Faith from the Back Side by Kalas J. Ellsworth;

Author:Kalas, J. Ellsworth;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Published: 2011-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

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Faith Can Be Communicated

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 11:20-23

When I was a young minister I wondered why human moral progress couldn't move on as surely and predictably as its physical progress. Biology, physics, mathematics, chemistry—in all of these the new generation builds upon the achievements of the previous one. "There's no need to reinvent the wheel," as the saying goes, and physical progress lives by that axiom.

But not so with moral progress. We humans have known for thousands of years that love is better than hate, peace is better than war, truth is better than deception—even something so objective as efficiency is better than disorder—and yet we insist on relearning these matters generation after generation. I can promise you that if there is a New York Times list of best-selling books ten or twenty years from now, the list will include "new secrets" for happiness, love, success, contentment, and fulfillment, and that when you read those "new secrets" you will discover that they're saying what humans have known and said for as far back as we know.

Deep down, we know why: because every generation is Adam and Eve. Every generation—no, more precisely, every human being—insists on finding out for itself what is true and beautiful and honorable and fulfilling. And so it is with that extraordinary power that God has entrusted to us humans, faith.

Here's the good news: all of these moral qualities—including faith—can be communicated from one generation to another. Here's the bad news: so can the qualities of immorality and destruction, including unfaith, or unbelief, or faith in the wrong ideas and principles.

But wait; there's still more good news. God is on the side of faith and truth and love and justice. God has an eternal stake in this long struggle between right and wrong. Therefore, you and I can enter the ramparts for faith with the grand confidence that God is on our side, enlightening and empowering us for victory. We can be assured of God's help as we seek to communicate faith to others in our own generation and to the generation next to come.

In fact, if there is to be faith in this generation, or the next, or until God's millennium, it will be present because of those persons who are among us just now. This is the generation of the faithful. The very fact that I'm writing this book and that you're reading it is prima facie evidence of that. Perhaps this strikes you as rather modest evidence, so I should hasten to say that it's only one piece in a maze of matters; but it is one, and it's right here in our hands.

The whole idea of such communication goes back to the early days of the Bible record of faith, as I have already indicated. I spoke earlier about faith being a family affair, passing from Abraham to Isaac and from Isaac to Jacob—father to son to grandson. The New Testament writer makes this progression very clear: "By faith Isaac invoked blessings for the future on Jacob and Esau" (Hebrews 11:20; italics mine).

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