What is Biblical Faith?

Faith & Science Conversation
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“There is something persuading us about the Truth, or persuading us about the things of Christ. I have a personal definition for “faith”, taking all this into consideration.”Faith” is the presence and the activity of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life.

That is God’s Faith. By the way, that is the “faith” that is in the Bible.”

“In Hebrews 11:3-31, the writer of Hebrews now illustrates “faith” in action. Here is where we apply both kinds of “faith”.

Beginning at Genesis Chapter 1, he (the writer) will take us all the way through the Old Testament, in chronological order, through Joshua.

The first thing he does is take us to Genesis Chapter 1, the illustration from Creation.”

“Hebrews 11:3, “Through faith, (literally, the Greek text is “by” faith) we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made with the things which do appear.”

Broken down, “By faith we understand (perceive) that the worlds were framed (that is, put together, created) by the word of God, (the word “word” is the word “expression”. When God spoke, He created all things and put them together by His word.

The end result…) so that the things which we see didn’t come from things which appear.” It came from the spoken word of God.

“Now here is how this works…Remember the testimony I just gave you. Now let me see hands. How many of you were there at Creation?! (conversation)

But you see, I wasn’t there, so when I take my book, call it my “textbook”, the Bible, and somebody else takes their textbook, the Theory of Evolution, and we have a debate.”

He’s debating what his textbook says. I’m debating what my textbook says. Neither one of us can prove it! I’m telling him what I believe, and that’s why he’s coming up against me! He doesn’t believe what I believe. He believes what his book says. That’s human “faith”.

Pastor Bill Klein

https://masteringthebible.com/mastering-the-bible/hebrews/

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it is interesting but mostly a non-sequitor towards evolution.

According to the bible, God also controls the weather and knits us together in the womb yet we have mechanistic descriptions for that and causes. This sets up these false ideas where God’s actions and time (causation) must be immediate and not through natural means.

The entire textbook metaphor does not logically follow from the preceding “argument” and is an honestly terrible way to view the word of God.

I know he chose this as to make a comparison to evolution being a textbook of faith or inferring it to be a “bible”, but this is not an argument in good faith.

He starts with the classic YEC gotcha (were you there). Then he proceeds to purposefully ignore the actual genres within the bible and throw in a nice textbook anachronism. Then states that evolution cannot prove “it”. Evolution has incredible evidence with an insane diversity of methods. The bible’s main evidence is a personal and powerful relationship with God which is awesome but in no way rules out evolution.

Wow I am ranting. This entire section is not an intellectually honest endeavour and rather apologetics with serious flaws.

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So Pastor Bill admits he can’t prove the Bible is correct. Doesn’t that mean his is also “human faith”?

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Daniel
Where does biblical faith come from?

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God and through a variety of mechanisms such as scripture, the holy spirit, revelation, experience and ultimately God gives to each a measure of faith.

None of these necessitate conflict with evolution, “plain sense” readings of scripture, or even what Bill is talking about.

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His Bible textbook says that the earth is fixed and doesn’t move. Your thoughts?

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So does everyone have the faith of Christ?

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Interesting that you are posting these questions. I addressed your article and at the moment this seems to be a test of orthodoxy according to your position. I already discussed faith and now you are asking about faith OF Christ. Can anyone achieve that level? Are you meaning in Christ as in universalism? Are you suggesting that all faith must be tethered to the Scriptures?

Please clearly state your end goal.

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You are the one who is ranting about the article that I posted.
You mentioned faith but no scripture references. Yes, I am asking you about “the faith of Christ”. Does everyone have the faith of Christ? The faith of Christ is in the scriptures.

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People mean lots of things by “biblical” and often it just means “corresponding to my interpretation of the Bible.” So most people’s idea of “biblical faith” comes from their personal ideas of what some Bible passage means. That’s not much of a litmus test, because it all comes down to someone’s preferred judgment call.

Christian faith on the other hand, encompasses a long tradition of orthodox Bible interpretation and the consensus teaching of Christian doctrines within the global church. There is a lot of variety when it comes to specific interpretations or opinions about specific Bible passages within the big tent of “Christian faith.”

