Having had no other inspiration to write about, I decided to write about something we discussed in Bible study last night at OCF: faith. We have been going through the book of Hebrews for the last couple of months and last night we reached chapter 11, which, arguably I think is one of the most famous chapters of Hebrews. So here goes a brief summary on what chapter 11 is and, in general, what faith is all about:
One of the questions we had to tackle was: "What is faith and how different is it from hope?"
v1:
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (KJV)
Verse 1 can be separated into two parts:
substance of things hoped for, and
the evidence of things not seen. From the first part of verse 1, what we get is that faith is the substance of things hoped for. The word "substance" comes from the Greek word hupostasis (hoop-os'-tas-is), which means, in terms of abstract: assurance. Another meaning is confidence. So from these we can garner that faith is the assurance/confidence of things hoped for.(On a side note, that is exactly how the ESV Bible puts it, but I'm just going through all that again to explain where'd they get it from)The second part of verse 1 talks about faith being the evidence of things not seen. Again we look back at what the Greek dictionary says about "evidence". The original Greek word is
elegchos (el'-eng-khos), meaning "proof" or "conviction". To have faith is to have real conviction of things yet to happen.
So back to the question of what is the difference between faith and hope: in my opinion, hope is the basis for faith. We can only hope so much for something, but with real conviction and assurance, that hope becomes faith. In Romans 8:24-25 the apostle Paul also talks about hope:
v24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? v25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Hope comes from the Greek word
elpis (el-pece'). It means to have expectation or confidence. So for the conclusion for this question is that hope is something abstract, it is just an expecting thought. From that thought we get faith. This may be backed up by James 2:17:
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
Now then you may ask me, "So does that mean we have to work for faith and our salvation?" Well, to get the answer to that we need to turn to Romans again. In chapter 3 v20 it says
"Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified..." and in v28: "
therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law." And in chapter 4 Paul goes on to talk about how Abraham was justified by faith, not by works. The apostles James and Paul may be contradicting each other in their respective epistles. What James is really trying to get at is that if your faith is genuine, then it is going to manifest itself in your life.
If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new. That word "become" is the key word here. It tells us that there will be a manifestation of our faith when we believe in Christ. It can be an action as well: look back at the "hall of faith" in Hebrews 11, all the great people of the Bible did something to show their faith. Eg
By faith Abel offered.. By faith Enoch was translated.. By faith Abraham obeyed..So how then do we really get faith? How do we build our faith? Faith is really essential in our daily walk with Christ because in v6 it says (paraphrase)
But without faith it is impossible to please God. Our answer can be found in Romans 10:17,
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing the word of God. Why the two "hearing"? Hearing in Greek is the act, the sense, or the thing heard, be it from fame, from
reports, from preaching, etc etc. That first "hearing" actually means listening to testimonies of other fellow believers. Anything that we may have heard from other believers that is encouraging will build our faith. A classic example: remember how Jesus walked on water? How did Peter walk on water as well? He had the faith to do so, because he saw Jesus doing it first. So basically what we should do as Christians is to read about encouraging testimonies, be it about healing or any other signs or wonders. Read up on the heroes of faith, all the biographies. Just throwing in a couple of suggestions. So the second "hearing" is basically to continually read the word of God. I don't think I will need to elaborate further on that.
So to summarize what I've just talked about, faith is the assurance/confidence of things hoped for, and to have faith is to have real conviction of things to happen. Hope is the basis for faith. Hope is just a thought or an expectation, faith is the manifestation of that hope. We do not need to work to prove our faith, but if your faith is genuine, that manifestation, that "works" will naturally be evident in your life. And lastly, to build our faith, we need to pay attention to the testimonies of others, and the testimony of the Bible.
ps, if you have any disagreements or if you were blessed, please leave a comment =)
