He Opened Their Minds

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting …

—James 1:5, 6—

After His resurrection, Jesus was with His apostles. We read from Luke 24:44, 45 that He said to them: “‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”

An open mind is good, but especially when it is opened by the Lord Himself. This doesn’t happen miraculously, but primarily by prayer and faith (James 1:5-8).

Having doubts is not sinful unless we allow those doubts to ferment and grow. Matthew records for us that some of the eleven disciples who witnessed Jesus’ ascension home to heaven doubted (Matt. 28:17). We can’t imagine they remained doubtful, especially after what we read in Acts 2:1, 14: “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. … But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed [the men of Judea].”

Peter admitted that some of the things Paul wrote were hard to understand (2 Pet. 3:16). Peter’s admonition was not to dismiss Paul’s difficult passages; rather, he warned his us that “the untaught and unstable would distort Paul’s words, as they would also do to the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. And then he said, “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Pet. 3:18).

For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Cor. 4:6).