You say “faith,” but you mean religion.

FAITH feɪθ noun. Complete trust or confidence in someone/something.

2. Religion: A system of beliefs and practices about God.

3. A strongly-held belief or theory, maintained despite a lack of proof.

4. A name Christians like to give their daughters. My niece, fr’instance.

[Faithful 'feɪθ.fəl adjective.]

I bring up the definition of faith because today I’m addressing the second definition: A system of beliefs. A religion.

A lot of Evangelicals in the United States have this idea that religion is a bad thing. It’s because they mixed up religion with dead religion, and they don’t practice that. They don’t go practice rituals they don’t believe in; they’re not just going through the motions. They have a real relationship with God. Which is why they’re so quick to tell everyone, “I have a relationship, not a religion.”

Since they really don’t wanna use the word “religion” except to rebuke and mock it… how are they gonna describe their system of beliefs and practices? Simple: They’re gonna call it the faith. Or their faith. They’re not religious people; they’re “people of faith.” They’re “the faithful”—by which they don’t actually mean they’re dependable and committed, ’cause they’re often not; just that they firmly believe in that system of beliefs and practices.

Nope, they have no religion; just the faith.

Which creates all sorts of confusion when we’re talking about one of the other definitions of faith, but they mean religion.

For skeptics and many pagans, “faith” means the ability to deny reality, and believe the impossible and ridiculous. So if you “have faith,” you’ve chosen to believe something despite no evidence it’s so, just like people who believe space aliens built the pyramids, or people who claim coronavirus is no deadlier than flu. As an Evangelical is talking about their faith with reverence and awe, a skeptic will think, “What, are you taking pleasure in the fact you turn your brain off? Man are you messed up.” Yep, they’re talking right past one another.

And because so many Christians have totally buggered the proper interpretation of this verse—

Ephesians 2.8-9 KJV

8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

—they claim it teaches we’re saved by faith. Not by grace, like it literally says; by faith. Not through faith; by faith. And when they say faith they don’t mean putting our trust in Jesus; they mean what they usually mean by “faith”; they mean religion. You’re saved by religion. The very opposite of what Paul taught in Acts, wrote in Romans and Galatians and Ephesians; the very reason Jesus kept objecting to the Pharisees’ legalism and loopholes. Because that’s what faith righteousness, this belief we’re saved by having perfect orthodox beliefs, devolves into.

Those are big problems, and I wrote a bunch more about ’em elsewhere; click the links. But the solution to these problems is really simple: We need to stop talking past one another and specify what we mean by “faith.” Which definition are we using? Trust in God? Religion? Wishful thinking? Or women named Faith?

Which definition did the bible’s authors have in mind when they wrote πίστις/pístis?

faith, belief, firm persuasion; 2Co 5.7, He 11.1 assurance, firm conviction; Ro 14.23 ground of belief, guarantee, assurance; Ac 17.31 good faith, honesty, integrity; Mt 23.23, Ga 5.22, Tt 2.10 faithfulness, truthfulness; Ro 3.3 in NT faith in God and Christ; Mt 8.10, Ac 3.16, etc. ἡ πίστις/i pístis, the matter of Gospel faith Ac 6.7, Ju 1.3

—William D. Mounce, Greek Dictionary

With few exceptions pístis generally means trust in God. No, not even the verses where we think we can overlay the religion idea on top of it. It primarily means religion in our culture.

Faith meant trusting God—to Jesus, to the apostles, and the folks who came before. When Abraham believed the LORD, and was considered righteous for it, Ge 15.6 this wasn’t at all Abraham’s embrace of religious doctrine. It was a personal trust in a personal God, with whom Abraham held a personal relationship.

In using the word “faith” to mean religion, Christians regularly mix up the definitions in our own minds, and imagine them to all be one and the same thing. When we say we have faith, yeah we mean we trust God, but we also mean we have religious faith: We believe the proper doctrines. We have foundational, fundamental beliefs we base our Christianity upon. Hopefully it’s orthodox—or at least we’ve convinced ourselves it is.

The result will be all sorts of interesting heresies.

Saved by faith?

The most common such heresy, the one I touched upon already, is the belief we Christians are saved by faith.

Yes of course it’s heresy; Jesus saves us, not our beliefs. God, in his generous, forgiving attitude towards his kids, does the entire work of saving us. We don’t save ourselves. We couldn’t possibly acquire enough good karma to make our salvation a possibility, much less a reality. Only God can do it, and only God does it.

But like I said, people quote Ephesians, jumble up the prepositions, and claim we’re saved by faith instead of grace. We’re saved through faith, Ep 2.8 and no that’s not the same thing. If I’m rescued by the Coast Guard ’cause they threw me a rope, what’s doing the rescuing? The rope? Me ’cause I grabbed the rope? Or the Coasties? It’s by the Coasties, through the rope, through me grabbing it: If I don’t have a Coast Guard boat or helicopter at the end of that rope, fat lot of good grabbing it will do me.

Same with our salvation. It’s by God’s grace, and through the faith he grants us, through this same faith we respond in. Don’t get the idea this faith alone saves anyone.

