by Brad on September 3, 2010
Over the last five years, I have been haunted by a single question: What is faith? You see, no sooner would I read “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved…” (Acts 16:31) then I would stumble across a slew of New Testament verses that tells me that in order to have eternal life I must be obedient, fear God, love others, and to be humble and kind. Then I would read about how the fruits of the Spirit are the markings of true faith and how the 8 (or 9 depending on who you ask) Beatitudes also reflect those who are in the Kingdom of God. Then there are those passages about perseverance and the Armor of God that seem to pile on even more things to do and worry about. And to top it all off, we have Paul telling us that the three main and essential things are faith, hope and love – but that the greatest of these is love (1 Cor 13:13).
And wait! There’s more! There is, of course, what Jesus said when he opened his three and half year ministry with these words: “The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Good News.” And then I read how Paul distinguishes between true godly repentance and phony worldly repentance in 2 Corinthians 7.
So now I’ve got to worry about repentance too?
As someone who desires earnestly to be faithful to the Word of Truth I kept answering my big question with another question: How on earth am I supposed to wrap my arms around all this? And how is it that Jesus and his apostles can say “just believe” without explaining either what they mean by believe or without explaining all the necessary things that should accompany this belief?
To put it mildly, it’s been difficult burden to bear.
I think the message that Christians need to hear today is simply this: Just believe. Yes, there needs to be obedience and love and perseverance through suffering. We need to be kind and generous as Christ commanded us. But at the very bottom of all these things is belief. From first to last – whether we are talking about obedience, love, hope or joy – belief is the beginning and end of all of these things.
What’s most troubling about my personal struggles is that the modern church hasn’t been much help. Today, it doesn’t preach “by faith alone” even if it confesses it in its mission statements and cheers it on as a slogan. For instance, we have entire ministries devoted to programs and gimmicks that promote unbelief rather than belief. Here’s one example:
A church that I spent more than 9 years attending now has a men’s accountability program that on the surface of things seems just fine. They meet in groups of four to eight. They require that all participants say a short pledge that kind of reminds you of the Nicene Creed mixed with a few personal promises. And once you go through a little ceremony you are handed a coin that you keep in your pocket with you wherever you go to remind you about your pledge before your brothers and before God. And the thrust of the ministry is to be open and honest and to share your sin and struggles – particularly sexual sins and struggles.
But here’s the potential problem. If the focus of this program (or any program) does not encourage us to fight the passions of the world by faith in Jesus Christ – then this program preaches another Gospel and actually encourages pride (via a collective self-reliance) and unbelief.
Everything we do as Christians, without exception, must be tethered to faith. It’s the core of our salvation. It can never be ignored. It can never be forgotten. And the moment we do ignore and forget, we sin. This certainly isn’t all there is to say on the subject. Faith is intertwined with so many things. But when sin seems to knock me back and tempts me to believe I need to do this or that, I’m greatly comforted by the fact that the remedy to all the guilt and shame that comes with this body of death and this fallible heart is not a better idea or to go out and do something spiritual, it’s just this: Just Believe. Everything else comes after.
by Brad on September 1, 2010
First:
4 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”
6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
8 The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived. – Numbers 21:4-9
Then:
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. – John 3:14-15
Finally:
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. – 2 Cor. 5:21
Confused? Jesus is the bronze snake, who not coincidentally, became the very thing that threatened to destroy us, just as the bronze serpent resembled the very thing that threatened to destroyed the grumbling Israelites in the desert. The final remedy in both cases: Look and live.
by Brad on August 31, 2010
I’m going to start cleaning up and moving content over from an old bible commentary blog I was working on last year. I guess this blog is fast becoming the dumping ground for old writings that I either can’t part with or quite let go of.
