I once took a graduate level class on the psychology of learning, and in that class we talked about the way people learn. And I remember one time we were talking about babies and how they perceive certain things. It was kind of amusing actually, but they did a study where they would sit a baby down and then build a tower of blocks, three or four blocks high, with a red block on the top of the tower. The baby would watch with fascination and the idea was that the baby was taking it all in and that he or she was satisfied with the logic of it all. Then they suspended the red block in the air, with no visible means of suspension. Meaning that the baby couldn’t see how the red block was floating in mid-air. And even babies were troubled by this; it was illogical to them. In-other-words, they couldn’t attach meaning to what they were seeing. And sometimes I think that’s how people can be with the Gospel. They hear the message, but it doesn’t register with them. They can open a Bible, or come to church and hear a pastor preaching the message of salvation through Jesus Christ, but to them it’s only words. For those kinds of people, the Gospel doesn’t come in power, it doesn’t weigh on them, there is no sense of personal application of the message, no embrace of the message. It’s like the teacher from the Old Charlie Brown shows:
“Whaa – whaa, whaa – whaa –whaa - whaa.”