Well-Being Australia chairman, Mark Tronson, a retired Baptist minister says that the word Faith is central to Christian theology in taking God at His Word as revealed to us in the Bible.
Definitions of faith, he says, are pointless as faith is never exercised in a vacuum. Faith is about putting our trust in a living God who engages in the here and now, in our reality, and not in some mystical non-world.
There are number of types of Biblical faith, explains Mark Tronson. There is the faith associated with Salvation. There is the faith associated with every day life. There is the faith associated with Mission.
In each of these situations, faith and independent human thought operate as far as the east is from the west.
Faith has been the subject of innumerable theology text books that seminary students have studied and researched since the early church. Faith is the essence by which Protestantism's well spring of energy bubbles forward generation after generation as "faith stories" are told to each subsequent generation.
Mark Tronson says that faith is accompanied by the rejoicing of every sinew of our being. It changes the way we view everything around us. Once grasped, our world view is never the same.
It can never be 'What is faith?" without first comprehending the opposite to faith, and herein lies the great delusion and confusion for many who navigate through life with a philosophy of humanism and rationalism. Faith has nothing to say to either of these, as faith is outside those realms, faith is reliant not on the possible but on the impossible.
With faith there is a third person involved, and that is the Holy Spirit. Here in lies the crux of the issue for the humanist and rationalist, that it functions outside their known boundaries.
Paul in his letter to the congregation in the ancient city of Ephesus (today's Turkey) wrote: "For by Grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God."
Faith is best described by illustrating it.
Faith is where once frightened fishermen stand boldly and preach Jesus in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and a mighty movement of the Holy Spirit see large numbers of people become followers of Jesus – 3000 people in one day
Faith is seeing Phillip notice a Ethiopian dignitary reading the book of Isaiah in his chariot and runs to him and asks does he know of whom it speaks? Phillip is invited into the chariot to explain these things to him and the dignitary indicates he should wish to be baptised as a mark of following this Jesus.
Faith is where persecution of the early and later Christians led many of them to martyrdom where following Jesus was the most sacred act of faith in the world.
Faith is where missionaries took the preaching of Jesus' Salvation to the four quarters of the earth and trusted the Lord to provide for their living and ministry needs.
Faith is where missionary's kids prayed that the mountain between them and the sea would be moved so their beloved house mother could view the ocean's waves. The military make an airport and have to remove it (Hill 90) for aircraft descent.
Faith is where a young Australian Baptist preacher gets the vision to place chaplains in professional sports in the early 80s without wage or salary, seeking the Lord's provision. 29 years late there are not only chaplains but athlete respite facilities, young people writing columns in Christian on-line publications and an astonishing breadth of other ministries.
Faith is not a definition. Faith is His people making a step forward in total confidence in the Lord. How does it work? Take the first step and see.
This leads to the third great theological theme, that of the relationships for tomorrow.
