Lessons #69 and 70
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+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +
+ comments given in the actual delivery not in the note. +
+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +
+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +
+ GW = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +
+ NAB=New English Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +
+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +
+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +
+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +
+AMP = Amplified Bible, UBS = United Bible Society +
+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +
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Worldliness hampers communication of God’s word (1 Cor 3:1-4)
1Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men?
The sentence I gave you milk, not solid food of 1 Corinthians 3:2 is the basis for the second major proposition derived from the passage we are studying. This second major proposition, if you recall, is that a pastor can only communicate basic but not advanced doctrine when certain conditions are true of his congregation. Because of this proposition, we began a study of basic doctrines of the Christian faith Apostle Paul could have taught to the Corinthians. The apostle did not mention directly any basic doctrine he taught but because of what the human author of Hebrews stated in Hebrews 6:1-2 we can deduce some of the basic doctrines of the Christian faith the apostle communicated to the Corinthians. The first we considered in our last study is the doctrine of repentance. So, we proceed with a second possible basic doctrine the apostle could have taught the Corinthians.
Faith in God
A second possible basic doctrine the apostle would have taught the Corinthians is the doctrine of faith in God. We say this based on the last phrase of Hebrews 6:1 of faith in God. This being the case, we would review what we studied in Hebrews 6:1 regarding this phrase with additional information.
Teaching regarding faith in God is a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith first because of its importance in the gospel message and because it is necessary for living the Christian life. Its importance in the gospel message is because in salvation repentance and faith are inseparably united. It is true that often the focus is on “believing” without much said about repenting, but faith cannot exist without first repentance. In other words, there must be a change of mind or the turning away from something before there can be faith. In any event, the point we want to stress is that repentance and faith are inseparably united in that they are two sides of the same coin of what leads to salvation. That repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin in connection with salvation is demonstrated in the preaching of Jesus Christ. Mark, in his gospel, records for us the invitation Jesus offered to the Jews with respect to the kingdom of God in Mark 1:15:
"The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"
Here Jesus coupled repentance and faith as the requirement for entrance into the kingdom of God since the word “believe” is the verb form of a Greek noun usually rendered “faith.” Jesus’ command repent and believe indicates that repentance is that which occurs first before exercise of faith. Repentance is a negative response where one turns away from something while belief is a positive response in which one turns to something else. You see, if a person recognizes that something is harmful and repents about it then the individual should have something positive or beneficial to respond to that will take the place of the harmful thing with which the person was formerly involved. Thus, it would be incomplete to preach repentance without joining it with faith in Christ.
It is our assertion that repentance and faith are inseparable. There are those who think they are and so they never preach the gospel by speaking of repentance rather they focus on the word “believe” because that is what one constantly sees in the gospel preaching recorded in the Scripture or some say that because everywhere there is an offer of salvation in the gospel of John only the word “believe” is used. This, to me, is an incomplete view of presentation of the gospel. Whether a passage of the Scripture connects explicitly repentance and faith or not, that does not mean that both are not inseparably linked. The truth is that any time the word “believe” is used in connection with the offer of eternal salvation, there is the implied requirement of repentance or if repentance is mentioned the concept of “believe” is implied. That implicit in the demand for one to believe is the requirement of repentance, and vice versa, can be easily demonstrated from the Scripture. First, consider Peter’s appeal during his sermon on the day of Pentecost. As the apostle ended his sermon in which he had demonstrated that Jesus whom the Jews crucified is the Christ, the people under conviction asked a question of what they should do, he replied that they should repent, as we read in Acts 2:38:
Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Peter did not directly command the people to believe in Jesus Christ, but that is implied in the instruction of being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. To be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ implies that one is a believer in Him. Thus, here is a case where repentance is focused and not faith, with respect to conversion or eternal salvation. The apostle in focusing on repentance was being faithful to the instruction of the Lord Jesus Christ to the disciples after His resurrection. The Lord instructed them that repentance should be preached for people to receive forgiveness of their sins, as recorded in Luke 24:47:
and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
The translation of Luke 24:47 in the NIV and that of many other English versions can be misleading in that it implies that Jesus instructed the disciples to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins as two subjects. That is not the case. The Greek text implies that it is repentance that is to be preached and that it will lead to forgiveness of sins. A good translation of the Greek text that reveals this explanation is that of the NET: and repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. That it is the preaching of repentance that will lead to forgiveness of sins is clearer in Acts 3:19:
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,
The point is that when repentance for forgiveness of sins is preached, implied in it is the concept of believe in Christ. Of course, repentance involves turning away from sins and turning to God, as we can gather from the OT Scripture, for example, in Ezekiel 18:30:
"Therefore, O house of Israel, I will judge you, each one according to his ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall.