Thanks for understanding.
by Brad on August 29, 2010
Over the years I have had my fair share of online and face-to-face tussles with skeptics. During that time, I’ve learned that it is inevitable that at some point in the discussion a super-duper, irrefutable “proof” that my faith is nothing more than a delusional cling to a fairy tale taught to me by my parents is pulled out in the hopes that it will end the discussion with me being completely unable to answer. The problem of evil, the historicity of Jesus or the reliability of Scripture are usually the general headers under which the “big question” lies (an accusation couched in a question is more like it). And it is unleashed when the skeptic realizes that he is just about out of rhetorical ammunition.
Lately, I’ve been running across a fairly new “question” that’s seems pretty highly regarded among skeptics, yet it’s one that is patently absurd: Why won’t God heal amputees?
I’m not sure what the skeptic really hopes to prove with this question, as God’s omnipotence doesn’t hinge on his ability to perform parlor tricks for those who doubt his existence. But I do know that many skeptics like to torment unprepared Christians with the question, and that many Christians get all worked up over silly philosophical traps like this one.
I also know the question is ridiculous once you peel away the surface bluster.
The first thing we should consider is that God heals amputees all the time. I have little doubt that there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of amputees who have been saved by the shear grace of God though faith in Jesus. I’m confident that there are tens of thousands of hearts and souls who have been healed and transformed by the finger of God, who are walking around on this earth now fully healed by faith in Jesus even though they are missing a limb.
Of course, this is not what the skeptic means by heal, but that the skeptic immediately overlooks the greatest gift God offers to us (rather than cool stuff, lots of money, great health and a wonderful life now and always) is the greater point that Christians need to make when answering skeptics who speak about things they have no desire to grasp and no ability to understand.
The gift of faith in Jesus is worth far more than life and money and job and family. And the gift of eternal life is worth far more than good health too.
As for the charge at face value, it’s wholly ridiculous. Jesus and his disciples healed cripples, lepers, a man with a shriveled hand and raised people from the dead. That they did these things for the glory of God, and to strengthen the faith of the earliest Christians, should leave us little doubt as to God’s power to heal any deformity a skeptic may dream up.
Besides, the greatest miracles of God are those of the heart and the transformations we witness when a soul passes from death to life is no less astonishing than any physical healing. But of course, that will never convince the perpetual skeptic – only a similar miracle of grace can do that.
Matthew 1:18-25 | The Birth of Jesus
by Brad on August 31, 2010
Matthew 1:18
Christians tend to think that the miracle of Jesus’ conception is some kind of theological abstraction. In fact, we tend to do this with all miracles. When it comes to God we act surprised that he is able to do the things he said he could do. And so we make miracles out to be a thing that is strange and extraordinary, and not the ordinary expression of a Supernatural God.
Now miracles should be strange and extraordinary to us when we see them, but we shouldn’t think of miracles as being alien to God himself. We shouldn’t think that God is amazed by what he can do, even if we are amazed.
What happened to Mary in her body is a picture of what happens to every Christian in their soul. The Holy Spirit, unannounced and with no apparent reason to us, comes and plants faith in the heart. As each Christian is given the gift of faith they witness nothing short of a miracle.
There is no natural phenomenon that can explain the heart changes of the proud suddenly desiring to be humble. There’s no earthly rational explanation for people sacrificing successful careers and traveling to hostile lands for a God they cannot see. The Holy Spirit changes people who should never change, and once they have changed, they do things that are extraordinary and radically different than the rest of the world.
What’s most extraordinary about the miracle of faith is that the gift finds them as ordinary sinners. There was nothing lovely about the blessed before God opened their eyes. There was nothing in them that demanded that God should give them such a ridiculously wonderful gift. Like Mary suddenly finding out that she would carry God himself, each who are given faith are surprised by Christ and are surprised by the revelation that Christ has suddenly found and revitalized their undeserving soul.
And when these happy souls suddenly finds Jesus, and see him changing everything with them. they very gratefully say: This is a work from the finger of God himself, and this is nothing less than a miracle.
Matthew 1:19-20
Joseph did not seek revenge when he learned his fiancee was pregnant. This is a very important detail in the face of such a shocking revelation. It would been easy for Joseph to make a public spectacle of Mary. It would have been easy for him to humiliate her to make sure that everyone understood how much she had hurt him.
