Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Faith

Faith is very important in Christianty, but how does one reconcile "Faith that saves us" and "Faith without deeds is dead". The answer is this, the bible we read, is not the real bible. The real bible was written in hebrew, greek and aramaic. The Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, but all Hebrew copies were lost. (This is why Catholics point to that You are Peter verse- God was literally saying - you are rock and on this rock I build my church). Unfortunately, with Mattew, and many texts, we only have the greek translation, and not the original Hebrew. The Gospel of John, however was written in greek. In the given language, the word believe is pisteuo (see reference) which means not only to give mental assent, as in th modern sense of the word, but to also trust, and perhaps obey.

The antonym (direct opposite) of pisteuo (believe) is apeitheo (to disobey).

Faith therefore hints at more than belief. It is to hear, and to obey the voice of God. For, "my sheep recognize my voice" and we are his sheep. To believe the speaker, is to obey his message. Belief, is to consent something as real, because of who said something to you. We believe God, because of his nature, because of who we are, and because of his power. We, like Abraham are credited as righteous, because we act on this belief and obey the Holy Catholic Church, where demanded, and in believing, we accept, and perform our baptism, an illogical act of belief. For this trust, this act of belief, God gives us saving grace.

No comments: