By Marsha Michaelis

 

“Then some rose up and disputed with him, but they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking.”

 

These words perfectly describe hundreds of conversations Charlie Kirk had on college campuses across our nation, but they were actually written about another man named Stephen, 2,000 years ago.

 

An account of Stephen is found in the Bible, in the book of Acts, chapters 6-7.

 

Like Charlie Kirk, Stephen was “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit.” Like Charlie, Stephen defended truth with great eloquence and grace. Like Charlie, Stephen’s opponents could not withstand the wisdom of his words. And, like Charlie, Stephen was brutally murdered for these virtues.

 

(There is another man, greater than both Charlie and Stephen and for whom they each lived and died, who also fits this description. His story is found in the Bible, too, in all the books.)

 

What is it that makes some people cling to lies even when confronted with compelling truth? 

 

Why is it that so many can find themselves speechless and reasonless in the face of even the most simple and sincere questions posed by men like Charlie and Stephen, yet still cling to the false teachers and ideas that leave them so shamefully exposed, so ideologically naked and defenseless?

 

We might be tempted to ridicule them (as many in the campus crowds did, sometimes earning a rebuke from Charlie himself), but “there, but for the grace of God, go we.”

 

We are all prone to deception, and the person we are most likely to deceive and be deceived by is ourself.

 

This insight used to be common.

 

More than a century ago, children were forewarned against the self-betraying tendencies of the human heart and mind, and forearmed to reject lies and pursue truth. 

 

A children’s encyclopedia called “The Book of Knowledge,” first published in the United Kingdom in the late 1800s and later in the United States, included a series of articles about how and why we think.

 

First, the author was honest with children that thinking is a purposeful act, “and, as we all know, sometimes a very difficult one, and just as tiring as hard running or as swimming.” Hard work can be uncomfortable, but the author encouraged children to embrace it: “Thinking is not a thing that happens to us, but a thing that we do.”

 

He then empowered his readers with basic facts about how to use and improve the mechanisms of thought to become wise. His articles are filled with subtitles like: “The Things that Make a Man a Great Thinker;” “How We May Help Ourselves Become Real Thinkers;” The Harm of Letting our Thinking Be Guided by Wrong Interests;” “The Way in Which Our Feeling Affects Our Thinking;” “The Wrongfulness of Believing Only What We Want to Believe;” and “The Reasons Why Men Do Not Always Search for the Truth.”

 

Most important of all, he addressed the human heart: “In all doing a motive power has to come from somewhere. The motive power in this great doing of the mind, which we call thinking, is interest.”

But, he warned, not all interests are worthy:

Worst of all, perhaps, is the kind of interest which sets men studying things only in order to defeat someone else, or to prove that they are right, or to make a success for the party or the class or the church to which they belong …

Unfortunately, interest of this kind and interest in money are the driving power of most of the work of thinking that is done in the world.

If association [thinking] done under interests of this kind resulted in the discovery of truth, that would be good; but, as a rule, it does not.

Instead, we are deceived.

“…There is a certain amount of deliberate deception, but the great key to the differences of opinion which divide even intelligent men is self-deception, depending on the way in which our [thinking is] spoiled by our feelings and interests.”

After telling children the truth about our proneness to be deceived and to follow our own interests to destruction, and then giving them the tools to combat this in themselves, the author gave this encouragement:

“But everywhere, in all ages, there are a few men who are real lovers of truth. They would rather believe the truth and be despised and hated than persuade men of something that is not true and be honored.”

Such were Charlie Kirk and Stephen. 

Such is their Lord, Jesus Christ. 

Such may we be.

Marsha Michaelis is a reporter for Stevens County Times as well as a research fellow for the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. She can be reached at marshamichaelis@gmail.com. To learn more about the Discovery Institute, visit discovery.org/.

(The quotes in this article come from the 1919 edition of the children’s encyclopedia called The Book of Knowledge. They’re part of a series titled “The Book of Our Own Life,” and appear in an article called “How To Think,” pages 5079–5083.