As we look into the life of the Apostle known as Thomas and Didymus, it is key to understand the Apostle's character for more than one isolated incident where he doubted that Christ had risen from the dead.
Please join in this conversation concerning the following questions.
Would you have had enough faith to believe that your teacher, the one who you thought was the "Anointed One of God" could have died and been resurrected?
Do you think that Thomas was going through the stages of grief? After all it had only been a week since the horrible death of Jesus.
I am very interested in your thoughts and ideas on these two questions.
Carol, great point here: "God opens our understanding through His Holy Spirit and Thomas could have believed without seeing but Jesus choose to use this discourse to confirm what others through the ages would need to learn. We do not need to see God's truth with our eyes but trust faith with our heart because there the Holy Spirit will confirm truth or error."
That is such a great insight to Thomas's character and feelings at the time of this confrontation with Jesus. You are right, Jesus uses Thomas's error in thought for Jesus to talk about us. Jesus saw "us" in the future after His resurrection.
Having walked with Jesus during those three years before His death, I too would have been filled with great grief and confusion. We would have grown up being taught the truths of the scriptures by the religious leaders and Jesus had to expound on those teaching so that we could actually see the truth from God's view. Jesus did signs and wonders in our presence to further confirm His doctrine was of God. I would have wanted confirmation that the others who personally saw Jesus' resurrected body was actually true. God opens our understanding through His Holy Spirit and Thomas could have believed without seeing but Jesus choose to use this discourse to confirm what others through the ages would need to learn. We do not need to see God's truth with our eyes but trust faith with our heart because there the Holy Spirit will confirm truth or error..
Given the time period and what they were expecting the Messiah to be and do, I don't fault Thomas at all. I wonder why Thomas wasn't with the others in the room with the others when Jesus appeared to them the first time? Was he frustrated, did he think he had wasted the last 3 years of his life? As to the second question, the disciples that saw Jesus the first time obviously weren't grieving anymore, but I think Thomas's question shows he was still grieving.