by jimwalton » Sun May 14, 2017 6:41 pm
You are asking such good questions. It’s a pleasure talking to you.
“Faith and trust.” “Faith” can mean different things:
1. Faith is “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” This is the normal use of the word, even outside of Christianity. In this sense, faith and trust are very similar to each other, such as when a person has faith in a chair to support his weight or has faith in his employee to do a job well.
2. Faith is “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” This is the definition unbelievers often use to ridicule believers, insisting that they, unlike religious people, trust only in that which is demonstrable. In this sense, “faith” means I choose to believe it, or choose to place my hope there, even though there isn’t any evidence and it might not even make sense. This can be like trust, but it’s different than the one above (#1). Trust in #1 is when you have evidence or a reason to trust something. Trust in this one (#2) is when you don’t have any evidence.
3. Faith is “belief in and loyalty to God.” This is an explicitly religious definition, in many ways similar to the theological definition of faith as involving knowledge, assent, and trust. Faith here is pictured as going beyond belief in certain facts to include commitment to and dependence on God. In this case my faith is that I believe God exists and I choose to follow him with my life. In this sense trust would be a religious affirmation and has nothing to do with evidence or not.
4. Faith is “a system of religious beliefs.” This is what is meant when one speaks of “the Protestant faith” or “the Jewish faith.” What is largely in view here is a set of doctrines. The Bible uses the word in this way in passages such as Jude 3.
For instance, in Proverbs 3 when it says we should trust in the Lord, it means that you don’t trust your own resources and abilities, but you put your confidence in God’s power and wisdom. When we trust God, we are acknowledging before Him that we don’t know what the next minute will bring. Our ways, our thoughts, our intuitions, and preferences, have to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12.2). We have enough knowledge about His character and His ways that we can trust in him rather than ourselves. We know who we are in Him and where we stand. And we know that He always treats his children with love.
But in Romans 4.5 when it talks about trust, it’s talking about the Christian religion, which is true, against false religions. We can’t become godly on our own, like other religions say, but have to look to God to save us.
In Titus 3.8, trust is belief in God.
So it means slightly different things in different places, but generally trust in God means that we acknowledge him as real, and he is the one we should look to for salvation, wisdom, and guidance.
“How do we know if we are interpreting the right way?” There are actually rules about such things, just like there are rules about grammar (“i” before “e” except after “c”, or when sounding like “a” as in “neighbor" or “weigh”.) Since the rules are generally agreed upon, we can figure out whether or not we are interpreting things correctly. We actually get pretty close about most things in the Bible. People who love God and who are trying their best to figure out the Bible come very close to each other in agreement.
“Couldn’t all these differences in the Christian world be a turn off to people who don’t believe?” They most definitely are. I talk with atheists all the time, and they say all the denominations and differences between Christians prove that Christianity is just a joke. But historians disagree with each other, and economists, educators, business strategists, financial investors, and even scientists. But people still think that if God were talking to each of us, we’d be in perfect agreement. Then again, if we were all always in perfect agreement, they’d accuse us of being simple-minded conformists, so we can’t win.
“What are the essentials?” When Jesus was asked questions like this, here are the answers he gave:
1. Love God with all that you are
2. Love your neighbor deeply and sincerely
3. Do God’s will by obeying his moral commands
4. Be willing, if he asks, to drop everything and leave it behind to follow him
Jesus never taught "easy-believism.” Just have faith, raise your hand, go up front, pray the prayer, and you’re set for eternity! Yes, of course people are supposed to believe, but he called people to abandon their own agenda, and their own lives, and trust him radically. Radical trust calls for both belief (in your emotions and thoughts) and action.
Yes—believe in Jesus: that’s the first step. Yes, invite Jesus into your heart as your personal savior. Then, empowered by God’s grace, embark on the journey of discipleship in which you seek to love God with every fiber of your being, to love your neighbor as yourself, to live out God’s moral will, and to follow Jesus where he leads you, whatever the cost. Those are the essentials.
So many Christians are just lazy, mediocre, hypocritical, and even disobedient. Anyone can, and most Americans do, “believe” in Jesus rather than some alternative savior. They say they’re Christians because they’re not Muslim or Hindu. But is it real? Anyone can, and many Americans sometimes do, say a prayer asking Jesus to save them. But not many embark on a life fully devoted to the love of God, the love of neighbor, the moral practice of God’s will, and radical, costly discipleship. Without those essentials, that person isn’t really saved.
“Why do people care about other things?” There are lots of things worth caring about, but only certain things that define us. People get distracted, people get filled with pride and sin, people get lazy, and they frankly stop trying to find God and just go through life on “default” mode or autopilot. And then they mess up, and don’t even know it or won’t admit it. We all need Jesus so badly, all the time.