Yeah, Christians’ll easily dig up a proof text to defend the idea:

Luke 7.50 KJV

And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

Usually ’cause they’re ignoring context. This is where Jesus cured a bleeder. He’s talking about getting cured, not saved; σέσωκέν/sésoken can be translated both “saved” and “cured,” and that’s what Jesus means. He’s hardly talking about eternal salvation, nor even temporal salvation: This hemorrhage wasn’t a fatal disease! But it made the woman miserable, and in an act of desperate faith she touched Jesus, and the Holy Spirit rewarded her faith by curing her. If we’re gonna leap to the conclusion salvation works the same way… well, you we need much better proof than the word sésoken misinterpreted in a miracle story.

The deal is this. Faith is a vital component of God’s kingdom. Can’t be our king when we don’t trust him! And when he offers us salvation, we gotta trust he’ll follow through on his offer, and bring us into his kingdom. Which is why we really gotta live like he’s brought us into the kingdom already: If it’s valid faith, our lives must reflect it. When they don’t, it implies we don’t trust him and aren’t saved. But regardless: Our faith is not the cause, and salvation the effect. Faith is the byproduct. The fruit.

When Christians believe we’re saved by our fruit, and not grace, we’ve gone right back to believing we’re saved by good karma.

Saved by grace. Not orthodoxy.

Religion, the practices which further our relationship with God, is work. Good work, but still work.

We believe certain things about God because we recognize he revealed them to us. We sought out the truth, he helped us find it, and we embraced it. That too is a good work. But still work. We had to realize we’re wrong. Had to go through the process of changing our minds, abandoning well-loved but heavily flawed beliefs, and accepting God’s truth. For some it was light work: We didn’t really believe the old crap anyway. For others it was hardly light. These were deeply-ingrained beliefs. Sometimes they still bubble up when we least expect ’em; they do me! But whether we’re on one extreme or the other, religious orthodoxy is still work. Religious “faith” is work.

So are we saved by work? Nope. Only God’s grace. He doesn’t save people ’cause we’re good, or worthy, or have amazing potential. (The only reason we’d ever have potential, is God anyway.) He saves people entirely out of love. He makes that clear. Dt 7.6-8

But in the hands of a Christian who believes we’re saved by faith, it gets clear as mud. They admit yeah, we’re saved by grace… but it’s through faith, and all their emphasis is thrown upon faith. “It is of faith, that it might be by grace,” they’ll misquote. Ro 4.16 KJV The reason we’re saved by grace is because we first acted in faith. Grace requires faith. But we’re really saved by faith alone. Sola fide, remember?

Once they establish we gotta have faith before we can earn grace (yes I know that’s an oxymoron), they’ll remind us our faith is an orthodox faith: It’s the stuff they consider fundamental truths. Stuff the apostles believed, and all the real Christians throughout history—real like them. It’s the faith of our fathers, our forefathers, and our forefathers’ fathers. Once we embrace each and every one of these beliefs, it unlocks the safe to God’s grace, and gets us saved.

And orthodoxy can’t be work, ’cause faith and work are two different things. Paul said so. Ga 2.16 Even James, who insisted the two were carefully linked, said so. Jm 2.14 So if orthodoxy is faith, it’s not work. How much work is it to hold a belief, anyway? It’s real easy. Shut off your brain and just mynah-bird that belief. That’ll do.

This is why these folks go absolutely bonkers when they encounter people they consider heretic. After all, if the only way to be saved is to have all the correct beliefs, any wrong belief will disqualify us from grace, and plunge us into fiery hell. Grace doesn’t make up for our deficiencies; we’re not permitted any deficiencies.

Yeah, I know: This doesn’t sound like grace at all. ’Cause it’s not. We don’t earn it, and we don’t lose it by making mistakes about God. True, if we really are following the Holy Spirit, he’s gonna redirect us away from the false beliefs, and point us to truth. Orthodoxy is, once again, fruit. It’s one of the good works which should stem from an authentic relationship with God. So, work—and therefore it’s not truly faith.

Real faith trusts God to save us. Fake faith insists we gotta earn it through right belief. And in all our striving to get the right beliefs, we nudge ourselves further and further away from the grace that actually does save us. Yikes.

Push away the false definition of faith.

Like I said, this incorrect definition of faith is everywhere. The best way to combat it is to stop using it. Repeat after me: “I don’t have ‘a faith.’ I have a religion. One based on faith in God.”

When people try to talk about “our shared faith,” I like to challenge that statement: “Our shared faith in what?” Usually they get the answer right: It’s in Christ Jesus. It’s in God. Unless they’re pagans, in which case they usually go on about our shared ability to believe nonsense. Or unless they think we’re saved by faith, in which case they talk about shared beliefs.

But faith isn’t about shared beliefs, nor shared abilities. It’s trust. In God. That’s the only definition I care to use.

If you’re using it to describe religion, I’d rather you say “religion.” I don’t care if Evangelicals have a hangup about the word. We need to get over that. Religion is a fine word, and when it’s living religion, an excellent practice.

If you’re using it to describe blind optimism, or a belief in the ridiculous and stupid, or any other form of false faith, I’m gonna object. Those definitions are only meant to malign the real thing, mock Christianity, and make people hesitant to trust God.

And if you’re using the slogan sola fide to describe salvation: That’s sola gratia/“grace alone.” Grace, not faith. Don’t mix your solas.

Love—as described in the Old Testament.

When we Christians talk love, most of the time we refer to ἀγάπη/aghápi, the type of love Paul and Sosthenes defined in 1 Corinthians 13. It’s the love which God is. 1Jn 4.16

Now aghápi is a Greek word, ’cause the New Testament was written in ancient Greek; duh. But way more of the bible consists of Old Testament, which is mostly written in ancient Hebrew. Hence when we Christians preach on love, we take our ideas and teachings from the NT… and for the most part skip anything the OT has to say on the subject.

Which is problematic. See, there’s this persistent myth that God is love in the NT, but isn’t love in the OT; he was more wrath and anger and vengeance and flaring nostrils. 2Sa 22.9 The way too many Christians depict it, Jesus’s self-sacrifice sated his bloodlust, and now the Father loves us instead of wanting to crush us like cockroaches.

Some preachers try to preach love from the OT, but not always well. Usually it’s with a bad word study: They crack open their Nave’s Topical Bible and look up every verse which contains the word “love.” Then they try to read the 1 Corinthians definition into it. Which doesn’t always work. Y’see, rapists felt “love”: Shechem claimed he loved Dinah, Ge 34.3 and Amnon used to love Tamar till he had his way with her. 2Sa 13.15 Sorta impossible to claim this is the patient, kind, not-demanding-its-own-way sort of aghápi/“love” the apostles had in mind.

See, not every word for “love” in the bible means aghápi. Often it means one of the other eight meanings our culture has attached to the word “love.”

But it brings up an interesting question: Where’d the apostles’ definition of love come from? Yes of course it came from the Holy Spirit. But shouldn’t the Spirit have revealed what love is long before Paul and Sosthenes had to spell it out for Corinth? Shouldn’t he have embedded the idea somewhere in the Old Testament, somewhere in the ancient Hebrew culture?

And I would argue he did, which is why Jesus, John, and Paul could independently talk about aghápi and all mean the very same thing by it, And not mean what the ancient Greeks meant by aghápi. It’s in there because God’s in there, and God is love. Always has been. Even in the OT.

God acts patiently, kindly, not enviously, nor boastful, proud, rude, self-seeking, irritable, grudge-holding, faithless, hopeless, and unjust. (No matter how certain Calvinists might describe him.) That’s how God is actually described all over the Hebrew scriptures. That’s the God the apostles knew, the God whom Jesus reveals to us.

Now, how ’bout the OT words we’ve translated “love”? How close are the to aghápi?

Aháv.

The word most commonly translated “love” in the OT is the verb אָהַב/aháv and its noun-forms אַהַב/aháv, אֹהַב/oháv, and אַהֲבָה/ahavá. (Yeah, they’re all next to one another in the average Hebrew lexicon.) In the Septuagint, these words all tend to be translated aghápi. So they mean the same thing, right?

Wrong. Aháv sometimes means aghápi, same as our English word “love” sometimes means that. But more often aháv is closer to φίλος/fílos, the love between family and friends who share common interests. And sometimes it means στοργή/storgí, “affection,” like that between parents and children. And it can definitely mean ἔρος/éros, “romance”—it definitely does in the Song of Songs.

Like our English word, aháv means lots of things. Not just aghápi, regardless of how regularly the Septuagint’s translators utilized that word. Still, aháv is found in certain commands of the LORD—

Leviticus 19.18 KWL

“Don’t avenge. Don’t cling to anger against your people’s children.

Love your fellow Hebrew like yourself. I’m the LORD.”

Deuteronomy 6.4-5 KWL

4 “Listen, Israel: Our god is the LORD. The LORD is One.

5 Love your LORD God with all your mind, all your life, and all your power.”

—which, when Jesus quoted ’em in his lessons, the writers of the gospels rendered them in Greek as aghápi.

Mark 12.30 KWL

“You must love your Lord God with all your heart, life, purpose, and might.’ Dt 6.4-5

Second is, ‘Love your neighbor like yourself.’” Lv 19.18

So in these instances, aháv does in fact mean the godly love Jesus and the apostles regularly referred to. But like I said, not every instance of aháv in the OT means this type of love. Sometimes it’s just friendship, and sometimes it’s carnal, lustful, and rapey. We gotta figure out, from its context, what the OT authors meant by aháv. Mix up the meanings and you’ll go horribly wrong.

Even in God’s commandments, we can’t just assume every instance of aháv means aghápi either:

Deuteronomy 21.15-17 KWL

15 “When a man has two women—one he loves, one he ‘hates’—and the loved and the ‘hated’ birth sons for him,

and the son with the birthright is born to the ‘hated’:

16 On the day the man grants inheritances to his sons which were born to him,

he’s not allowed to grant the birthright to the son of the loved,

over the head of the son of the ‘hated’ with the birthright,

17 for the birthright is for the son of the ‘hated.’

The man should be willing to give him two portions of all he’s acquired,

for he’s the most valuable thing he created. He deserves the birthright.

In this command, “loved” and “hated” are idioms for “more loved” and “less loved.” And it’s not really aghápi. It’s not the sort of unconditional, impartial love we Christians need to express towards everyone. Context, folks.

Kheçéd.

In contrast, חָסַד/khacád and its noun-form חֶסֶד/kheçéd is seldom translated “love” in most bibles. Tends to be translated “kindness” or “lovingkindness” or “goodness” or “mercy.” But every so often translators will actually, accurately call it love: “Steadfast love” or “unfailing love” or “faithful love.”

You might be most familiar with it in Psalm 136, and other passages where the author really wanted to hammer away at the idea God is all about the kheçéd.

