Featured Saving faith...or human trust...?

The fact still remains, that I engaged this thread with honest inquiry. Then after that, you come along blowing your "unanswerable" nonsense. That's the same retarded style Van came up with in another thread about people being blocked from entering heaven, then when honest questions arise he pretends there weren't any.

Now...
Do you have any interest in engaging honest inquiry in your own thread, or are you hoping everybody else will be led around blindly like you are? Do you want a real discussion, or are you simply looking for your your little friends to come pat you on the back for an "awe-inspiring" copy/paste job?

 

I'm not sure I follow exactly what you're getting at.

 

Martin brings a good warning to the more intellectual teaching / preaching that is typically found in the reformed churches.

And, as JamesL questions, are the statements actually using passages of "faith."

Today's market presents faith in so many variations the word has become a tattered garment torn by misuse and abuse, and by being pulled to this view or that view stretched to the point of being unrecognizable that even our Lord commented:

"However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” Luke 18
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Again, this is much of the catalyst for me moving to the word "believe." At least that word has not gotten so much play, and much fewer folks will take the word in a distortion.

One other comment comes to mind.

In another thread, I pointed out that often the word faith is and should be rendered as faithful or faithfulness. Throughout the Scriptures, the premium of God's working in a believer brings faithfulness.
Throughout the OT the word is "faithfulness." Even in Habakkuk 2, the word faith can and should be faithfulness. In the NT, the same is true. Each time the word faith is used, it nearly always is concerned with faithfulness. For example: Remember the time our Lord slept in the boat, and the storm came, the disciples were afraid, and the woke the Lord? He said, “Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?” That word can and should be faithfulness.

Here is the point.

The biggest tool the enemy of believers uses is doubt. It was that which he used in the Eden and that used in the testing of Christ. Every time a believer is tested it is generally over this one single area - doubt. Doubting the sovereignty of God, doubting the sustaining power of God, doubting the faithfulness of God, doubting the leadership of God... Doubt is all the enemy desires.

One who is faithful, who has a living of faithfulness, expresses that faithfulness in the manners in which the NT presents faith. The one passage that presents the Greek play on the word(s) is Matthew 8. The Lord says of the centurion, "“Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith (faithfulness) with anyone in Israel." He continues and says, "“Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed.” The words are similar and rooted the same, but there is a great difference in application. One cannot have Godly faith(fulness) without first having belief given by God.

Try this verse to see the difference:
"Without faith(fulness) it is impossible to please Him" Doesn't that fit with what James states that work is hand in glove with faith? That one cannot boast of faith and have no works? True faith is faithfulness.

 

Very well thought out, and I agree with the majority of it.

I, too, seen a correlation between Hebrews 11:6 and James 2 (even verse 19), though have never thought to insert faithfulness. But it does fit well with the remainder of that statement...And without faithfulness it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

I wholeheartedly believe James' use of "save" is not referencing the marks of conversion-like saving (as if to say if you've truly been converted that you will inevitably display some measure of works).

James was concerned with the future judgment of believers (2:12, 3:1) He wasn't questioning whether their faith was real, but it was fruitless. God is a rewarder of those [believers] who seek Him. James was saying "you believers are not seeking Him. If you were, we'd see it in your works."

Looking at James 2 as qualifying genuine faith by our works stands in stark constrast to Jesus' teaching about wheat and tares, wolves in sheep's clothing, whitewashed sepulchres, and numerous other ways of telling us that you can't tell believers from unbelievers by looking at externals.