That aside, on another occasion when Apostle Peter preached before primarily a Gentile audience, he indicated that forgiveness of sins is to be obtained through faith in Christ, according to Acts 10:43:
All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
It is the same apostle who linked forgiveness of sins to repentance that now links it with faith in Christ. The point is that first from Peter’s preaching we know that the command to repent implies the command to believe.
Second, the implicit demand for repentance in the command to believe in Christ is evident in the preaching of the gospel by Apostle Paul that involves the command to believe in Christ or the preaching of the necessity of faith in Christ for salvation, as we may gather from the apostle’s assertion in Acts 20:21:
I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.
This statement of the apostle indicates that when he preached, his preaching involved an appeal to repentance and faith in Christ. However, in his recorded sermons in the Scripture we do not find the two together in his appeal to those he preached. Instead, we find the one and not the other. In the apostle’s longest recorded sermon to the Jews, he ended with proclaiming forgiveness of sins and justification through faith in Christ, as we read in Acts 13:38-39:
38 "Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. 39 Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.
Apostle Paul no doubt knew that Jesus commanded preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Therefore, when he offered forgiveness of sins to the audience through faith in Christ the implication is that the people should repent to receive it. On another occasion when he preached to the Greek in Athens, he ended the message with an appeal for repentance in Acts 17:30-31:
30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."
Here, there is no direct reference to exercise of faith, but that is implied because for anyone to accept the apostle’s message he would have to believe that the Jesus he mentioned resurrected from the dead. It turns out that those who responded to the apostle’s message were then described as having believed, according to Acts 17:34:
A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.
The sentence A few men became followers of Paul and believed may be misunderstood because it implies that some persons followed Paul and then believed. This is not the case since the Greek literally reads joining him, believed. The people that followed Paul did so because of their having believed. The Greek indicates that joining the apostle and believing occurred about the same time although logically believing came before the people followed the apostle. This aside, the point we have labored to demonstrate is that it is wrong during presentation of the gospel to think that only belief in Christ should be emphasized without reference to repentance. When repentance is commanded, implicit in it is the command to believe in Christ. Similarly, a command to believe implies the command to repent.
The basic teaching concerning faith in God that is to be taught to the unbeliever as well as new believer is first and foremost a teaching that faith in God for eternal salvation means to put trust in Jesus Christ as the one who died for our sins. In effect, we tell the unbeliever that the God in whom he is to believe if he wants eternal life is Jesus Christ. This truth is implied in Apostle John’s writing about receiving eternal life, as we read in John 20:31:
But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
To believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is tantamount to believe that He is God. The Jews understood this truth that they charged Jesus of blasphemy, so they wanted to kill Him, as recorded in John 5:18:
For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Thus, as John stated, it is belief in Jesus Christ as God that leads to eternal life. The Lord Jesus indicated that belief in the Father leads to eternal life but only if that it is associated with Himself. It is this truth that He implied in John 5:24:
"I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
So, we should emphasize to an unbeliever or even an infant believer that when a person believes in Jesus Christ, he has believed in God the Father as the Lord Jesus asserted in John 12:44:
Then Jesus cried out, "When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me.
We are saying that a basic truth we present to an unbeliever or an infant believer is that to believe in God means first and foremost to believe in Jesus Christ since He is the God revealed in human form. The implication is that it is through belief in Christ that someone believes in God, according to 1 Peter 1:21:
Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
The basic teaching on faith should include the truth of suffering that comes because of believing in Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, we have popular teaching of prosperity and enjoyment of life in Christ without emphasis on suffering. A great disservice is done to a new convert if we fail to let the person know that although the individual will enjoy internal peace because the person’s sins have been forgiven and because of the potential of being filled of the Holy Spirit but that it is part of the Christian life to suffer. This is the message of Apostle Paul to the new converts of his first missionary trip, according to Acts 14:22:
strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. "We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God," they said.
