Category Archives: Faith

Romans 4 – Radical faith (sermon notes)

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[Notes of a sermon preached at Holy Trinity Norwich in March, 2015]

There is much interest in ‘radical’ religion these days.  But what does radical Christianity look like?

Previously (3:21-31): humanity’s perilous plight – ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’, v23; God’s drastic solution, v24f – ‘God presented Christ Jesus as sacrifice of atonement’; and the means by which we experience this: v28 – ’a person is justified by faith apart from observing the law.’…

James 2:20 – ‘Faith without works is useless’

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James 2:20 But would you like evidence, you empty fellow, that faith without works is useless? 2:21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 2:22 You see that his faith was working together with his works and his faith was perfected by works. 2:23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Now Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend.…

Jn 20:29; 2 Cor 5:7; Heb 11:1 – Faith and sight

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Jn 20:29 – ‘Jesus said to [Thomas], “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are the people who have not seen and yet have believed.”’

2 Cor 5:7 – ‘We live by faith, not by sight.’

Heb 11:1 – ‘Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see.‘

The danger for preachers (and others) is to appeal to these texts to support the idea that [Christian] faith does not rely on evidence; that it is a leap in the dark.…

‘Believing that’ and ‘believing in’

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The verb ‘to believe’ (pisteuō) occurs nearly 100 times in John’s Gospel.  For this reasons, this has sometimes been call ‘the Gospel of belief’.

Sometimes, the verb refers to facts (‘believing that’, as in Jn 9:18; 16:27) or things (Jn 4:50).  Often, it refers to a person, where it can mean ‘believe what I say’ (Jn 4:21) or ‘entrust oneself to’ (Jn 5:24).

But the most characteristic Johannine usage is ‘believe in’, where the verb pisteuō is followed by the preposition eis. …

Romans 1:5 – ‘The obedience of faith’

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Romans 1:5 ‘Through him we have received grace and our apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles on behalf of his name.’

What is meant by ‘the obedience of faith’?  Here are the main interpretative options:-

(a) ‘Faith’ may mean ‘the faith’, or the body of apostolic teaching.  Compare Acts 6:7 – ‘obedient to the faith’.  But the definite article is absent in the original, and the context in Romans (which emphases ‘faith’) is against this interpretation.…

‘The Lost Message of Paul’ – ‘Faith’

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In chapter 9 of The Lost Message of Paul, Steve Chalke urges us to leave our Reformation-shaped prejudices and get back to the thought world of the apostle Paul.  If we do so, he insists, we will discover that the word pistis (usually translated ‘faith’) means something other than we thought it did.

‘I believe,’ says Chalke, ‘that it is far more accurately translated as “faithfulness” than “faith”.’

How does he know that?  Well, because Paul was steeped in Hebraic thinking. …

‘The Lost Message of Paul’ – ‘pistis Christou’

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Does the expression pistis Christou mean ‘faith in Christ’, or ‘the faith [or faithfulness] of Christ’?

This post is not an attempt to settle the question once and for all, but rather to respond to an argument mounted recently by Steve Chalke.

In chapter 10 of The Lost Message of Paul (2019) Chalke says that:

‘Martin Luther, John Calvin and countless others following them have chosen to translate pistis Christou as ‘faith in Christ’, and then to hang their whole doctrinal approach on it.

…

My life story

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I am not what I was, Ephesians 2:2-12

I am not what I shall be, 1 John 3:2

I am not what I should be, Ephesians 4:1

I am not what I desire to be, Philippians 3:12f

But, by the grace of God, I am what I am, 1 Corinthians 15:10

(Pickering, 1,000 Subjects, slightly adapted)…

Faith lessons from Abraham

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Some lessons on faith from the story of Abraham in Genesis 15-18.

1. Faith is a response to God’s Word

Abraham took God at his word concerning the birth of a son in his old age.  Faith is not some kind of quality worked up in our own minds (‘believing in God for a miracle’).  It is simply taking God at his word.  If this is so, then the more we get into God’s word the stronger our faith will become.…

Light

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‘Sense is the light of beasts, reason is the light of men, faith is the light of saints, and vision is the light of glory.’

(Thomas Manton, 1620-1677)…