The Study Corner    

Faith as primarily translated in the New Testament scriptures is the Greek word πίστις (pistis) which the NAS Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible with Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionaries defines as follows:

assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity;  i.e. Credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation; abstractly, constancy in such profession; by extension, the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself — assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity.

While being rooted in the word πείθω (peitho), which means “to persuade; to convince (by argument, true or false)”, it is not peitho, and the difference must be noted to understand its application.

Peitho is plain and simply not faith.  It is never translated as faith anywhere in the NASB or Strongs transliterations anywhere that I can find. It is translated as assure (1), confident (3), convinced (7), followed (2), have confidence (2), having confidence (2), listen (1), obey (3), obeying (1), persuade (4), persuaded (8), etc.  The word pistis however is translated as faith (238), faithfulness (3), pledge (1), proof (1).

I think the single synonym for pistis would be assurance.  Be that as it may, I still believe it is best to ask the bible what is defines faith as.

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[bibleblock]2 Timothy 4:2-4[/bibleblock]

A time has been reached in our society.  A time that is not news to anyone who knows God.  A time which has been gathering for a long time.  A time to spereate your views of societal norms from those of God’s norms.  We, as followers of the one true God, are called to be servants, to “preach the word”,  and to be heralds of his God-breathed Scripture.

This session I will focus on 2 Timothy 4:4.

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Many people make is look as though following Jesus is easy.  While the act of being saved by Christ is easy, “Truly, truly, I say to you,whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” (John 5:24)  However, to truely follow him daily takes more effort, “[...]If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35)

So as a Bible believing follower of Christ Jesus, what should we expect it to be like?  Is it supposed to be easy to follow him? Is it supposed to be easy to just do what the main stream is doing and just cruise into heaven?

[bibleblock]Matthew 7:13-14[/bibleblock]
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[bibleblock]2 Timothy 4:2-4[/bibleblock]

A time has been reached in our society.  A time that is not news to anyone who knows God.  A time which has been gathering for a long time.  A time to spereate your views of societal norms from those of God’s norms.  We, as followers of the one true God, are called to be servants, to “preach the word”,  and to be heralds of his God-breathed Scripture.

This session I will focus on 2 Timothy 4:3.

What is the original sin? What was the sin that removed Adam and Eve from direct daily interaction with Adonai?
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My first-born son went to be with the Lord on April 15th, 2008.  It has been almost 2 years and yet the pain never fades.  You just learn to get by with it.  I had trouble coming up with something better to post than my service I read as I officiated my own son’s funeral.  I read a shorter version of this on the day of his burial as I wasn’t sure I could get through it all.  I wanted to post the full version I had put together.

During the last few days as each of us considered the untimely death of baby Jason our hearts have been full of questions – chief amongst them being “how did this happen?” and “why did this happen?”  This has been upon the lips of many of you who are here today – and indeed they have been heard throughout our community.

We are not here today to answer these questions – even if we could. Rather we are here to mourn – to mourn and to commend Jason into God’s care, and to ask God to help us.

In the most beautiful of gardens, even those tended by the most skillful of botanists, there is an occasional rose that buds, but never opens.  In all respects the rose is like all the others, but something keeps it from blooming.  It fades away – or disappears – without having reached maturity.

What happens in nature’s garden happens once in a while also in the garden of God’s human family.  A baby is born, beautiful, precious, but fails to come to its rightful unfolding.  This child, like the bud that never fully opens, is gathered back into God’s heavenly garden of souls – where all imperfections are made perfect; all injustices made right; all mysteries are explained; and all sorrows turned to happiness.

Today we mourn our loss of such a child.  We weep, just as Jesus himself wept at the death of his friend Lazarus.  Even if we knew the answers to the questions that rise so naturally to our hearts and minds at times like this, there still would be no adequate explanation for this loss.  It is painful.   And I believe it is also painful to God, who created the world intending for it to be perfect.   As Jesus himself said: “So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”

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