Jonathan Gross on Faith

This last Saturday several of us gathered together for the apologetics Bible study that Lisa has been facilitating this semester. For this meeting we spent some time studying how the word "faith" is used in the Bible. Unsurprisingly, "faith" is found in a large number of verses, so we restricted ourselves to passages from Genesis up through Judges 5:15. Even with a relatively small cross-section of scripture, we found many underlying concepts regarding faith becoming clear from context. To give you a flavor of our time, let me briefly describe some of the concepts that stood out to me.

Faith is frequently talked about as an important component in a marital relationship. Breaking faith in this kind of a relationship is a serious thing (Exodus 21:8, Numbers 5:12, 27). This picture of faith in a marriage is extended to Israel's relationship to God in Joshua 24:14, where faithfully serving God requires putting away other gods just like marriage requires putting away other men/women.

There is also a legal sense of faith described several times in Leviticus (5:15, 6:2). Although we don't often use faith in a secular sense, there is still a legal concept of acting in good (or bad) faith that can help give us a more complete understanding of the word. Throughout the Law, breaking faith with God seems tied to breaking the covenant He established with His people.

The marital and legal aspects of faith have reciprocity in common. Both husband and wife are expected to remain faithful to one-another, and the covenant God established with His people lays down expectations for the behavior of both God and the people. While His people constantly break faith with Him, we have a perfect example of faithfulness in God Himself (Genesis 24:27, Deuteronomy 7:9).

There are certainly many more qualities of faith to be explored, so we plan to continue our study at the final meeting of this semester. I encourage you to come and learn about faith with us so we can all more faithfully answer others regarding the hope we possess (1 Peter 3:15)!