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Show me Little Bill Shepherd’s faith by his works.

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I addressed the article. I mentioned that I felt ranty.

As for scripture references, I referenced scripture with all of my points, but apparently you decided that was insufficient.

“God and through a variety of mechanisms such as scripture, the holy spirit, revelation, experience and ultimately God gives to each a measure of faith.”

Romans 10:17 “faith comes from hearing … word of God”
John 14:26 “Holy Spirit teaches/reminds of all things”
Acts 9:1-19 “Revelation to Paul on road”
Romans 12:3 “God gives to each a measure of faith”

To say that I did not reference scripture in this context sucks.

John 5:39 “Scripture points to Jesus”

It sucks that you dismissed my approach to the article that you clearly posted for discussion.
It sucks that you are proof-texting me and orthodoxy testing.

You post sermons from this person which are not well supported by scripture unless one wants to do creative things to the text and you post walls of proof texts in certain ways and using certain verses and then pull pikachu face when people address this. Let’s have a better conversation between 2+ believers and followers of Christ.

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Hi Christy

People mean lots of things by “biblical” and often it just means “corresponding to my interpretation of the Bible.”

Kelli: Yes Christy understand what you are saying but the biblical faith comes from out of God as a source. We have human faith and as well “the faith” that comes from God.

So most people’s idea of “biblical faith” comes from their personal ideas of what some Bible passage means. That’s not much of a litmus test, because it all comes down to someone’s preferred judgment call.

Kelli: So if your personal idea or my personal idea does not line up with scripture then we decided by our own choice of what is right and what is wrong.

Christian faith on the other hand, encompasses a long tradition of orthodox Bible interpretation and the consensus teaching of Christian doctrines within the global church. There is a lot of variety when it comes to specific interpretations or opinions about specific Bible passages within the big tent of “Christian faith.”

Kelli: Yes, there are many Christian churches with their own explanations of what the Word of God means to us. But there is only one source of the faith and that comes from God.
People are offended if one’s view does not line up with another. Most importantly, what does God say regardless of our views? He is the Creator of us all.

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Daniel, you are very defensive. Where is the meekness in fellowship?
As you said I post sermons from one you disagree so why did you reply to the post? Unless it was for debate and being argumentative and ridicule. Your explanation is different which is fine.

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But “lining up with Scripture” is not this absolute, objective thing. It’s a subjective judgment call based on what an individual believes Scripture says. We can both think our idea “lines up with Scripture” and yet claim different things because we interpret Scripture’s meaning differently. So to claim one of us is biblical and the other isn’t is just privileging one of our interpretations, not privileging God or the Bible.

I agree that there is only one God that we relate to and who reveals himself to humans and gives us the gift of faith and I agree that the Bible reveals the one true God. But that does not prevent humans from having different ideas about what the Bible reveals about God, different ideas about what their own experiences with God are like, and different ideas about what their experiences with God mean. You can never get away from personal interpretations and experiences when it comes to understanding what the Bible means or what a relationship with God through faith is like. It is inherently subjective knowledge. So you can’t turn any of it into some kind of objective test of “biblicalness.”

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Kelli,

(my bad, I had your statement confused with another poster who said this)

You submit proof-text arguments and then claim it is only Scripture but these arrangements scream a particular argument.

You accused me of not using Scripture when I did, that is not meek.

Then you are suggesting that we can literally access the one true interpretation and understanding of scripture and God with a not so subtle inference that you/your interpretative strategy is farther along.

You accuse me of not being charitable and being argumentative when you posted something inflammatory and with significant scriptural and logical flaws.

You are litmus testing Christians which is not meek and not through a confessional, holy spirit driven, and fruit of the spirit demonstrated manner. (test everything, know by fruits, confesses and believes that Jesus is Lord)

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Before attacking Kelli with this statement you might want to look back and note it was Christy statement that Kelli was quoting here

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Okay I removed it.

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Your own views come down to a preferred judgment call.

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Curious as to why you removed it rather than redirect your question/comments to the one who wrote the quote…Christy?