Psalm 136.1-5 KWL

1 Throw your hands up to the LORD, for he’s good: His love lasts forever.

2 Throw your hands up to the God of the gods: His love lasts forever.

3 Throw your hands up to the Master of masters: His love lasts forever.

4 To the one who alone does wonderful, great deeds: His love lasts forever.

5 To the one who intelligently made the heavens: His love lasts forever.

And so on. You get the idea.

Kheçéd isn’t translated “love” too often, and you gotta wonder why. Because it’s probably the closest idea to aghápi we find in the OT. ’Cause look at the words translators so often use for it:

• “Kindness”—and both God and love are indeed kind.
• “Faithful love”—and both God and love are indeed faithful.
• “Goodness” and “rightness”—and both God and love are good and right.
• “Mercy”—which is a byproduct of love, for love forgives, as does God. And it’s God’s response to those who turn to him. Ex 20.6 For a thousand generations—it’s a generous love too.

So why don’t bibles translate it “love”? Well, y’notice sometimes they do. But quite often, people prefer to call kheçéd “covenant love.” They figure it’s a particular species of love God has for people who follow his Law. A reciprocal sort of love, which kings would exhibit towards vassals who fulfilled their contractual obligations. Presumably that’s the sort of love the LORD had for his vassals: When they loved him, he’d love ’em back.

But to interpret it this way, is to totally misunderstand what covenants are about.

A covenant is a relationship. Not a contract. It might look contractual, but that’s only because a covenant isn’t a loosey-goosey relationship; it’s formal, and the parties spell out how our relationship works. The bible’s covenants explain what God brings to the table, and what we do. It looks like a contract, ’cause that’s how we do contracts. But in the Law, y’notice it’s far from reciprocal. God provides the Hebrews with everything: Land, flocks, crops, life, wellness, blessings, prosperity, abundance. In return, all the Hebrews gotta do is obey God’s commands. They brought nothing to the table. They had nothing to bring: They were Egyptian slaves, whom God selected not because they were mighty or worthy, but entirely because he loved them, and promised their ancestors he’d look out for them. Dt 7.6-8

In very much the same way, Jesus’s covenant with us is to die for our sins and grant us eternal life. Again, not because we bring anything to the table: He did this while we were yet sinners. Ro 5.8 In both covenants, God escalated mere aháv into kheçéd—and now he’s gonna love his people “for a thousand generations” Dt 7.9 which is a Hebrew idiom for “till you totally lose count.” In other words, forever.

Yeah, there are other Hebrew words translated “love.”

In case you worried I’m not being comprehensive, I figured I’d hit up all the other Hebrew words which bibles render “love.”

חָבַב/khovév: Only appears once in the bible, Dt 33.3 and means “to hide [in one’s heart].” Though the Septuagint translated it “spares,” as in “[God] spares his people.”

חָשַׁק/khašaq: Literally means “is strapped to,” and is a metaphor for love.

עָגַב/agáv: Literally means “breathes for,” and is a metaphor for lust. When Jeremiah referred to idolatrous Israel’s “lovers” Jr 4.30 he really meant their lusters.

רָחַם/rakhám: Means “bowels” (and often “womb”) and therefore is a metaphor for compassion, mercy, or pity. Which are forms of love.

Still, my vote for where the apostles got their concept of love would be kheçéd. Its definition in 1 Corinthians 13 becomes more and more obvious whenever the writers of the Old Testament used the word.

Isaiah 54.10 KWL

“For the mountains might fall down and the hills shake,

but my love won’t fall away from you, and my covenantal peace won’t shake,”

says your compassionate LORD.

’Cause love doesn’t fall down. 1Co 13.8

Praying for stupid things.

I realize the title of this piece is gonna bug some people: “There’s no such thing as praying for stupid things! People can pray for anything and everything! People should pray for anything and everything! Stop discouraging Christians from prayer!” And so on.

I don’t wanna discourage Christians from prayer. We should all pray, and we should all pray more; most of us honestly don’t pray enough.

But yes there are stupid prayer requests. Come on.

No I don’t mean praying for ordinary stuff, like for the traffic light to change, or for the spaghetti to not overboil, or for your basketball team to do their best. God’s cool with such prayers. They may seem small and petty and irrelevant to pagans, but only because they don’t care about the little things in our daily lives. God does.

No; it’s more like when you’re praying for your basketball team, you happen to pray for the violent death of their rivals. Now we’re getting stupid.

Stupid is a synonym for foolish. When we’re being stupid, we’re clearly not thinking, not using our brains, not being wise, not even pursuing wisdom. We’re following our guts, or following the crowd, or following our flesh. If “Your will be done” is in any way part of this prayer (as it should be), it’ll immediately cancel out our stupid prayer request. ’Cause God’s obviously gonna tell us no.

But often we don’t know God well enough to realize this. So we’ll keep right on making these stupid prayer requests… and wonder why our prayers never seem to work. Well duh.

James 4.3 KWL

You ask, yet don’t receive because you ask for evil!—so you might spend it on your hedonism.

If we’re continually getting “No” answers from God, often this is exactly why. We’re asking for stuff that we think will satisfy us, or comfort us, or make us happy. They won’t. They might harm us or others. God knows this. So he’s kindly telling us no.

But like a child who can’t fathom why Mommy won’t allow her to eat her own bodyweight in cookies, we’re confused and frustrated: Didn’t Jesus promise us God would give us anything we want? So what’s the holdup?Gimme cookie!

