Bible Question: My question concerns the issue of faith vs. works but is not asking exactly that. I heard that during biblical times one's faith and one's actions were considered a whole. That's why faith and works cannot be separated. So when in Deut 6:25 it is stated that doing the law will result in righteousness, it is not works that earns the righteousness but it is assumed the works comes from an intense desire to live the meaning of the law. Also, the faith vs. works issue in The Book of James has not to do with "is works also necessary" but a reflection of the cultural assumption that works follows faith and each exists as an integral part of the person--they cannot exist separate from one another. Am I correct that biblical persons only viewed works and faith as a unit and never understood them as being separate? |
Bible Answer: Here are my thoughts. Jesus says that faith starts as the tiniest seed of all. There is no fruit yet, and there is not even a tree. 'If you don't have works, it is because you don't have faith.' That is like saying if you don't have fruit, you don't have a tree, and if you don't have a tree, you don't have a seed. But I believe there can be a seed without a tree and without fruit; afterall, that's how it all starts. I believe that works start within our own mind. If we capture our thoughts and bring them to the altar of the Holy Spirit to see if they are true and ask ouselves if they are our real thoughts,and if they are not, let them go, we will receive release from them and grow in understanding and faith in God. A Psalm of David: Search me, O God, and know my heart; Test me, and know my harmful/anxious thoughts. Allowing God to search our thoughts of fear and guilt and unworthiness, laying them on the table so to speak, and heal them, is a true form of worshipping God. This is how our mind is transformed, and how ultimately, (I think) we gain enough faith in the truth so we can be guided by the Holy Spirit. So I believe that works start in the mind, as a seed, and then spread out and up from our minds into our lives, naturally. But first it starts in the mind, which is where the Kingdom of Heaven, the pearl of great price, resides. God is within. We must let him heal our minds first. The fruits of the spirit will come, but I believe in God's time, not mine. I cannot force the tree to grow, nor the branches to bear fruit. All I can do is water and feed the truth in my heart now. Faith, in time, will grow. Everything else follows. Is 61:11 For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, And as a garden causes the things sown in it to spring up, So the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise To spring up before all the nations. In Deut 6:25, the acts of righteousness which God told them to do had started out small. In the beginning, the Israelites needed to ask Moses if he had really even spoken to God. Gradually, they believed him. If you follow the story, you will see, their faith was not instantaneous, but it was growing. Even though they backslid a whole lot, God would do something else to renew their faith in Him, and their faith always grew. But they tested God. In steps, God asked them to do certain things. In the beginning, they did not even have a sabbath day yet. God institutes rules to help us along the way in our individual path of growth of fwith in Him. He never expects us to just have loads of faith and loads of works. He knows it takes a long time. The whole process of growth in faith before they reached Canaan took hundreds of years. They wandered around. One day, God visited them from the mountain. They weren't asked to give him their firstfruits of children and goats until a long while passed. They did not make an altar until way after that. But God was eventually getting them to Canaan. Mark 4:26 And He was saying, "The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows--how, he himself does not know. Mark 4:30 And He said, "How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it? "It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that THE BIRDS OF THE AIR can NEST UNDER ITS SHADE." |