This post was surprisingly difficult for me to begin. I literally had writer’s block, and had to spend a couple of days digging deep and reflecting in order to start this post.
I think what made it so problematic is that faith and religion in our culture are believed to go hand in hand. But, do they?
I was always taught in the Christian church that faith is a mind thing and a choice, like, I choose to believe that Jesus is the son of God, because that’s what I had been taught.
Can you teach faith?
The Church uses Paul’s teaching on faith when he wrote that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
I want to give an example of this kind of teaching put into practice.
Years ago, I was working as a nurse in an emergency room, and one night EMS brought in a woman who had experienced a cardiac arrest.
After working on her for the appropriate amount of time, they discontinued efforts, and pronounced her dead.
We removed the tubes from her body, cleaned her up, and allowed the family to come in to see their mother/grandmother for a last visit.
When the family came into the room, we gave them space, and went about our business of seeing other patients. It was a very busy night.
Suddenly, from behind the glass doors, we could hear loud shouts repeated over and over, “in the name of Jesus, get up.”
The commotion from the room spilled out into the unit at such high decibels that it made it difficult to focus on our work, but we carried on without disturbing the grieving family.
After five hours, I asked the charge nurse how long she would allow it, and she said, “as long as they need,” which I thought was very admirable.
I leaned in and replied, “if she gets up, I’m going home,” and my charge nurse chuckled back at me. That was my way of trying to diffuse a stressful situation with a little off-colored humor as nurses often do.
Shortly after, the family was silent and left the room. I felt heartbroken for them, because they had the kind of faith that Paul had written about. However, their hopes of resurrection did not materialize.
They were hoping that they could raise her from the dead and did what they had been taught to do by using the phrase of “in the name of Jesus.”
To all of us witnessing, they were displaying a great deal of faith, because they truly believed that their precious loved one was going to come back to life.
Later, on the way home from work, I asked God, why didn’t it work when they had such great faith?
And God’s response was, a miracle like that does not come from the hopes or wishes of the performer of the miracle, it is generated from God to one who hears his voice, and then follows directions to complete the task.
Christ said, “the son can do nothing in himself, but what he sees the Father do.”
So, in order to get a deeper sense of what faith/belief really is, a look at the Hebrew word, Emunah, is valuable.
Emunah, which means faith or belief in Hebrew, is not a mind state. Rather, it is an action word, which has the meaning of firm support. It occurs when the participant completes the works.
It has the pictograph of a peg in it, like the one used to support a tent.
When a tent-stake is driven into very firm ground, the tent will be a shelter even in a storm with high winds. It will stand firm.
A great example of this word being used in the Hebrew text was when God spoke to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15.
But before we get into it, let’s take a moment to evaluate Abraham’s journey.
He came from a religiously saturated society that worshiped 4 main Gods, and a patron God of Ur, which was the moon God.
Genesis does not go into detail concerning Abraham’s spiritual transition, learning to hear the voice of God and realizing that this invisible force was the one and only true God.
Abraham would eventually call this presence, the Most High God.
Years later, after having left Ur, it is recorded in Genesis chapter 15 that Abraham was conversing with God as if He was an entity in the same room with him.
During this particular conversation, Abraham was talking to God and suggesting that he should make his faithful steward, Dammesek Eliezer, his heir, since Abraham had not produced any descendants.
The word of the Lord came to him in reply, “that one shall not be your heir; none but your very own issue shall be your heir.”
And then God took him outside and said, “look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.”
And, God continued, “So shall your offspring be.”
It is written that Abraham believed God. The word Emunah is used in this passage. Abraham’s action was accepting what God was saying to him as being true.
Abraham had a spiritual relationship where he had learned how to converse with the spirit of God and he believed what God had spoken to him.
This example is of a human interacting with God, which resulted in faith, but that is not the only way to generate faith.
There is a story in Matthew chapter 8 of a man observing Christ doing the works of God and faith was the product.
In the first century Rome was on a mission to conquer the Mediterranean world, and they had legions of Roman soldiers who secured and kept the peace in the territories that they had conquered.
Each legion was 10 cohorts of 600 men. Each cohort was divided into 6 groups of 100 men, which was called a century and each century had a centurion ruling over their group.
Often times, the Roman military presence was not heavy in Judea because they were needed in other parts of the region. However, during Jewish holidays, such as the Passover, soldiers were imported into Judea because of the increased population during those times.
It is recorded in the Gospels that Christ had performed miracles in various areas of Judea, and not only his own people witnessed the works of God, but it is obvious from Matthew’s story that a certain centurion had also observed.
In Matthew chapter 8, a Roman centurion came to Christ and informed him that his servant was at home sick of the palsy and grievously tormented.
Christ replied, “I will come and heal him.”
The centurion answered, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but speak the word only and my servant shall be healed.”
The centurion continued, “for I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say to this man, Go, and he goes; and to another Come, and he comes, and to my servant, do this and he doses it”.
Christ responded to his followers, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
Then Christ told the centurion, “Go your way, and as you have believed, so be it done unto you.”
The centurion had obviously watched Yeshua doing miracles and knew that Christ was from the God of Israel. He humbled himself and honored him.
The centurion had faith just from seeing the things that Christ had done, and he was certain that Yeshua would only have to send his word and his servant would be healed, and that is what happened in the same hour.
So, what is faith?
It is something that is produced by interacting with God and acquiring real experiences. It is a firm knowing.
And, for those who don’t have those first hand experiences with God, faith can be acquired by observing God working through one of his true servants.
Faith occurs when one recognizes that what they are witnessing can only be accomplished by the power of God.