Bible Bedrock
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.”
It is obvious from an examination of the Bible record, both in the Old and the New Testament, that in the lives of the men of God there was invariably a background of fully-functioning faith—we might almost call it a technique of faith—to all their activities. We say fully-functioning faith, because the simpler word faith (together with the other words of Christian experience which have become commonplace, such as love) has been so watered down from its original content that to many it now conveys very little more than merely its first stage–the belief that God can, not necessarily that He will, and still less that He does. But fully-functioning faith includes all these. –Hebrews 11:1-2
We do not think that we can stress a more important subject to all active Christians than this fully-functioning faith. Our scriptural grounds for doing so are obvious. It is made as plain as daylight that the right and full use of faith is the mainspring of every spiritual achievement. Pre-eminently this is so, of course, in the attaining of spiritual objectives, in the salvation of souls, in revival, in all concerns of the Church of Christ. But by no means exclusively so. Faith is shown to be the principle of effective action, or supply, of the solution of all problems—in every single thing, small or great, temporal and material, in the home or in the business, at work or at play—that affects a Christian’s life. It is necessary to say this, because many people have got the idea that victories, deliverances, or the supply of need by faith, are privileges confined to those set apart for the Christian ministry, and not to be experienced in the ordinary home and the everyday life.
Watch the men of the Bible and it will be seen how central faith is in all their actions and attitudes. That unique chapter, Hebrews 11, the only approximation in the whole Bible to a biographical outline of Bible characters, clinches the matter for us.
