I spent A LOT of time teaching Jr. High kids in confirmation classes about the tension between faith and works in the Christian faith. The more I read the Bible, and live my faith, the less tension I'm seeing.
Maybe it's time to put this classic debate from the reformation to rest. It has divided denominations, and it has led to many Christians having an anemic faith that is purely "spiritual" or emotional. If you have a faith that is divorced from how you live, your faith isn't worth much to your neighbors.
I think most Christians would say something like this: Our faith inspires and empowers us to live differently. There is a myth that all Christians who sin are somehow hypocrites. The truth is that becoming more like Jesus takes time. When we first say that we want to follow Jesus, God doesn't simply remove our natural desires and tendencies. He works in and through us to reveal in us what He needs to change for us to serve Him better. He is patient with us. But over time God does change us, and we are able to live for Him more and for ourselves less.
My faith is a God-given gift, and it is the greatest gift I could receive. Faith saves me. But my faith, if it is genuine, will naturally work its way out...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Nice blog Rich. Just getting around to checking it out, so my apologies for commenting on an old post.
I think this is an interesting topic and one where I suspect the LDS church gets a lot of traction with people based on an extended set of conversations we had with some "elders" last year. Of course Mormons want to push it too far to the "works" side.
I think between the following things which we pretty much know to be true it's pretty clear that you can't really separate faith (at least living, active faith) from works.
We are saved through faith (by grace of course - Eph 2)
Faith without works is dead (thanks James)
Dead things can't save anything else (this is why the Resurrection is so critical)
So, if you have no works/fruit, you have dead "faith" which is really powerless as a conduit for grace. People like to get hung up discussing the *order* of these two things (egg, then chicken or was it the other way:?). It seems pretty unlikely we'd encounter faith unaccompanied by the external evidence of works in any but the absolute newest of "infant" believers where we just may not had a chance to see it yet.
Post a Comment