We have considered the doctrine of faith in God as basic truth in the gospel message, but we also indicated that it is necessary for living the Christian life. Therefore, there is more to the doctrine of faith that should be part of the fundamental teaching of faith to new converts as well as those who have been converted for some time but without much understanding of the doctrine of faith. The word “faith” as a concept, like love, is not easy to define. Of course, some people think that the human author of Hebrews defined faith in the first verse of the eleventh chapter but that is not a definition of faith as it is an explanation about faith. Although it is difficult to define faith, but we could say that in its simplest form as related to God, it may be viewed as “belief in or confident attitude toward God that involves, no doubt, commitment to His will for one’s life.” This simple explanation of faith needs to be expanded in practical ways that will help both a new convert and maturing believer. We will do this through three assertions about faith.
First, exercise of faith involves taking God at His word. Abraham demonstrated this assertion when he was declared righteous because of his faith. But what was this faith? It is that he believed what God said to him, as recorded in Genesis 15:5-6:
5 He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars — if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." 6 Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Prophet Jonah declared to the people of Nineveh that God would destroy their city because of their sinfulness. They had faith in that they were convinced that God would do what He threatened through His prophet unless they repented, so they repented and were delivered. The fundamental fact about the Ninevites was they believed God in the sense that they took Him at His word as given through the prophet, according to Jonah 3:4-5:
4 On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned." 5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
The Ninevites would not have fasted and repented if they did not take God at His word that their city was about to be destroyed unless there was repentance. Anyway, we have cited two examples from the OT but there are many illustrations in the NT of exercising faith in the sense of taking God at His word. But let me mention one of these. In the gospel of John, we have an account of the healing of an official’s child that was done remotely in that Jesus did not go to the man’s house but spoke to the man and the man exercised faith in that he took Jesus at His word about the healing of his son and the son was healed. I am referring to the record in John 4:49-53:
49 The royal official said, "Sir, come down before my child dies." 50 Jesus replied, "You may go. Your son will live." The man took Jesus at his word and departed. 51 While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. 52 When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, "The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour." 53 Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live." So he and all his household believed.
The royal official did not argue with Jesus regarding what He told him. He took Jesus at His word, that is faith, and so departed to discover that his child has been healed. The result of this healing was his salvation and that of his household because they believed that Jesus Christ was the unique Son of God or the Messiah although the passage does not use these descriptions, but they must have believed something about Jesus for the Holy Spirit through John to have reported that they believed. Anyway, these three examples we have provided are enough to establish that faith involves taking God at His word. In other words, it is an act of faith when you take God at His word revealed in the Scripture.
Second, related to the first, is that faith means accepting something God said or what is said regarding God to be true. The difference between this second assertion and the first is that the focus is on something being true. You see, it is possible to take a person at his word, but that word may prove to be untrue. In faith, one accepts that what is said by God or concerning Him is true. Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry indicted the people who listened to Him for not believing what He taught them, as we read in John 3:12:
I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?
The word “believe” here has the meaning “accept to be true.” This can be verified from the fact that if the expression “accept to be true” is used instead of the word “believe” the verse would make perfect sense. But Jesus Christ asserted the negative, which means that the people did not accept what He taught them to be true. Therefore, if one accepts God’s word to be true then that person would be described as believing God, that is, that the person has exercised faith in Him. This is demonstrated by the description of those who accepted the apostles’ message, as we read in Acts 4:4:
But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand.
Here the word “believed” is equivalent to “accepted to be true,” since the “many” mentioned here actually accepted the message of the apostles about Jesus Christ and about His resurrection to be true in contrast with the Jewish leaders who rejected that message. So, exercising faith implies accepting as true what God says or accepting as true what is said in the Bible concerning God.
Third, faith involves total conviction that God can do the impossible. This assertion was demonstrated in time of Jesus Christ in the healing of the woman with bleeding, as recorded in Matthew 9:20-22:
20 Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. 21 She said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed." 22 Jesus turned and saw her. "Take heart, daughter," he said, "your faith has healed you." And the woman was healed from that moment.
The woman had spent years seeking healing without success. But on hearing of Jesus Christ, she had faith in that she believed that Jesus Christ was capable of healing her, which is tantamount to doing the impossible. It is her faith that is demonstrated when she said If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed. She had total conviction that Jesus was capable of healing her by a mere touch of His clothes. This conviction, Jesus Christ described as faith.
