read of a psychiatrist who had a patient who thought he was dead. Could he be convinced otherwise? No way! Finally, in desperation, the psychiatrist came up with a plan, deciding he would prove to the patient that dead men don’t bleed. The patient was given several medical textbooks to read and was told to return in two weeks. The patient did his homework and kept the appointment at the designated time.
Well, what did you discover in your reading?” the psychiatrist asked. “I discovered that medical evidence proves that dead men don’t bleed,” the patient answered. “So it: a person were to bleed, you’d know for certain that he or she wasn’t dead?” “Absolutely,” said the patient. This was the moment of truth for the psychiatrist. He pulled out a pin and pricked his patient’s finger. Immediately a drop of blood appeared. The patient looked at his finger in alarm and exclaimed, “Oh my word, dead men DO bleed!”
So why do we believe what we believe? Many of us would staunchly say, “My belief system is based purely on the Word of God.” Even though we may protest otherwise, the truth is that the Bible for many people is only one of those reasons.
There was a mother who suffered from brontophobia (a deathly fear of thunderstorms) and astraphobia (a morbid fear of lightning). Whenever an electrical storm would come, she’d crawl under the bed and hide. Someone who knew the mother well asked her, “So where are your children during an electrical storm?” “Oh, she responded, “they’re under the bed WITH me!“
Can you believe that those children also developed brontophobia and astraphobia? Of course! You and I are significantly influenced in our thinking by the family in which we grew up, by our circumstances, by the church we attend, by the culture in which we live, by our desires and goals, by our disappointments, our tragedies and traumas. The bottom line is that, increasingly we need to allow the Scriptures to determine our beliefs and practices, even though experience ALSO affects our thinking and conduct.