What is faith anyway? Is it determination? Passion? When Jesus said
we only need a bit of faith why did he say that when so many challenge
our lack of faith? Or could the answer be that faith is our
connection to God's majesty? Maybe what we need isn't great faith but
faith in a great God! Maybe that was Jesus point, that as we walk
with God our faith grows and just a bit of faith in a big God opens
the world while big faith in an idol (not a god) has no effect for the
idol has no power.
1 comment:
When trying to isolate the presence of something, we could start with something that we have proof has lots of it present. With faith, we can see that with Matthew 8:10, where Jesus responds to the centurion's comment "just say the word, and my servant will be healed, for I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, 'Go!' and he goes, and to another, 'Come!' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this!' and he does it." (Matthew 8:8-9)
Jesus responds. "He marvelled and said to those who were following, 'Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel." (Matthew 8:10).
So we can rule out "determination" -- and "passion" -- and "connection to God's majesty" -- the centurion did not exemplify those in the speech that Jesus marvelled about. What did the centurion have -- "such great faith" in Jesus that he considered that whatever Jesus was going to say or do about the case, that was what would be done, just like the centurion's own authority over his objects of command. The "such great faith," greater than Jesus found anywhere in Israel, was the man considering a settled matter, based on his estimate of the authority of Jesus to bring it about.
Post a Comment