Here’s a quote from my book Your Church Can Come Alive:

‘There are two kinds of faith: fides, faith or belief that, and fiducia, faith in. Both kinds of faith are gifts from God, available to everyone (Ephesians 6:23, 2:8,9). Belief about God is necessary before we can have faith in him. So God graciously reveals himself to us in nature, history, the prophets, the community of faith, and supremely in Jesus. When we read the Bible or hear the preacher and become convinced in our minds that this God is worth entrusting one’s life to, we make the big commitment and become a Christian: this time with our hearts, our wills, our whole life.’ (See http://jmm.aaa.net.au/catalog/section/ycca1.htm for more)…

For Jesus true faith = commitment, obedience, love and justice (see eg. Matthew 23:23 and Luke 11:42 for a contrast between the ‘faith’ of the pharisees and that of Jesus). For Jesus real faith issues in _orthopraxis_ more than _orthodoxy_. The judgment parables are about what we did or didn’t _do_ rather than our belief-systems in this or that doctrine.

1 John answers the question ‘What is a Christian?’ three ways – one of them has to do with ‘fides’ faith. The other two: obedience to Christ and love for others…

A ‘faith’ which does not major on justice/love which Jesus regarded as paramount is not essentially Christian.

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Shalom!

Rowland Croucher

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