you’re afraid of rejection today is that your parents didn’t give you enough affirmation when you were a child,” then as Christians we need to stop and ask: Is that a tentative explanation of cause and effect, or is it as certain as a cause-and-effect relationship in physics? Does that answer fit with Scripture? We can learn a lot from them, but ultimately we can’t hand over the final explanation of humanity to one particular counsellor. They may help us see certain things, but no human being’s words are equal to Scripture.

Tom: (nods) …Okay, I can accept that. Not “psychology is completely wrong,” and not “everything psychology says is right.” But I still feel like I can’t always tell whether my heart is free or whether I’m filling a hole. A lot of the time, I can’t even tell myself.

John: Honestly, I often can’t tell either. This isn’t something you figure out once and then you’re done. It’s something we have to keep asking ourselves honestly.

Jenny: (changes the subject, a little hesitant) Can I ask something a little different? I’ve been spending more and more money lately. Everything in Vancouver is so expensive. This semester, my rent and insurance alone are almost $1,200. But the more anxious I feel, the more I want to buy clothes or skincare online just to make myself feel better. I’m happy after I buy something, but before long I get even more anxious, and then I want to buy something else. Last month, almost $400 of my credit card bill was online shopping. I don’t even dare tell my parents.

Peter: Isn’t that basically the same thing as the phone? Anxiety → do something → feel better for a moment → become more anxious.

Jack: And you don’t want people to see that credit card bill, just like I don’t want people to see my Screen Time.

John: (nods) You guys are already seeing the pattern. This is the pattern of worship. Whether it’s your phone, a hockey game, or shopping, once the human heart becomes anxious or empty, it instinctively reaches for something to fill that emptiness. For a moment, grabbing that thing feels good, but that thing can’t actually hold you up. Before long, you’re empty again, so you reach for it again, and the more you do it, the more you don’t want anyone to know. An idol isn’t necessarily something you openly say, “This is what I love most.” An idol is often something you actually use to get satisfaction, identity, security, and hope. So your phone, hockey, and shopping aren’t idols in themselves, but any of them can become an idol.

Jack: So should we deal with these things one at a time? First deal with the phone, then shopping, then something else?

John: That sounds natural, but I’ll be honest—I don’t really think it works that way. And it’s not just my personal experience. There was a pastor named John Owen in the seventeenth century who wrote a book specifically about “putting sin to death.” There’s something he said that has always stayed with me. Basically, a person can’t put one particular sin to death while leaving the other sins untouched. If you’re not genuinely pursuing holiness before God as a whole, then even if it looks like you’ve “quit” one particular thing, that sin may not actually have been put to death. It may simply have been pushed down for a while, or it may show up somewhere else.

Peter: (thinking of Jack’s roommate) Like Jack’s roommate—he quit his phone, and online shopping showed up instead.

John: Exactly. Owen wasn’t saying, “Don’t bother trying to quit using your phone, because it won’t work.” He actually emphasized that we need to seriously and specifically deal with each particular sin. We can’t just say, “I want to become more holy,” and leave it at that. His point is that when you’re dealing with the phone, if what you really care about is simply “I need to get this one thing under control,” rather than allowing yourself to be challenged by the deeper questions—“Do I really believe God cares for me? Do I really need something else to prove that I’m good enough?”—then even if you manage to control your phone use for a while, the deeper problem hasn’t actually been dealt with. It may simply show up somewhere else. Online shopping, obsessively chasing good grades to prove yourself, or even staying constantly busy with ministry and looking “spiritual” can all be different branches growing from the same root.

Tom: (becomes serious, no longer arguing just for the sake of arguing) So does that mean there’s never really a day when you can say, “I’ve beaten this”?

John: (honestly) Some specific habits can certainly be broken, and some sins can clearly lose their power in our lives. But we shouldn’t expect to completely pull sin up by the roots in this life. We’re going to keep dealing with it. I don’t want to give you a false promise that after becoming a Christian, you’ll never struggle with these things again. But Owen isn’t saying there’s no hope. He’s saying that putting sin to death isn’t a matter of finding a technique for “getting one thing under control.” It means continually letting the gospel reach that deeper place: “Do I really believe that God has fully accepted me in Christ? I don’t need to rely on my phone, hockey, shopping, or grades to prove anything about myself.” This isn’t something we do once and finish. We have to keep being reminded of it and keep coming back to it.

Jenny: So even if I get my shopping under control, if that deeper problem—“I’m not good enough, so I need something to prove myself”—hasn’t been dealt with, it could still show up somewhere else?

John: Very possibly. I’m not saying that to scare you. I want you to understand that if one day you realize you’ve “quit” one thing but become even more out of control somewhere else, don’t be surprised, and don’t immediately conclude, “I haven’t grown at all.” It may actually mean that you’re beginning to see the deeper root. At that point, what you need isn’t another self-management method. You need to come back to the gospel: God accepts me, not because I’ve finally learned how to manage myself.

Tom: (silent for a moment, not arguing, just thinking) …I don’t know whether I believe that, but I’ll admit something. I really have never gotten that feeling of “Okay, that’s enough” from gaming.

John: (doesn’t press him, letting the statement sit there) That’s enough for today. You don’t have to believe it right away. Just take that question home with you and think about it.

Peter: (after a moment of silence, still can’t help asking) But… knowing all this, what am I actually supposed to do the next time I want to scroll my phone to escape? I can’t just rely on “remembering that God loves me.” At that moment, my brain barely works.