The holdup is we’re still praying for stupid things. We need to grow up.

Obvious stupidity, and subtle stupidity.

We all pray for stupid things from time to time. Yep, I do it too. It’s because I too am not using my head; I’m irritated, so I’m rattling off some angry prayer and probably saying a few things I shouldn’t. For those things, God is rightly, wisely denying my requests. And rebuking me a little.

Luke 9.54-55 KWL

54 Seeing this, the students James and John said, “Master, with your permission,

can we call fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”

55 Jesus turned round to rebuke them.

’Cause sometimes I’m no wiser than his immature students in the gospels.

But I do know better than to expect God to smite my enemies like James and John wanted. He wants to save my enemies; he wants me to love my enemies; I know all this stuff already, and need to snap out of it and be like Jesus. We all have low points where we know better, and need to adjust our attitudes or change our behavior. That’s what I mean by obvious stupidity: We know we’re not being wise, and not praying right. Let’s do better.

The subtle stuff is when we think we are doing better… but if we stopped a second to think things through, we’d realize no we’re not.

Most imprecatory prayers are wholly inappropriate: We need to pray for evil to stop, but we mistakenly attack individuals. Most prayers for wealth and prosperity are because deep down we trust riches to be our safety net, not so much God. Often we need to pray for causes instead of effects: Yeah, we want God’s blessings on ourselves and our land, but how we arrive at those blessings needs to come through moral, ethical means; not by cutting government programs for the needy, raising taxes, raiding companies, nor exploiting workers.

Most prayers for our life and circumstances to change might be valid requests, but there’s an awful lot we can do to change these things, and if we used commonsense instead of trying to wish things into being, we’d actually get somewhere. No, I’m not saying “God helps those who help themselves”: God helps those who follow him, and any activity on our part needs to submit to his will. But often God’s “no” is really “I’m not gonna do that, you are.” Followed by our usual Moses-style or Gideon-style whining that we can’t… but yeah, we totally can. Especially when God’s empowering us.

Too often, prayers are emotional experiences instead of thoughtful experiences. We’re meant to love God with all our minds as well, so let’s stop slobbering all over God and deal with him as the rational, thinking being he is. Get serious about those prayer requests. Ask wisely.

The faith statement. (And mine too.)

Typically when Christians talk about what’s orthodox Christianity and what’s heresy, we usually mean what we consider orthodox and heretic. Not what Christianity as a whole considers orthodox and heretic. We don’t think about the whole; honestly, too many of us suspect most of our fellow Christians aren’t real Christians.

But when you talk to individual Christians, we tend to not have all our Christian essentials, our “mere Christianity,” sorted out all that well. What’s the minimum requirements for Christianity?—well, for a lot of us it’s usually these.

• Gotta believe in Jesus: That he’s real, was literally born, literally died, literally rose from the dead, and is literally coming back—to do what, varies. And his teachings are important… though how well we literally follow him also varies.
• Gotta believe in the trinity. Though whether we actually understand trinity well enough, also varies. (Too many Christians don’t really understand what the Holy Spirit does, so they’ve largely replaced him with the Holy Bible.)
• Gotta believe in the bible. Sometimes so much so, they make sure to prioritize bible before believing in Jesus. (Which they rationalize by saying, “Well, everything we believe about Jesus comes from the bible, so if you don’t believe in bible, you don’t really believe in Jesus.” But this only proves they don’t personally know Jesus; they’ve only read about him.) Also gotta interpret the bible literally… when convenient.
• Gotta pray. Whether they recognize God talks back, varies.
• Gotta go to church. Not necessarily so the church can be your support system; largely it’s just a demonstration of public piety, regardless of whether you follow Jesus the rest of the week. You know, hypocrisy; though they don’t always realize this is what they’ve demanded. Oh, it’s also gotta be a church much like theirs. And you should tithe.
• Gotta believe as they do about water baptism and holy communion. Exactly as they do. Christians have killed one another over this, y’know, and it’s still not something most of us are willing to be gracious about.
• Gotta be ready, at any given moment, to publicly declare you’re Christian. Because if you don’t, Jesus won’t recognize you as his, Lk 12.9 and you’re going to hell. We should probably be sharing the gospel with other people too.
• Must’ve said the sinner’s prayer at some point. Or confessed with our mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in our hearts God raised him from the dead. Ro 10.9 Or some other introductory act which guarantees we’re born again.
• Gotta share their politics. Not produce the Spirit’s fruit; you can fake that. Vote like they do, and support the same candidates and causes. Till you do, you’re suspect.

Whether they’ve actually sat down and sorted things through, or loosely glom onto these beliefs, that’s what most Christians have as their personal definition of Christianity. Some have more. Certain doctrinaires have tons of requirements. I know a number of Calvinists who are entirely convinced if you don’t believe in their six points as they do, you’re not Christian. Likewise a number of Roman Catholics who think if you’ve never been baptized into their church, you’re doomed.

Whereas if you asked these Calvinists and Catholics what their church’s official beliefs are… well, they don’t entirely know. Some of ’em will insist, “I believe what my church believes,” or “My church believes what I do.” But then you go check out the Roman Catholic Catechism, or their Calvinist church’s faith statement on their website… and you find out no, they really don’t. In fact sometimes they believe entirely different things.

