Doubting Thomas

Have you ever heard the term "doubting Thomas"? Did you know it's actually from the Bible?

A doubting Thomas is someone who is a skeptic or refuses to believe without direct personal experience. I would wager that all of us have been a doubting Thomas at one point in our life. I certainly know that I have.

You can read a lot about Thomas in the book of John.

It's in John 20 where the term doubting Thomas comes from.

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One of the twelve disciples, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin), was not with the others when Jesus came. They told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he replied, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.”

Eight days later the disciples were together again, and this time Thomas was with them. The doors were locked; but suddenly, as before, Jesus was standing among them. “Peace be with you,” he said. Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!”

“My Lord and my God!” Thomas exclaimed.

Then Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me." (John 20:24-29)

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Contrast that with the description of Thomas' faith that we read about in John 11 and it paints a much different picture.

Thomas, nicknamed the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s go, too—and die with Jesus.”
(John 11:16)

This is a man who walked with Jesus. He saw the miracles that Jesus did. He saw Jesus suffer on the cross. He watched Him die. How does a man go from having such strong a faith that he was willing to die with Christ to struggling to believe if any of it was even real?

When Jesus appeared to the others, they believed. They were convinced. Thomas was not.

The part that stood out in my morning devotional was the fact that Jesus waited eight days to stand in front of Thomas. Jesus didn't rush. Thomas lived in that doubt for an entire week. Think of the times you have doubted? The weight of that doubt can be crushing. The struggles you experience. The guilt. Questioning everything from whether God would show up to if He was even real in the first place. Doubt is a wicked game that none of us like to play.

What did Jesus do when He appeared to Thomas? He didn't dismiss the doubt Thomas was feeling. He spoke to it directly.

"Put your finger here"

Thomas didn't respond with explanation. He didn't come up with excuses. He didn't complain that it took Jesus so long. He responded with worship!

"My Lord and my God."

At some point, faith becomes personal, not because our faith is always strong or that the questions disappear. It becomes personal because Christ becomes undeniable in our life.

Thomas couldn't deny what he was seeing.

Our own story may not always be as dramatic as Jesus standing in front of us with nail scarred hands. But somewhere along the way Christ moved from distant to present.

That is the ground you stand on now.

When that ground becomes shaky and you feel your knees begin to buckle, remember the strongest prayer in all of scripture (at least in my opinion)....

"Lord, help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)

...and hang onto that prayer and remember the words Jesus spoke,

“I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible. (Matthew 17:20)