Christians like to talk about being saved by grace through faith. We have faith in what we see as the fact of who Jesus is, and we see that faith as trust in Jesus for what He promises us.
Often, though, when we talk about faith, we see it as an intellectual assent to a set of doctrines. Many churches like to recite the Nicene Creed or the Apostles’ Creed each week. We believe that if we assent to what the creeds say, that makes us a Christian. The problem is that’s not what Jesus sees as being Christian.
Faith is so much more than intellectual assent to a set of doctrines. Ultimately, if our faith doesn’t make us more like Jesus, doesn’t make us more loving and whole human beings, then we’re not following in the way of Jesus. In essence, faith should always lead us to living lives of more love.
I was having a conversation recently with a couple of work colleagues about faith, and it got me thinking about something I heard a preacher say once. She said the opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty. When that preacher said that at the time, I remember not really understanding it. But, many years later, I do understand it.
Certainty can be problem because it can lead you to having an attitude that you’re right and anyone who doesn’t believe like you do is wrong. That doesn’t make for healthy relating. It turns people off and it actually turns them away from Jesus, because if we’re not being Christlike in our relating, it’s not going to attract people to Jesus. It becomes arrogance dressed up as evangelistic fervor. A proper, Christlike, reasonable faith is one that breeds compassion for others. If it doesn’t, it’s not the faith of Jesus.
Too many churches have an emphasis on right belief. Many theological colleges require people to sign on to a statement of belief that the devil himself could sign because they say nothing about living a life of following Jesus in love of neighbor and enemy.
A good test of that is to look at Jesus’ disciples and ask the following: were Jesus’ disciples Christians?
If you go by what many churches say about what it means to be a Christian, they weren’t. They believed all the wrong things; they regularly got it wrong about Jesus and who He was.
Elisaveta Bunduche
The ones who did get Jesus right
If you read through all four gospels, do you know who were the ones who always got it right about who Jesus was? It wasn’t the disciples.
It was the demons.
When Jesus casts out demons, they regularly scream out, “you are the Son of God!”. The other significant person in the gospels who gets Jesus right is the Roman centurion at the cross when Jesus is crucified: “Surely this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39).
Yet the disciples, the ones who were the closest to Jesus over His three years of ministry, regularly got Him wrong. Yet how did Jesus treat them? Did He tell them to go and get their doctrine right and then come and follow Him? No, He just told them to follow Him. His attitude was, “Come as you are”.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that doctrine doesn’t matter. It does. Bad theology can literally cost lives. An example is when you have a theology that says evangelism is what it’s all about and social action is an optional add-on. What that results in is trying to convert the heathen yet leaving people to literally die because giving people physical food to eat is seen as less important than saving their souls.
Jesus’ approach was very different. He allowed His disciples to journey with Him, with all their wrong ideas about Him and all their doubts. I heard someone ilustrate this once when they pointed out what Jesus did at what we call the Great Commission. Just before Jesus tells His remaining 11 closest followers to go out into all the world and make disciples, they worshiped Him, but some doubted (Matthew 28:17).
It specifically says that some doubted.
So, again, did Jesus tell them to get their doubts sorted out and then go into all the world and make disciples? No, He just told them to go out and make disciples, just as they were.
Then, in the years following, when we see the life of the early church described in Acts, we see that there are regular debates about what new believers should or shouldn’t do. As well as that, most of Paul’s letters address specific concerns in the churches he wrote to.
Yet, despite that, the legacy of the early church is one where they turned their world upside down. And they did that to the point that by the 4th century, they completely upturned the most powerful empire the world had ever seen. They did it through their love of Jesus lived out in love of neighbor and standing up for those who were on the edges of society.
Matt Collamer
A new take on an old parable
Theology matters, but living a Christlike life matters more. That’s why Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan is so profound. The problem is that this most famous parable of Jesus has been so domesticated as just a nice story about helping your neighbor.
Of course, it is about that too. Why does Jesus though make a Samaritan the hero of the story? He does that because He was telling this story to a Jewish lawyer, and Jews and Samaritans absolutely hated each other. He then makes the point that a priest and a Levite, two respected Jewish leaders, actively walked away from the man in need. The Samaritan though, who believed all the wrong things and wasn’t seen as a real person of God, showed compassion, and Jesus said, go and be like him.
If Jesus told that parable today, He might say that an evangelical and a respected Christian Bible scholar walked on by and left the beaten man by the side of the road. Then a staunch Muslim came along and treated the beaten man with dignity and went out of his way to do all he could for him. And Jesus would say to go and be like that Muslim.
How does that make you feel when you read that? Does it make you uncomfortable? Does it not sit right? If so, that’s a good thing, because you’re being challenged to show compassion over having your beliefs all set in a straight line.
Faith is ultimately lived out in love. That’s why Paul says love is the only thing that counts (Galatians 5:6). Sometimes, we can’t see the next step in front of us. That’s where we walk by faith and not by sight. The right action to take is always to move forward in love. If we’re not sure which direction we should take, faith says to move forward in love. Love God and your neighbor. That’s what God wants for our lives. That’s what real faith is all about.