The Word "Faith" Appears Only Twice In The Old Testament.

I am still laughing at how this is just one more oversight in today's default Theology.

Jeremiah in 2:25 stated God declaring against rebellious Israel, "I have loved strangers, and after them will I go." Here God is speaking about how He will send for the unchosen "strangers" in the highways and byways of the Gentile world to fill His Wedding Banquet, spoken by Jesus in Luke 14.

The Hebrew works of the First Covenant were supplanted by the Second Covenant of faith apart from Mosaic Law in the Gentiles. This is good news. I do not have to act like a Jew.

 

Thanks for checking with me, here.

The humor is about how current Evangelical theology dominates Christian thought and speech. Today, Christians confidently try to serve God by worshipping the Bible, and their bowl of soup. Their beliefs about righteousness are like a big bowl of soup, where lots of things have been thrown in and cooked to death.

One component of the Gospel Soup is the thing about faith. In the First Covenant, faith was not an issue. All of God's disclosures were given as Cause/Effect. Obey/Reward. Disobey/Get Pounded into Submission. No faith was needed. Just obedience.

Today's New Covenant in Christ requires huge faith, because we cannot test any of God's disclosures. The new Kingdom of God is all internal, having nothing in the external World. "My Kingdom is not of this World."

The core disobedience today for Christians is to not have faith in Jesus' Commands and Parables. The disobedience no longer is in disobeying Mosaic Law.

The overcooked error of today's soup is that faith was not just as important in the Old Testament. The review of Patriarchal Faith in Hebrews 11 speaks not of the New Covenant Faith, because their faith only "gave a good report" (11:2). Christian faith is a huge, massive change from the First Covenant of Cause/Effect, and brings salvation far more than "a good report."

The external World today can neither see the Kingdom of God, nor can see its actions. For instance, God's Power on Earth is never reported on the News Media.

 

Not at all the same faith of The New Covenant. It was entirely of its own time.

No Believer today had the faith of the Patriarchs, certainly not Gentile Christians. Hebrews was specifically written to Jewish Christians.

 

No need to panic. Default ideology on faith is good enough.

There are so many subgroups in The Kingdom, God will have to use 2 seperate sets of 144k each to process everyone into joy.

I am both temporally and eternally grateful I will never be treated in Judgement and Heaven like a Jew. Jesus is that loving unto Gentiles. He will be condescendingly smiling at us all.

I have been reading Isaiah and Jeremiah, changing my shorts every 15 minutes. After reading both the Prophets and Gospel from Jesus so many times, I cringe at the thought of having to listen to Jewish thought forms in Heaven for eternity. At most, I will send them nice notes.

Even as we share the Miracle of Christ, Jewish faith is its own Gospel. They are Chosen, we were yanked from the biways.

 

Lol. I sure will continue to do just that.

When I was a kid, I figured out how these older Preachers used rhetoric devices 50 minutes at a stretch on Sunday mornings every week. It was their job. These days, I know them as something else.

Think. If you had no personal identity other than a collective national World View tied to 1000 years of God demanding strictest obedience upon threat of death, would you have the same "faith" in Jesus as do today's shallow little Christians? Yes? No?

Come on.

 

Yes. Pouring over every grammatic tense and sense. Finding glee in personal discoveries to share with colleges. Worshipping God for the miracle of Hebrew, both loving and hating the Greeks for their precision. Yet, never grasping the Apostles' Hermeneutic because it is beyond Gentile capacity to know.

True worship of text, as did the Pharisees.

 

So, are you saying the faith of the Patriarchs listed in Hebrews 11 is identical to the faith held today by True Believers?

 

"Worthless filthy rag faith?"
Lol. That faith is a gift from God. Care to upgrade those words to honor The Father? No?

Abraham's faith was so shallow, he asked in vs. 9 how he would know the Promised inheritance was true. He asked this after hearing the Voice of God, and had some cheek to ask in doubt directly in the presence of God.

No Scripture mentions such a "key." However, that word can be heard from a number of talkative sources. Preaching can be useful for vocabulary development.

 

No Scripture states Abraham received Salvation for believing God about the Promised Land.

It was a tough road, back in the Levant. But, real simple today with faith. Of course, any branch of faith which does not bear fruit will be cut off and burned in judgement.

 

Nothing there either about Abraham receiving Salvation.

The chatty point is that not all faith is the same. Even Paul speaks about a gift of faith, being of special impact. I am not sure why any discussion is needed, here.