The typical meaning of faith is “trust.” That is, we have faith in someone or something when we have reasons to trust them. I have faith that my chair will continue to hold me up as it has before. I have faith that my wife will continue to be the loving, generous person I’ve known for decades. I have plenty of reasons to trust them both… that is, I have evidence that they’re trustworthy.
In Hebrews 11:1 we read a description of faith: it is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen. That word “evidence” is the Greek elegchos, which means “a proof, that by which a thing is proved or tested.” In other words, things that can’t be seen can be tested by looking at the evidence.
In the Bible, faith is generally presented with evidence. In Exodus 4, God turned Moses’ staff into snake so that the Israelites would believe that God had actually appeared to him. In Mark 2, Jesus healed a paralytic so that those watching would know that He had the authority to forgive sins. In Luke 7, John the Baptist asked whether Jesus was actually the Messiah. Rather than chastising him for a lack of faith, Jesus pointed to the evidence:
The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.
We read in Hebrews 11:6 that “without faith it’s impossible to please God.” However, the Bible does not teach any kind of “blind faith.” We are given evidence, again and again, that God is who He says He is. Faith in God is the result of examining the evidence. We can’t please God without faith, so we must examine the evidence in order to please Him.
This website, and many others, are dedicated to presenting the evidence that shows God to be trustworthy. If you want help finding and looking at the evidence, let me know. That’s why I’m here.
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