The statement of faith, or faith statement, is a church or Christian organization’s official stance on Christianity. Often it’s loosely based on the ancient Christian creeds, like the Apostles Creed, plus a statement about believing the bible thrown in. Unlike the individual Christian, they have thought it through, and decided this is what they’ll declare to the world: “Here is what we believe. Here’s where we stand.”

Churches construct faith statements for various reasons; some valid, some not.

• They’re just repeating their denomination’s official faith statement. They want it clear they’re on the same page as the other churches in their network.
• They’ve read the creeds, and like some parts, and don’t like other parts. So they’ve rewritten things to suit themselves.
• They don’t know the creeds at all; they’re suspicious of them because they fear the creeds are “too Catholic.” So they’ve reinvented the wheel. (Religious bigotry aside, if they wind up matching the creeds, they’re likely following the same Holy Spirit as the other churches, so relax.)
• There was a massive disagreement in their church at one point, and leaders no longer felt Christians were free to disagree on this one, so they got specific and put it in their faith statement. The more legalistic the church, the more of these issues they’ll include. Some control-freak churches have huge faith statements for this very reason.
• They’ve had to deal with a lot of suspicious visitors who demand to know what they believe. So their faith statement is more of a frequently-asked questions page: “Q. What do you believe about the trinity? A. One God, three persons.”

I once applied for a job whose faith statement insisted the millennial reign of Christ Jesus is a literal thousand years, and all prospective employees must believe that. Now, this was a soup kitchen: Exactly why do you need to take this stance if all you’re gonna do is hand out sandwiches? Well, the leaders used their particular view of the End Times to scare the needy into turning to Jesus. So if I wound up speaking to one of those folks and telling them any alternate view of the End (like the one I hold), I’d undo all their hard work.

And this is why we gotta check out people’s faith statements. Sometimes they’re big red warning flags relevant.

What does your church believe?

Do you know your own church’s faith statement? Didn’t think so. Unless you’re in leadership (and sometimes not even then), most Christians won’t.

You’d better read it then. Hop on their website and look it up. It’ll be on their “About us” page, or attached to a link on it. They’ll title it “Doctrinal statement” or “What we believe” or “Truths which define us” or some other synonym.

Didja read it? Good. Do you agree with it?

’Cause it’s gonna come up. Always does. Every time I formally joined a church, and went to their membership class, the leaders sat all us prospective members down and gave us the skinny:

• A little history of the church. And its denomination.
• How they govern it.
• Their mission, their goals, what they’re doing in your city.
• What they expect of their members (i.e. cooperation, participation, and financial support).
• Their statement of faith.

We were asked to accept the whole package, sign a paper, and we’re members.

Here’s the problem: Sometimes Christians don’t agree with the whole package. Yet they sign the paper anyway, ’cause they want in. Invariably this leads to trouble: Their real beliefs are gonna butt heads with the church’s official beliefs. They always do.

Some of these new members don’t care about theology, and just figure, “Yeah sure, I guess I believe this stuff. Well, I have my doubts about this bit here. But I guess I can sign it.” What’re the chances “this bit here” which they doubt, is gonna become a major issue? Better than average. Especially when they want to get into positions of church leadership… and either hypocritically pretend they believe it, or privately admit they don’t to anyone who’ll listen, and in so doing undermine the leadership.

And often this comes up because God brings it up. See, when you sign a paper, you’ve basically made an oath before God, and he holds us to our oaths. Especially when we didn’t really mean it.

So if you can’t agree with your church’s faith statement, don’t join! Don’t sign anything. You’re not ready. Either you still have some things to learn (as we all do)… or you probably shouldn’t be in that church, ’cause they believe some inappropriate things. Either way, work out your differences before you commit.

TXAB’s faith statement.

So what do I believe? Well, the ancient Christian creeds. So I refer you to them.

APOSTLES’ CREED. I believe in God, the almighty Father, creator of heaven and earth. And in Christ Jesus, his only Son, our master. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He was born from the virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate. He was crucified. He died and was buried. He descended to the afterlife. The third day, he was resurrected from the dead. He ascended to heaven. He sits at the almighty Father’s right hand. From there he will come; he is judging the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, communion of saints, forgiveness of sins, bodily resurrection, and eternal life. Amen.

NICENE/CONSTANTINOPOLITAN CREED. I believe in one God, the almighty Father, creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. I believe in one master, Christ Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made. For us humans and for our salvation, he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate from the virgin Mary, and became human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father (and the Son), who with the Father and Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

The historic ancient creeds define Christian orthodoxy. Period. Nothing else does.

Every other Christian belief, whether I believe it or not, whether you believe it or not, is debatable. I may totally disagree with you on every single one of those secondary things. But if we agree on the creeds, I can’t legitimately call you heretic. I may call you wrong (and it’s certainly not impossible I’m the one who’s wrong) but not heretic.

Now, as for the debatable stuff I also hold to:

PROTESTANTISM. (Which is not anti-Catholicism.) Salvation isn’t based on church membership or good karma, but is entirely based on God’s grace. Justification isn’t based on good deeds, but is entirely based on faith in God through Jesus. And Jesus only has one body, and therefore founded and established only one church—but no single earthly institution comprises that one church, no matter what they claim. Not the Orthodox, not the Catholics, not the Fundamentalists; none of ’em. The body of Christ transcends our organizations. Granted, Jesus wants us Christians to be one, so we have to work together and iron out our differences—without compromising the scriptures nor the creeds.

