My mind has been working overtime these days for some reason (too much caffeine?)

 

What is faith?

 

According to Hebrews 11:1 it is "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Seems simple enough. We hope for Christ’s return. We are certain that Christ is at the right hand of God, that Christ is God, although we do not see it. The brilliantly frustrating thing about the Bible is that it keeps you coming back; it re-engages you.

 

Here’s what I mean – you can take the verses above from the TNIV, an excellent translation and the work of many faithful scholarly Christian men and women. You can analyze it. You can understand it. You can form your life around it and move on. Then – you can go to the web and find another dozen or so translations that render the same verse differently.

 

Instead of faith being "certain of what we do not see" it becomes one of: conviction, convinces, evidence, sign, proof, confidence.

 

In the sense of faith being certainty of what we hope for then it is a quality of thought; a personal attribute that enriches the individual and pleases God. If faith is certainty/confidence/conviction of things unseen than the verse is doubly reinforcing itself. The first part of the verse essentially already says this – "sure/certain/substance of what we hope for…"; like saying "faith is the certainty of what we hope for and the certainty of things unseen."

 

So what do you do?

 

If you look at the text in the original Greek you see that the words are different. The word in the first part of the verse is translated typically as substance/foundation/certainty. The word in the second part of the verse is actually different and should be rendered differently. It can be translated as evidence/proof. Both words are adjectives modifying/describing faith, which is a noun…not a verb. This tells us something of the substance of faith.

 

I prefer the translation of the second adjective as evidence (kudos to the good ol’ King James translation). When translated this way than we see faith first as something that benefits the one who has it (certainty) and secondly as something that benefits those around the one with faith (evidence/proof of the unseen God).

 

How is faith evidence of the unseen God? This is where black holes come in. Black Holes are ridiculously dense collapsed stars. They are so dense that their gravity even traps light (hence the name black hole). Nothing escapes a black hole – except x-rays; massive amounts of x-rays.

 

There are two ways to describe x-rays:

 

1. X-rays are high-energy photons

 

2. X-rays are evidence of things unseen (black holes)

 

Definition one is descriptive of the x-ray itself. Definition two is what the x-rays point to – black holes. In the same way the verse tells us two ways to understand faith – as certainty of/in God and as evidence pointing to God and His existence.

 

To carry the analogy further, when astronomers encounter a great x-ray source they suspect a black hole; where people encounter great faith they suspect God, who is Himself the source of faith (and the spiritual opposite of a black hole – as He is the source of all light).

 

Hebrews tells us that faith is belief that God did, does and will do and God is, was and will be.

 

There is a great deal more to say about faith and these are merely my musings but I am tired now and need to hit th hay.

 

Ciao and blessings.