Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Great people of Faith?

I was thinking the other day about Hebrews Chapter 11. It is known as the Faith chapter, where it gives great examples throughout the old testament of faith. That is the claim at least. Faith is believing without proof, in simple terms. These people it list though do not have faith, they saw and talked to God/YHWH what kind of faith is that? If I talked to God then where is my faith? I would know he exists, there would be no believing without proof because I had definitive proof, even if it is for myself alone. Examples of this same kind of "faith" in the New Testament is the Apostle Paul and all the Disciples. They all saw Jesus after the resurrection. For one of the Discples, Thomas, he would not believe until he was able to touch Jesus, according to the Bible. So why are we asked for so much more than this? If others can truly be shown before they will believe why is it so much too ask for now?

Anyway back to the list of examples of Faith from Hebrews 11.

Abel - literally talked to God
Enoch - Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
Noah - God literally speaks to him
Abraham - Again has long conversations with God
Sarah - Same
Isaac - sees an Angel when his dad tried to sacrifice him
Jacob - Besides having dreams of Angels and God, Jacob literally wrestles God and is called Israel after that which means "he struggles with God"
Joseph - given the ability to predict the future accurately and specifically
Moses - Gets to see God's butt
The Fleeing Israelites crossing the Red Sea - Besides the miracles they just witnessed with the plagues, now the water is moving aside for them
Joshua and his people at Jericho - The sun stops moving in the sky for a day also the Ark dries up the river during flood stages so they can cross
Rahab - Could be considered to have faith, she only heard about the parting of the Red Sea and how these people crushed all the other cities in the area and decided to join their side, so I see this more as defecting
Gideon - Angel visits him
Barak - Followed the orders of the prophetess Deborah who spoke to God and was leading the Israelites
Samson - killed 1000 men with the jaw bone of a donkey, and his parents spoke to God literally
Jephthah - Apparently has faith, but still insists on getting paid for leading the Israeli army, also sacrifices his daughter to God, burns her
David - is told as a young boy, by Samuel, that he is chosen by God, kills a Giant in one hit as a teenager, and later in life God literally talks to him
Samuel - God literally talks to him
the prophets - God literally talks to all of them

So of these listed you could say that Barak, Rahab, Jephthah, and maybe Joseph could be considered to have faith. So that is 4 out of the list of 19 of the great list of faith that could be considered to have faith. The first three had selfish reasons for doing what they did and Joseph's predictions could be considered a miracle so his faith is iffy at best.

This was the post that made me want to start a blog again.

3 comments:

PersonalFailure said...

I still need to find a fundy and tell them Moses had no faith.

BeamStalk said...

Moses didn't have faith he had hard evidence. Personally, I don't think anyone named Moses existed. He is an arch-type mythological hero like all the others in the stories before him. He seems to be based on even older Sumerian and Babylonian myths, much like a lot of the stories in the pentateuch.

Kerri Love said...

Yes but we are supposed to trust their words, even if we don't know those words were actually said. We have to trust the witnesses who also could never have existed. We must believe the signs, even if they might not have been there. ect ect ect

Of course if we say that we wished he'd appear now to clear things up, it won't matter because you'll be judged on what you believed before he appeared. It wouldn't be fair if you could repent at the same moment he appears and gives you the proof you wanted.