Look at the picture on the left. Have you ever seen it before? I got it from the book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." It was a good book with some great insights, but the picture is what I remember. The author used it to illustrate the concept of "paradigm." Do you see an old woman or a pretty young woman in the picture? Chances are that you saw one or the other, and, if you've never seen it before, you didn't know there was another side to it until I told you. Even now you will find it very hard to see the other woman. Webster defines "paradigm as a pattern or archetype. Definition number three interests me, especially:
"a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated"
The point is that we all have a "God-paradigm," or a way of thinking about God and religion, and we attempt, even unconsciously, to make every loose end fit into the paradigm. Some of us would like to think our God-paradigm is true to the Bible, but the truth is that we have blind spots. Glaring counter-examples are generally ignored or pushed into a "taboo" area. Just to be clear, the two ladies in the picture are not the paradigm, they are an example of how difficult it is to see another point of view, when all your thinking has already been marshalled in support of your own view. When the counter-examples start to pile up, we often get really, really irritable and obstinate before we ever consider another view. When it comes to matters of faith, we even resort to twisting the words of the Bible to make them say what we need them to say. Our paradigm is so deeply ingrained, and so thoroughly affected by fear, that we are usually unaware of its effect on our thinking. I'm sure you can see how this affects issues of race, culture, and politics, as well. I have found that, when God sees this block in our thinking, He will usually send "experience" to break it up. What do I mean by that? Well, let me show you how an "experience" led to a dramatic change in thinking.
In the New Testament book of Acts, the early church had a problem. They didn't see the problem, but God did. He saw that the good news of Jesus Christ was confined to the Jewish people. The Apostles and the original followers of Jesus were Jews who still saw the gospel through the paradigm of the law of Moses. So He sent something to Peter that would be highly suspect in today's world. He sent Peter a vision (Acts 10). If you look at the details of the story, it seems that Peter was hungry, and he fell asleep and dreamed about food. I can relate. What Peter saw in the vision was a giant sheet with all kinds of live animals on it that were unclean to a Jew. In the vision, God told Peter to "arise, kill and eat." Peter protested his innocence from any unclean food. The vision of the lowered sheet happened three times. Each time he heard, "What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy." Needless to say, Peter was "greatly perplexed." This went against everything he was raised to believe. But God was already preparing part two of the experience. At the gate of the house where he was staying appeared three men, sent by a Roman Centurion named Cornelius, to summon Peter, as Cornelius had been directed by an angel. God told Peter to go with the men, "without reservations." In other words, despite the fact that Peter's paradigm was objecting, his feet and his heart needed to follow. Even though Jews were not allowed to enter into the house of a Gentile, Peter went with the men, and preached the gospel to Cornelius and his household. While he was speaking the words, "the Holy Spirit fell on all who were listening" in such a way that all of the Jews who came with Peter were amazed. In other words, they were witness to an undeniable experience which caused them to rethink what they believed. That was part three of Peter's experience, which transformed his point of view. Later, when Peter was called upon to account for what had happened (for some of his Jewish brothers were offended), He related the experience in detail and pointed to what he saw and heard as proof of God's granting life to the non-Jews. Now, I can tell you that the gospel going out to the Gentiles was prophesied in the Old Testament, but the early Jewish Christians were not inclined to see it there until Peter had an experience. Even after that, many early Jewish Christians held to their former beliefs. It is interesting that Peter did not refer to those prophetic passages, but instead pointed to what God did in his life, which was confirmed by the prophets in the Old Testament.
Why am I telling you all this? I would like to demonstrate to you that all things are truly possible, but I am not sure that I can do that with an argument from the Bible, only (even though there are some very good arguments to be made). So I am going to use this page to link to the "experiences" (in church we call them testimonies) of people, with the hope that they will stretch your faith, and, perhaps, lead to a new way of thinking.