But instead, Joseph sought to set aside any perceived wrong done against him by intending to quietly divorce her and to protect her from open shame.
Scripture tells us that Joseph was a righteous man. That he did not seek revenge, even at the risk of his own success, shows us he was and show us what the righteousness of God looks like in such a situation. At the very least, Joseph was facing the whispers of scandal that could have slowly destroyed his family’s reputation. The first-century was a time when one’s personal reputation could have meant the difference between failure and success, and even life and death. But instead of launching a preemptive strike to protect his family’s name (and his own), Joseph sought to protect a young woman for all he knew had betrayed him and deserved to be stoned.
In this act of mercy, Joseph practiced faith. He sought “to do justice, to love kindness as he walked humbly with his God” at a time when acting “righteousness” was believed to be every bit about revenge, religious hypocrisy and cruelty rather than being humble.
But rather than getting even, Joseph took on the public scorn for the sake of showing a suspected sinner a remarkable, undeserved kindness. And in doing so he showed us that he was a righteous man.
Matthew 1:21
We are told two very important things in Matthew 1:21. First, we are told that Mary will give birth to a son and that they will name him Jesus. Second, we are told that this son will be named Jesus because “he will save his people from their sins.”
The text does not say that Jesus will save everyone in the world from their sins. It says that he will save “his people” from their sins. So who are his people? Many will say that his people are those who have faith or who have placed their trust in Jesus. They are right, but only so far as the Scriptures define faith.
Faith is not defined by Scripture in the same way we use of the word in everyday life. Faith reflects the deepest levels of trust we see between two people – like between devoted husband and his wife or a little child and her mother. Scripture makes it clear that faith is not mere agreement or well-wishing. Faith in Jesus is instead engrained in one’s identity. Most importantly, faith in Jesus reflects what Matthew 1:21 says, a people saved from their sins. This means that we should look for a people who are kind and gentle, caring and loving and who give all the credit for their pure hearts to Jesus and because of their dependence on him.
Matthew 1:22-23
It is ironic that Isaiah served God in an age that was little different than the first century. His was an age of intense persecution, gross injustices, idolatry and hypocrisy. Those who were most noted for their wickedness were the ruling class and the wise, just as it was in Jesus’ day.
But under God’s hand, Isaiah prophesied, and his predictions of the coming doom that would fall upon Israel at the hands of the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires were often tempered by prophesies of the great hope that God would provide. And as predicted the Messiah came, though not as the conquering warrior most expected, but as a meek and gentle carpenter whose three year ministry set in motion the eventual end of the world’s greatest empire.
Immanuel, “God with us,” did condescend from heaven to earth but make no mistake, “God with us” does not merely mean that God came and walked the earth among men. Through Immanuel’s work he paved a path to a gift where God could come and live inside of us. Where God is for us because he lives in us. Where God will protect us and keep us and where he will fight for us because he cannot forsake himself.
Isaiah foretold of Jesus more than 700 years before he was born. And like each of the Old Testament saints, he too welcomed this great promise from a distance (Hebrews 11:13-16). This is why we must remember that faith is not measured in what is seen, but in the unseen; and that God this gives us this hope: He will use all our good works done by faith in Jesus Christ, even if we do not live to see the fruit of our labors.
Matthew 1:24-25
Joseph believed God. The proof of his faith was not because he nodded his head at the angel, only to disobey God later. The proof of his faith came when he acted upon what he was told. And Joseph did not believe God because he saw an angel. He could have just as easily dismissed the dream as a silly vision or a hallucination. Joseph heard and believed because his heart had been opened by God to hear his words.
Faith was present in Joseph’s heart the night the angel visited him in a dream, and faith compelled him to believe the message. Though the things Joseph witnessed ran contrary to every thought and theology of his culture, Joseph received what he saw with a heart of faith and with his hearing heart he acted upon it.
Matthew 1:18-25
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