Another person who demonstrated that faith is total conviction that God can do the impossible was Abraham. God had promised him that the wife who had passed her menopause would have a child, something that is impossible. Abraham believed that God would do the impossible and so he had absolute confidence that God would do the impossible; that is faith. Later Apostle Paul in defending the doctrine of justification by faith makes a reference to this fact that Abraham had faith in that he believed the impossible, as we read in Romans 4:18-21:
18 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." 19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead — since he was about a hundred years old — and that Sarah's womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.
Abraham faced what we would call hopeless situation in that he knew his wife had stopped ovulating so that the idea of an old woman having a son is laughable were it not that God had said so. It is because that promise of having a child is laughable that Sarah laughed when she heard the Lord make the promise to Abraham, hence the son was given the name Isaac, which means laughter. Abraham took God at His word and accepted as true what God promised. He also had that total conviction that God would do the impossible. It is this conviction that Apostle Paul described in verse 21 of Romans 4 when he wrote being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. Therefore, when you have faith you would have total conviction that God would do what He promised.
There is one more fact about faith that can be garnished from the apostle’s declaration that Abraham had faith in God’s promise. It is that faith rises above one’s circumstances. Abraham knew that he was incapable of impregnating his wife and that the wife was also incapable of being pregnant. These are facts that are indisputable but when God made His promise, Abraham ignored natural facts to accept divine promise. Thus, what this says is that when there is faith one does not look at the surrounding circumstances or the natural facts, as we understand them. The point is that faith does not depend on what is obvious to the sight. This means that if you are looking at something that appears to you to be red in color and God says to you that it is blue you must accept that it is blue regardless of what your eyes sees. The truth that I want to emphasize is that faith does not use human sight in its operation. It functions by reliance on what God says. It is this truth that is implied in the assertion of Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:7:
We live by faith, not by sight.
I trust you understand that an implication of the point we are making is that your eyesight is one of your biggest enemies with respect to faith. God says something to you in His word but on looking around you, you see no sign or evidence that that would happen, so you begin to doubt His promise. But if you ignored what your eyes observe and take God at His word, take what He promised to be true, then you would have faith. In any event, these three assertions we have given are essential part of the explanation of faith.
Further teaching on faith should include some of the descriptions of faith found in the Scripture. We mention three of these in this study. A first description in connection with faith is the use of the expression “insufficient faith.” Insufficient faith is different from having no faith since insufficient faith implies that the faith one has is deficient or lacks something while no faith means that there is complete lack of trust in God. This description is given negatively in connection with Moses. The description of insufficient faith associated with Moses is interesting because of his track record with respect to faith since he was listed among the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 so that it is not as if he did not have faith. But the Lord charged Moses of not having enough faith or trust in Him. This charge is given in Numbers 20:12:
But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them."
The fact that Moses was listed among the heroes of faith, but God charged him of not trusting in Him enough says to me that faith is not a permanent possession of anyone. In effect, you may have faith at one time and then at another situation or time you would lack it. Of course, the time that we lack faith would correspond to the time of not pleasing God. That side, God said to Moses you did not trust in me enough which is difficult to interpret. Nonetheless, this charge probably meant Moses did not follow the precise detail of instruction of God regarding the miracle of providing water to Israel from a rock. Hence, we get the idea that insufficient faith means that one trusts that the Lord would do what he promised but does not fully comply to what God has said about a specific promise. In other words, when you have insufficient faith, you would believe that God would do what He said but you would carry out only a portion of what He commands. A good illustration of this acceptance that there is no difference in believers as stated in Galatians 3:28:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
A person may believe this passage but when the person acts the individual differentiates between believers based on ethnicity, for example. This would be an example of insufficient faith. It is therefore necessary we should not have an insufficient faith that implies not complying fully with the instructions concerning a given promise or assertion from God.
