“Imagine yourself if you weren’t following Jesus. Are you basically the same person? Then you aren’t following Jesus.”
“Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:40). You, O Lord, have been asleep in the boat of my life as it gets “tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14). But in this text, at least, You tell me I have nothing to worry about. “I’m in the boat, aren’t I?”
“‘Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?‘ Job 40:2. God never approves fault finding with God.
— John Piper
Whatever the value of the perspective the book of Job offers to modern readers, the above is certainly worth a thought.
Why is faith a virtue?
If you ask a believer to focus on God in prayer, the part of their brain responsible for attention and concentration becomes very active. If you ask an atheist to do the same, the characteristic patterns of prayer don’t appear because there’s nothing for the atheist to focus on. Science tells us that the way humans understand God is more a feeling and experience than an idea or set of beliefs. For atheists, the pattern of connections across the brain that create this experience aren’t there. There is no God in their brains. It turns out that some belief in God is vital for people to experience and know God. In some measurable way, you have to leap before you look.
That seems foolish to many people, and I’m one of them. The Bible constantly extolls the virtues of faith and belief in things unseen. I think that reflects an intuitive understanding of what we’ve learned about the neurology of belief in modern times. Many of best things about Christianity only happen after you know God, but God can’t be proven. That’s why faith is extolled as such a virtue.
— Mike McHargue, “Walking With God Through Doubt”
If my intellectual faith—that is, my confident intellectual assent that Jesus is alive, or even that God exists—dies, I do want to keep what faith I can muster along the Richard-Beck definitions supplied below aligned with Jesus. He will always be a great totem, and this way I can continue to celebrate Him with my family.
Sacramental faith: A faith with and through the body. This is the faith of the book of James, the faith of obedience. It’s the faith of discipleship, moving one’s body through life the way Jesus moved his body through life. It is the faith of orthopraxy (“right practice”). The first Christians were called followers of “The Way.” This is the faith of the path, what Eastern religions call the dharma.
Doxological faith: The faith of worship and allegiance. The early Christians confessed that Jesus was Lord, a radical political claim That is, regardless as to whether you believe in the Incarnation or the Resurrection, a Christian confesses that Jesus is Lord, the telos of her ethical and political existence. Doxological faith is the claim that, at the end of the day, the teachings of Jesus are the authority in my life, what monastics call the “rule.” Everyone has to make choices in life, big choices and small choices, and we make those choice in light of some conception of what is “good” or “best.” Doxological faith makes Jesus that criterion.
“If I had to distill it to one issue, I would say it’s that the visible church seems to care more about ideas than people.”
— Derek Webb, in reply to “Is there one thing you see as the biggest issue/blind spot for the church, an area where Christianity is failing to live up to its promise and purpose?” on Rachel Held Evans’ blog
In context, Webb is talking about Christians letting disagreement trump relationships. In true reader-reception form, his offering is broader and more convicting: I care more about having the right ideas than I do about actively loving people. Christianity is less about about having good theology and more about acting like Christ.
“Happy Thanksgiving! Let’s hear it for a people (Wampanoag Indians) who embraced a few undocumented immigrants (Pilgrims) over a meal!”
“Suffering is the stripping of our hope in finite things, therefore we do not put our ultimate hope in anything finite.”
Faith is trust manifested in action.
“Rest is an act of defiance.”
— Walter Brueggemann
[Psalm 16](Psalm 16) stands as a gleaming promise. And it has this line: “I said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good besides You.’” That’s the attitude I want to have.
“The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17).
I delight in assertions that eternal life is a real thing.
“You want it all, but you can’t have it.”
— Plato, as tweeted by Mike McHargue. Methinks it apocryphal and more likely a pop lyric. Nevertheless, I like it. Maybe he is summarizing Plato with a lyric.
“The Lord also will be a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.”
— David, Psalm 9:9. A motto for foster care.
“The Lord has made Himself known.”
— David, Psalm 9:16. Would that it were that simple. But perhaps it is.
“I am going to judge my circumstances by Jesus’ love, not Jesus’ love by my circumstances.”
“For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You.”
— Psalm 5:4
I fail to comprehend how a theistic determinist, aka a Calvinist, can read this and say that God always predestines wicked behavior.
“I lay down and slept; I wakened again, for the Lord sustains me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people Who have set themselves against me round about.”
— Psalm 3:5-6
Reading through the Psalms is going to provide ample fodder for prayer—and encouragement and peace, I think, especially as I construe all the enemies involved as demons or anxieties or skeptics. Not that I will wish harm upon the skeptics as the psalmists wish about their enemies; but I will, as indicated in the above quotation, not be afraid of them.
“There would be no cults without the use of out-of-context proof-texts.”
How do good things in the ekklesia end up going bad? Often the road to corruption is paved with stones of well-intended pragmatism. Virtue is not always practical, nor profitable. Love is not pragmatic. There is no love column on a profit-loss statement or a balance sheet. Love cannot be analyzed. Love can be entered in to. Doing what is right does not always have an immediate practical outcome of benefit. When a spirit of pragmatism enters a community (especially regarding money) little incremental steps are taken choosing the practical and the profitable over the virtuous and honorable. Those little bricks of making pragmatism our God, pave the highway to corruption. Pragmatism wants to assure that a course of action turns out well for me/mine and ours. Love wants to make sure it turns out well for others, even if it costs me/us.
“When pride comes, then comes dishonor / But with the humble is wisdom.”
— Proverbs 11:2
“Your brain cannot do fear and gratitude simultaneously. If you’re in fear… go to a state of gratefulness” (Sue Krautkramer).
“Everywhere in the Bible you see God saying that his aim is his own glory, see love. For only this will satisfy our souls.”
And you could always say: Well, I could have given that money to the missionary. And that is true. Every ice cream cone you buy you could have been sent to somewhere else. But I am thinking: Would you have? Has it gotten in the way of heartfelt calling to do a good thing?
— John Piper, “What Luxuries in My Life Are Sinful?”
“The Lord gave me sixty-two years of joy and prosperity; will I curse him if the last five years are hard?”
— Eileen Anderson, Harps Unhung, xvii, as [quoted by John Piper]((https://twitter.com/johnpiper/status/519895769592393728)