John: Honestly, there’s no magic trick that always works. If I gave you a list of techniques, that could just turn into another set of rules—another thing you feel you have to do perfectly. But there are a few simple things I try to do myself, and maybe they’ll help you. First, when that urge to escape comes, don’t immediately start scrolling. Just honestly say to God, “I’m really tired right now. I’m scared, and I want to use this to escape.”

Jenny: I’ve tried that. Before my midterms last time, I really did say that. And what happened? I still picked up my phone and scrolled for more than an hour. So what difference did saying it make? It didn’t seem to help.

John: (doesn’t immediately argue back) That’s a very honest response. Let me clarify. Saying that isn’t a switch that will immediately make you put your phone down. Its purpose isn’t to “stop you from scrolling.” It’s to help you know what you’re doing while you’re scrolling, instead of mindlessly swiping and pretending nothing is happening. From the outside, those two things may look almost the same, but one is continuing to deceive yourself, while the other is being awake to the fact that you’re struggling. And then ask yourself one more question: “If I didn’t need my phone to escape right now, what should I do today to obey God?” Sometimes the answer is very ordinary—turn off the phone, open your project, and work on it for ten minutes.

Tom: (picking at the argument) Then how is that different from giving yourself a pep talk? When I’m feeling bad, I also tell myself, “It’s okay. Just calm down.” Does that count as prayer too? Is God actually listening, or am I just talking to myself so I can feel a little better?

John: (honestly) If you’re asking whether I can prove in a laboratory that God is listening, of course I can’t prove it that way. Our confidence doesn’t come from whether we feel better after praying. It comes from God’s own promises. We believe He hears our prayers, not because we’ve experimentally verified Him, but because He has revealed Himself in His Word and, through Christ, has made it possible for us to come before Him with confidence.

Tom: (frowns) I just feel weird about having to tell people every time, “I escaped into my phone again,” or “I couldn’t control myself again.” It starts to feel like I’m doing homework in the fellowship and reporting my progress. It even feels a little like I’m trying to get people to feel sorry for me. And what if what I share turns into gossip?

Jack: (a little uncomfortable because he can relate) Honestly, when I told you guys about my Screen Time today, my heart was beating a little faster. But it actually wasn’t that scary. Nobody laughed at me.

John: The risk Tom mentioned is real. If a fellowship turns into a place where everyone reports their progress or spreads gossip, then there’s something wrong with the fellowship itself; it doesn’t mean sharing your struggles is wrong. When I say, “Don’t carry this alone,” I don’t mean you have to tell everyone about your struggles. At the very least, let one or two people you trust know. You get to choose who they are. Choose someone who won’t use your weakness as something to gossip about.

John: Third, spend time regularly reminding yourself what the gospel actually says: God accepts us, not because we have already become perfect. Quite the opposite. Because we have already been accepted in Christ, we are free to honestly face our sin and fight against it. Christ has already given His life for us, so I don’t need to rely on my phone, my grades, hockey, shopping, or other people’s approval to prove that I have value.

Tom: (sighs) I’ve heard that more than a hundred times. I’ve heard it my whole life: “God loves you,” “God accepts you first.” After hearing it so many times, how is that any different from some inspirational quote? My mom says those things too, but she still disciplines me when she needs to.

John: If you just treat that sentence as a slogan you can play over and over again, then yes, it can become empty encouragement. I agree. It becomes genuinely useful when you take that truth and use it to confront a specific lie you’re believing. For example, “I didn’t do well on this exam, so I’m worthless,” or “I avoided everything again this week, so I’m probably not even a real Christian.” This truth isn’t meant to make you feel good. It’s meant to directly challenge the lie you’re believing. If it isn’t connected to a specific lie, then yes, it can become empty words.

Peter: (honestly) Then I’ll be honest. I think I’m probably still going to scroll my phone next time.

John: (laughs, without denying it) I think you probably will too. These aren’t guarantees. I can’t tell you, “Do these three things and you’ll never escape into your phone again.” That would be lying to you. All I can say is that these are things I’ve been trying to do myself, and I still don’t do them well. I’ve been doing this for ten years, and I still mess it up all the time.

Tom: Then if you’ve been doing it for ten years and you still don’t do it well, what’s the point?

John: (pauses, then answers seriously) The point isn’t to “finally get it right.” It’s that every time I do this, even if I don’t feel anything right away, the thing I feel like I “have to rely on just to get through” begins to loosen its grip, little by little. It doesn’t happen immediately. It happens slowly. I can’t prove that to you. All I can tell you is that after ten years, that’s what I can honestly say from my own experience.

Discussion

These friends have talked about how winning and losing a hockey game can control your mood for an entire day, whether “living for God’s glory” can become another set of rules, how buying things can make you more anxious the more you buy, and how you become more afraid of letting other people know. They also heard two stories about roommates—one who deleted an app but replaced it with online shopping, and another who found an accountability partner but simply had the pressure change shape. John quoted John Owen as saying that if we do not put all sin to death, we cannot truly put any one sin to death, because many behaviours that look different may actually be different branches growing from the same root. Discuss:

1) Think about the most recent time when something “small”—a hockey game, one gaming session, or an online purchase—completely controlled your mood for the rest of the day. Did that small thing quietly take the position of “deciding whether my day is good or bad”?

2) Have you ever “quit” one thing, only to become more out of control in another area? It doesn’t have to involve your phone; it could be something else. After hearing Owen’s point, do you think those two things might have the same root?

3) John said that the gospel is not, “I finally got myself under control, so God accepts me.” Instead, God accepts me in Christ because Christ has already died for sinners. What specific lie in your heart does this truth speak against?