Have Faith

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1 KJV

When asked about faith many Christians quote this verse. Unfortunately, more often than not, they have it wrong. They don't quote it wrong, they have the perspective of the writer wrong. It is this mistaken perspective that causes many Christians to believe that faith means believing something you can't prove.

The big mistake of most people is to believe that this verse defines faith. Rather than define it, this verse describes the function of faith. The remainder of the passage lists examples of faith in practice. For a better understanding of faith we need to look somewhere else.

In Luke 7:1-9 we find the story of a Roman centurion with a sick servant. The centurion sent a message to Jesus asking Him to heal the servant. His request, however, was not typical. The centurion's message said, "I am not worthy to come to you, so just say the word and my servant will be healed."

Now, that was unique, but the message continued, "For I am a man under authority ..." To this message Jesus replied, "I have not found so great faith..." If we think that faith is belief in something you can't prove, then this passage makes no sense. What is faith here?

Look at what the centurion said, "I am a man under authority." The centurion knew the pecking order; he understood the hierarchy and knew his place in it. It was this knowledge and understanding that Jesus declared "great faith." It is clear from this passage that faith is an understanding of our relationship to God and living in accordance with that relationship.

A few verses later in Hebrews chapter 11 we read, "without faith it is impossible to please God." If faith means believing what you can't prove, then we are almost forced to conclude that God wants us stupid. And that's just plain silly. Seeing the faith of the centurion, we learn that God wants us to understand how things work. God wants maturity, not puppetry.

Going back to Hebrews 11:1 the word substance from the King James Version is a bit confusing in today's english. A better word would be "essence." If our hope (the thing we're looking forward to) is to be what we were created to be, then the essential quality of achieving that goal is understanding our relationship with God; faith.

Faith is the evidence of things not seen. This does not mean invisible. It means not witnessed. The vast majority of our knowledge and understanding is by faith. We take the authority of experts and eye witnesses to increase our experience. In the Christian context, this means that the authority of eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus is persuasive and beneficial. The existence of our understanding is the evidence of this. (This not the place for an apologetic of the reliability of the Gospels, so don't expect one)

Faith is intelligence. Faith is not blind. Faith is not being swayed by apparent, and I stress apparent, inconsistencies. Faith is knowing who you are and where you stand.