"So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:17).
God commands us to examine ourselves to see whether we have true faith. The concept of faith, however, can be a muddling one. Before we can look for the fruit of faith, we must understand what faith is. What is the essence of faith? What are some wrong ideas we have about faith and living by faith? During the next couple of weeks, we will take a closer look at this most essential aspect of the Christian life. As we gain greater insight into faith, it is our hope that we will become more faithful in our words, in our thoughts, and in our deeds.
To begin, let us look at what faith is not. It is not a blind, irrational trust in some vague idea or intuitive feeling. Biblical faith is a thoughtful, rational (using your mind), trust in a faithful God. He has declared in His Word, and we have evidence in the pages of history, that He is trustworthy. Our faith, therefore, is not blind assent to the unknown, but it is a response to the revelation of God.
Unfortunately, we live in one of the most anti-intellectual, anti-rational, periods in the Christian church. The reasons for this are manifold. The main reason is due to the church’s reaction to the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment exalted man’s reason to the level of perfection. According to Enlightenment philosophers, if man just lived according to his own infallible reason, the world’s troubles would be solved. In other words, man has no need of God or of faith in Him, no need of redemption in Christ or of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.
Much of the church responded to the Enlightenment by declaring that reason is our enemy and that intellectualism necessarily leads to unbelief. Christians retreated from intellectual debate and hid behind “blind faith.” This has caused problems in the church as people have begun to believe all kinds of things that are not only unreasonable, but contrary to Scripture. Such reactionaries reject even studying Scripture from a reasonable standpoint. They feel their way through the Bible instead of thinking their way. But faith is not blind. The Christian faith is reasonable, and it is necessary that we think through our beliefs. God has declared that we come to faith through the hearing the Word, and that involves engaging our mind.
When you read the Bible, do you tend to be guided by your emotions or your mind? When God says, “Fear Me,” do you base your understanding on your feelings or do you think about what that statement means in light of the rest of Scripture? Submit your feelings to what you know to be true.