EVANGELICALISM. Though Jesus died for all of humanity, it’s the individual, not the group, who turns to Jesus and is saved. Individuals must be encouraged to come to Jesus and declare him Lord. We must also hold to the authority of the scriptures (all of which were inspired by God and teach of Christ), and live as Jesus would have us live.

ARMINIANISM. God is almighty and sovereign, but because self-control is a fruit of the Spirit, and the Spirit’s fruit reflects God’s character, God is self-controlled: Jesus’s atonement applies to everyone, and God’s grace is available for everyone. But because we humans are totally depraved and self-willed, we can reject his salvation, resist his will, refuse his free gift of eternal life, and even quit Jesus if we don’t want his grace anymore. I don’t reject his grace, and definitely recommend you don’t. But still: Arminians reject the Calvinist idea God needs, and therefore practices, no self-control; that sovereignty means he controls everything and everyone in the universe… which therefore makes God the secret mastermind behind sin, evil, and death. (Not the cause, they insist, but they gotta do some serious wordplay explaining in order to absolve God of suborning evil, at least.)

PENTECOSTALISM. Miracles, prophecy, tongues, and healing, have happened throughout Christian history, and still do. Every Christian is entitled to the Father’s promise of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. It’s what the ancient Christians normally experienced, and with it comes the power to serve others and grow in Christian maturity. It’s not the same as salvation; it can take place at the same time, but might not. It’s marked by the physical sign of speaking in tongues. All empowered believers, Jew and gentile alike, men and women alike, can minister.

There’s lots more I believe, as you can tell from the many, many other things I’ve written on this blog. But that’ll give you the gist of it.

What passes for love among Christians.

In C.S. Lewis’s 1960 book The Four Loves, he wrote about four ancient Greek words which English-speakers consistently translate “love.” They aren’t the only four. I found a fifth when I was poking through my bible software’s Greek dictionary. I’ve found others since. But here’s that fifth love:

ΞΕΝΊΑ (xenía) zɛ'ni.ɑ noun, fem. Welcoming attitude towards a guest; receptiveness, hospitality, love for strangers.

2. A guestroom. Ac 28.23, Pm 1.22

Ever heard the myth of Philemon and Bauçis? They were a old married couple, and one day two strangers visited their farm. They showed their guests such hospitality—such love—the strangers later rewarded them for it by rescuing them from a flood. Turned out the strangers were the gods Zeus and Hermes. The Greeks loved to tell this story as an example of how we need to be hospitable to everyone—for you might be entertaining gods unawares. Or as the author of Hebrews reworded it, angels. He 13.2 KJV In any event, this story is exactly why the people of Lystra started worshiping Barnabas and Paul Ac 14.8-18 —they thought it was happening again.

The reason why xenía, or “hospitality,” isn’t straight-up ἀγάπη/aghápi, “charity”—the sort of love we Christians oughta practice—is because of the motive for reciprocity. It’s not unconditional. You don’t do it, expecting nothing in return. Exactly the opposite: You do expect something in return. Gratitude at the least, extremely generous remuneration at the most. Children’s fairy tales always have some tiny act of kindness getting repaid with vast fortunes, kingdoms, or you get to marry a prince. Be hospitable, and the universe owes you one. Yep, it’s all about karma.

And if your hospitality isn’t received with at the very least a “Thank you” …well, those people are jerks. Bad karma on them. Rate ’em zero stars.

Yep, hospitality isn’t unconditional love. It’s entirely conditional. And because humanity believes in karma, xenía is what we see among people instead of aghápi. Including what we see among Christians, who haven’t always learned our expectation of compensation is not real love. Love doesn’t demand love in return. Love doesn’t look out for itself. 1Co 13.5

It’s what the world calls charity.

Here’s a passage which tends to confuse Christians.

1 John 4.7-10 KWL

7 Beloved, we can love one another

only because love is something which comes from God.

Everyone who loves has been produced by, and knows, God.

8 Everyone who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, because God is love.

9 God’s love for us was revealed like this:

God sent his one and only Son into the universe, so we could live through him.

10 Love is like this: Not because we loved God,

but because he loved us, and sent his Son to cover over our sins.

Why it confuses us is because John matter-of-factly wrote: If people love, it’s ’cause they know God.

Problem is, we know an awful lot of pagans who really do appear to love! They love their families, they love their friends; some of ’em even love strangers and do grand acts of charity. In fact, some of ’em are way more charitable and kind than our fellow Christians. So what’s up with John?

Simple. The love these folks have for one another isn’t aghápi. It’s xenía.

They legitimately do love their family and friends and strangers… as we English-speakers define the word “love.” But they don’t love ’em selflessly. They don’t love ’em unconditionally. There are strings attached. All sorts of strings.

THEY LOVE THEIR KIDS. Because these kids are their kids: They’re an extension of themselves. They made these kids, and raised ’em to make ’em proud, or at least not bring shame on them. Now, wait till the kids do bring shame on ’em, and you’ll discover just how much love they actually have for their kids.

THEY LOVE THEIR FRIENDS. It’s because these are valuable, beneficial, entertaining, helpful people. These friends make their lives better. Do they keep, as friends, people who don’t make their lives better? Usually no; they unfriend ’em right away. Anybody who keeps ill-behaved friends are considered either people of low character, or emotionally and mentally unhealthy.

Our culture—and even our churches!—regularly teach us it’s okay to divest ourselves of difficult people. If someone’s falling apart, and we see no hope for their situation, it’s okay to just give up on them, and let ’em hit rock bottom. It’s “tough love.” It’s what they need.

