John 20:19-31 is frequently used as the lesson text for the second Sunday of Easter. It is a familiar text to many, describing when Jesus appears to the disciples after the resurrection. Others recall the text as the "Doubting Thomas" passage.
Brian Stoffregen, Interim Pastor at Christ Lutheran Church, Ferndale Washington and author of the Exegetical Notes at CrossMarks Christian Resources, suggests we should reference this text as the Confessing Thomas. The main point in his notes about Thomas is this: If faith is not based on "seeing," then what is it based on? Below is an abridged version of his notes on "Confessing Thomas."
Thomas - Questioner and Confessor
The answer given in the text (and throughout the Gospel of John) is that faith is to be based on the Word. Thomas should have believed the Word from the other disciples: "We have seen the Lord" (v. 25). Similarly, the other disciples should have believed the Word from Mary: "I have seen the Lord" (v. 18). The fact that the disciples were still behind locked doors indicates that if they had believed the Word, it didn't make any difference in their lives. Faith is not really about what we believe but what difference it makes in our lives that we believe.
The fact that the disciples were still behind locked doors indicates that if they had believed the Word, it wouldn't make any difference in their lives. Faith is not really about what we believe, but what difference it makes in our lives that we believe.
Although many translations include "doubt" in v. 27 -- and thus lead to the phrase "Doubting Thomas," there is no Greek word for "doubt" in verse! After researching multiple Greek translations and lexicons, Thomas would be "not having certainty."
Throughout the Old Testament, the many lamentations indicate that questioning God is an aspect of faith, not doubt. If one is asking God questions or seeking answers from God, there has to be some kind of faith that God exists and can respond. Thomas' questioning, his desire to be sure, can be commended as an aspect ofFaithh in God.
I have often used this text as an example of the simple stages of faith presented by John Westerhoff III in Will Our Children Have Faith. The following is my simplified outline.
(1) Experienced Faith (preschool and early childhood) - imitating actions, e.g., a child praying the Lord's Prayer without understanding the meaning of all the words—"This is what we do. This is how we act."
(2) Affiliative Faith (childhood and early adolescent years) - belonging to a group, which still centers on imitating what the group does - "This is what we believe and do. This is our group/church."
(3) SearchingFaithh (late adolescence) - asking questions, "Is this what I believe?" Thomas is our example of this. He will not blindly accept what others have said but needs to find certainty for himself. This stage of faith adds the "head" to the "heart" of the earlier stages.
(4) Owned Faith (early adulthood)—This stage comes only through the searching stage. After exploring the question, "Is this what I believe?" one hopes to discover a Christian answer that declares, "This is what I believe."
The Thomas scene ends with such a personal confession: "My Lord and my God"- a confession we don't hear from any of the other disciples who did not go through the same questioning as Thomas. However, this is the strong, personal faith that one witness to and one is willing to die for - the other disciples certainly ended up in this stage.
This level of faith defines how we live, and the actions that define our faith to others.
This confession is probably also connected with John chapter 1, where "the Word was God." If the purpose of John's written Word is to confront the reader/hearer with Jesus as God's revelation, then Thomas makes this connection.
In his Daily Study Bible devotion, William Barclay says this about this passage: There is more ultimate faith in the man who insists on being sure than the man who glibly repeats things which he has never thought out and which he does not really believe. It is doubt like that which, in the end, arrives at certainty.... Thomas doubted in order to become sure; and when he did become sure, his surrender to certainty was complete. If a man fights his way through his doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained a certainty that the man who unthinkingly accepts can never reach.
Rather than calling him "Doubting Thomas," what if we call him "Confessing Thomas"? He was the only disciple in that room who uttered a confession of personal faith. Shouldn't we all come to that point in our faith journeys?
Submitted by Thomas Stoffregen American Lutheran Church (brother of the author Brian Stoffregen)
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