Daily Devotional

One of the most unusual experiences I had growing up in youth group was something called “Stump the Chump.” On the first Sunday of every month, our high school pastor, Jason, would replace our regular Bible lesson with a Q&A session. We students could ask him any question we wanted about “God, Jesus, or the Bible.” But this was no ordinary Q&A session: it was a battle of wits, the people trying to “stick it to the man.” Every question we asked that Pastor Jason could satisfactorily answer netted him a point. BUT, should any of us ask a brilliant question that successfully “stumped the chump,” WE scored a point. Whoever had the most points by the end of Sunday School won. (Spoiler: it was almost always Pastor Jason.) This contest happened once a month for several years, becoming a well-loved part of the group’s ethos. There was even a “Stump the Chump” theme song!

When I think back on my experience with Stump the Chump, I don’t really remember many specific questions or answers. But now that I’m in in youth ministry, this little ritual stands out as an example of the idea that more is caught than is taught. Stump the Chump was not about information as much as it was about formation; it communicated several key principles about faith and life without ever stating them explicitly. In retrospect, here’s what Stump the Chump showed me:

1. How to speak the truth in love. One might think Stump the Chump was an ego trip for Pastor Jason, an opportunity him to flex his Bible knowledge and seminary training. But Pastor Jason never approached these Q&As with the spirit of a know-it-all. When he did know an answer, he was gracious and caring. When he didn’t, he was humble, with the courage to say “I don’t know.” (Putting up with the ridicule and heckling that comes with answering questions from high schoolers showed a lot of grace and humility, too.) For freshman Mark, who struggled with “Bible thumping,” Jason modeled a balance of biblical truth and pastoral care. He didn’t present information, “truth for trivia’s sake,” but he “spoke the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15).

2. The sufficiency of Scripture. As much as he could, Pastor Jason answered each question with Scripture, weaving together passage after passage to respond to questions silly and serious. As I watched him, it became clear that this game was born from a deep conviction that Scripture had all the answers, even if he didn’t. If Pastor Jason came across a question that he couldn’t answer, he would research it over the next week and respond (publicly!) with a better, more biblical answer. I and many of my fellow students came away with a subconscious understanding that the Scripture is sufficient. It contains everything we need for “life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). Give the Bible its day in court, and it will come out on top. By answering questions on everything from origins to eschatology, Pastor Jason was communicating that Scripture speaks true whenever it speaks; we are able to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).

3. The validity of doubt. Most importantly, however, Stump the Chump created a space where students felt comfortable asking questions about their faith. The competitive, “let’s-get-the-youth-pastor” atmosphere meant that students could ask any question without giving a backstory or looking like they were abandoning the faith. For me, Stump the Chump was less memorable for the answers it gave than for the tacit admission that it was OK to ask questions. It demonstrated that questions are part of a healthy, genuine faith, if we, like the Bereans, were willing to “examine the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” (Acts 17:11)

And here, perhaps, is where Stump the Chump takes on some relevance for all of us. If you’ve been walking with Jesus longer than half a second, you’ve probably had some doubts. These doubts could be intellectual, questioning whether some element of “God, Jesus, and the Bible” is true. Or, as often happens in times of suffering, they could be emotional doubts, questioning whether these are good. These forms of doubt can certainly become sinful: clever arguments against Scripture can be a pretext for hardened unbelief, or questioning God’s goodness can really just be a stubborn insistence on our own sinful ways.  But Stump the Chump taught me that doubt qua doubt—that is, the willingness to ask “Is this true?” “Is this good?”—is not antithetical to faith. Look at the Psalms: how often do they express a disconnect between what the Psalmist believed to be true about God and what his circumstances seemed to indicate. That’s a form of doubt, and it’s in inspired Scripture. Doubt, when it pushes us toward God and not away from him, is part of the process by which faith grows and deepens.  The medievals called it fides quaerens intellectum: faith seeking understanding.

If my response to doubts is to lock them away because “the Bible has an answer somewhere,” that’s neither healthy nor biblical. Biblical faith is not blind, anti-emotional, or anti-intellectual. That’s the so-called “faith” of the seed that fell on rocky ground, which cannot survive the stress tests of life.  So consider today: do we make space in our lives to address our doubts? Are we afraid to voice them to others? To God? Am I living an intellectually and emotionally honest Christianity, one in which I’m not afraid to utter those words, “I don’t know?” May we proclaim with the father of the demon-possessed boy in Mark 9:24, “I believe; help my unbelief!” That’s what Stump the Chump is all about.

"English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers."