Week 50—Sunday 1 Thessalonians 5:15-22
Week 50—SUNDAY
1 Thessalonians 5:15-22
THE ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE APPROACH
In our Round Table Conferences we gather about thirty people, the best representatives of the various faiths, and of no faith, and we say to them, “We have had the dogmatic, the controversial, the traditional approaches to religion. Shall we take an approach more akin to the method of science? In the scientific method there are three things: experimentation, verification, and sharing of verifications. We have been experimenting with this business of religion, using it as a working hypothesis of life; what have you verified in experience? What has become real to you? Will you share with us your verifications? I suggest that no one argue, no one try to make a case, nor talk abstractly, not preach at the rest of us, but that you simply share with us what you have found in experience through your faith. If you have no faith, if you are an agnostic or an atheist, tell us how that is working. We will not sum up at the close. We will leave the facts to speak for themselves.”
I have listened in for years to what the finest and best of the different faiths have said about what they are finding, and if I didn’t know the New Testament says that Jesus is the Way, I would know it from my Round Table Conferences. Those in touch with Jesus Christ were finding something that those not in touch with him were not finding. This is sometimes interpreted in a strange way. As I walked home with a Muslim gentleman he said, “We Hindus and Muslims must have been more honest and sincere in that Conference than you Christians. For we all said we have found nothing, but all you Christians said you had found something; so we must have been more sincere and honest.”
O Jesus, Lord and Savior, I thank you that I can call you Savior, for you save me now—save me from what I don’t want to be to what I want to be. Without you my life would be a mess. With you, everything. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: The test of a Savior is that he saves—the only test.