A second description of faith is with the adjective “little” hence the phrase “little faith.” Our Lord Jesus on one occasion described His disciples as men of little faith. So, what does it mean to be a person of little faith? Truly, it is difficult to define what little faith means. We say this because our Lord also indicated that if a person has a small faith he could achieve great things. When the disciples could not drive out demons, they asked our Lord to explain their failure. His answer was that it is because they had so little faith, as we read in Matthew 17:20:
He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
You see, our Lord said that if a person has faith as small as mustard seed he would do great things. In biblical times, mustard seed was considered the smallest seed. Thus, our Lord is saying that if they had any faith at all then they would do great things. Based on this explanation of our Lord, we could state that a “little faith” is synonymous to “no faith in God.” Hence a person with a “little faith” is one who does not have faith in God but full of doubt. Doubt in a sense means that you have faith but in the wrong being. I mean that doubt is faith in Satan and no faith in God. For, if you did not accept Satan’s lies then you will believe God. That was the problem during the Fall. The woman had faith in what Satan said but doubted God and so accepted what Satan said. The point is that you either have faith in God or you have in Satan, leading to doubt of God’s word. Can you tell if you have little faith? Yes! When you worry, that is a clear indication of little faith. This is because the people our Lord addressed as having little faith were individuals that worried as He described in Matthew 6:28-32:
28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'
It should be clear that those our Lord described with the phrase little faith are those who worry about the things of this life. Therefore, if you worry about how to provide your necessities in life or how to solve your problems then you have become a person of little faith. In effect, you have no faith in God, but in Satan in that you believe him but distrust the Lord. Another indicator of little faith is fear since when the disciples were afraid of drowning the Lord described them as those with little faith in Matthew 8:25-26:
25 The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We're going to drown!" 26 He replied, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.
Another indicator of little faith is doubt as implied in our Lord’s rebuke of Peter after he walked in water for a while but took his eyes of Jesus so that he began to sink. He cried to the Lord who responded with a rebuke, as recorded in Matthew 14:29-31:
29 "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" 31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"
Therefore, if you worry, gripped with fear of things around you, and entertain doubts as to whether God is going to fulfill His promise to you then you are a person of little faith. To counter little faith requires that you keep remembering how powerful and reliable God is. He will never fail to keep His word. Therefore, if you keep your minds in His person and promises then you will not be a person of little faith. Anyway, we have given so far negative descriptions of faith, so we consider a positive description.
A third and positive description of faith is “great” in the expression “great faith”, as we find it used to describe a centurion that Jesus healed his servant, as we read in Luke 7:9:
When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.”
Another passage we find the expression “great faith” is in connection with a Canaanite woman whose daughter Jesus healed, according to Matthew 15:28:
Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
A careful study of these two passages in their context reveal certain characteristics about “great faith.” First, a great faith involves first and foremost a firm belief in God and His power. Second, a great faith involves possession of true humility. Third, a great faith involves recognition of God’s authority. Fourth, and related to the first characteristic, is that great faith is characterized by absolute confidence in God. If you should be described as a person with great faith, you must exhibit these characteristics.
How can a person possess great faith, you may ask? Before we answer this question, it should be clear that faith is a gift from God, as indicated in Romans 12:3:
For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.
The expression in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you is an indication that faith is given by God. This being the case, there must be a means of receiving it. You see, when someone gives a gift to another, this other person would have to receive it primarily by stretching out the individual’s hand. Thus, there is always a means of receiving a gift. In case of faith, the means of receiving it is the word of God as the Holy Spirit revealed through Apostle Paul regarding saving faith in Romans 10:17:
Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
Because faith comes from hearing the word of God, great faith comes from devotion to the study of God’s word and its application. If you devote yourself to the study of the word of God and its application, your faith will continue to grow so that you would have great faith. The more you devote to the study and application of the word of God, the more your faith grows. It is the growth of faith that is implied in 2 Thessalonians 1:3:
We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.
Let me emphasize that faith is God’s gift to us that is administered through His word. If you want your faith to develop in the sense of growing and being strengthened, then you must learn God’s word. You would know that your faith is growing and is being strengthened if you find that you become more trusting of the Lord, more loving of others and the Lord, as indicated by more obedience to His word.
In any case, there is more to faith but what we have considered suffice for a basic doctrine of faith. However, we should recognize that “faith” is important in the Christian faith for several reasons. First, faith is the means of our salvation as stated, for example, in Ephesians 2:8:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
Second, faith is the means for living the life that is in Christ, as Apostle Paul indicates in Galatians 2:20:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Third, faith is a defensive weapon against Satan and his system, as the apostle indicates in Ephesians 6:16:
In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
Fourth, faith is necessary to experience miracles. It is impossible to see God’s miracle without it, as indicated in the commentary of Matthew 13:58:
And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.
I think that one of the reasons we do not witness much miracles today is this lack of faith. Many Christians do not believe that God can do the miraculous today, so they see none. Sixth, faith is essential for effective prayer life. Answered prayer is linked to faith, as we read, for example, in Matthew 21:22:
If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."
In any event, we will continue with basic doctrines of the Christian faith in our next study.
08/24/18