THEY LOVE THE NEEDY. But only when they recognize these people as the deserving needy. When needy people are rude, greedy, choosy, or appear to be needy because they’ve made evil choices, they certainly don’t wanna help them—“Don’t give that guy $100; he’s only gonna spend it on booze!” But when needy people appear to be good people who just happen to be suffering, it offends people’s sense of reciprocity: Why, these people deserve help. Karma owes them big-time. No problem; we’ll fix things. We’ll help the universe out.

Plus it looks good. Plus tax deductions. Plus good karma: Someone might remember our act of generosity, and help us when we’re in a bind. At some point this karmic investment is gonna pay off… unless we can’t see how it could, and don’t bother.

In fact, thanks to karma, certain individuals are fine if they get nothing back. They get a perverse pleasure from feeling like a put-upon, under-appreciated martyr. And they expect God may grant them some form of heavenly consolation prize at the End. I mean, they earned it, didn’t they? ’Cause you know, martyrdom.

These expectations of reciprocity pervade our culture. We see it every Christmas: People expect the presents they receive will be more or less equal to the ones they’ve given. Whenever we get something beneath our expectations, they feel wronged. When we get something far, far above our expectations, we’re delighted… unless it’s too generous, “too much,” something we now feel obligated to match, ’cause we don’t wanna be in anyone’s karmic debt!

We see this every time someone refuses charity: They can’t afford to give back, so they’d rather do without the gift. We see this every time a politician refuses a contribution to their campaign: They know people expect to get something back, and don’t wanna be (or look) beholden to that contributor. We see this every time a date refuses an expensive gift that’s “too much”—they don’t wanna be beholden to their suitor. We see it in America’s divorces: When one partner slacks on the marriage, the other feels shortchanged, decides to end the relationship, and get theirs back—in dollars and cents.

Hospitality is never done selflessly. There’s always meant to be some reward. Forget to offer a simple thank-you, and people will be irritated for weeks thereafter: “What is wrong with people? Doesn’t anyone practice courtesy anymore?” Courtesy’s not actually the issue: Someone was practicing hospitality, not love, and wasn’t repaid. Because xenía looks out for itself.

Aghápi doesn’t.

Christians do it too.

So. Scratch the surface of any pagan which practices what they call “love,” and I guarantee you’ll find hospitality. Heck, scratch the surface of many a Christian.

Most of us Christians are practicing hospitality instead of charity, and can’t tell the difference. After all, hospitality appears to be all the things Paul described love as. 1Co 13.4-8 It’s patient, kind, gentle, humble, others-focused, good, truthful, faithful, hopeful, and consistent. Looks exactly like charity!

But frequently the patience runs out. The hospitable person throws up their hands and shouts, “Y’know, I’m all these things to everybody else. And just once I’d like someone to give me a little bit back!” Payback is overdue.

When “love” expects compensation, it’s not charity. Charity keeps no balance sheet. 1Co 13.5 Love gives, and doesn’t expect back. You know, like God does. We can’t possibly repay him for the gift of his Son, much less his kingdom. And he doesn’t expect payback anyway. If he did, man alive would he be bitter.

There’s our guideline for how we know whether we’re actually practicing the charitable sort of love God is, 1Jn 4.8, 16 versus the hospitable self-seeking love the world does. We look to God’s example. The Spirit’s fruit is nothing more than God’s own character traits, overflowing into us. Our ability to love is entirely based on God’s activity among us. If our love doesn’t look like God’s love, we’re doing it wrong.

How do we know what God’s love looks like? Read your bible. Read the gospels. Follow Jesus’s example. And when you find his example practiced among our fellow Christians, watch that too. (It’s not gonna be infallible like the bible stuff, but it’s concrete, so it definitely helps.)

Bible? Sure I’ll quote some bible. More from John:

1 John 4.10-21 KWL

10 Love is like this: Not because we loved God,

but because he loved us, and sent his Son to cover over our sins.

11 Beloved, this is how much God loved us.

We’re obligated to love one another.

12 No one’s ever seen God, yet when we love one another, God’s with us.

His love’s been expressed in us, 13 so this is how we get to know we’re with him and he’s with us.

He’s given us his Spirit.

14 We’ve seen, we’ve witnessed, how the Father sent the Son to save the world.

15 When anyone agrees Jesus is the Son of God, God’s in them and they’re in God.

16 The love God has is in us. We’ve known and believed it. God is love.

Those who stay in love, stay in God, and God stays in them.

17 Love is expressed this way among us, so we can be confident on Judgment Day:

In this world, we can be like he is.

18 There’s no fear in love. Total love throws fear out,

because fear focuses only on hellfire. The fearful don’t express love.

19 We love because God loved us first.

20 When anyone says they love God, yet hates their fellow Christian, they lie:

Those who hate their fellow Christian, whom they can see, can’t love God, whom they can’t.

21 Plus we have this command from him: If you love God, love your fellow Christian.

God obviously doesn’t expect payback. He loved us first—when we were in no position to pay him back, when we were (and are) totally unworthy of his love. He sent his Son to sort us out, and make us worthy.

True, God expects us to love him, and commands it. But it’s not to pay him back; our level of love can’t possibly. We’re ordered to love because really, it’s the only healthy thing for us. In fact, his instructions are to pay his love forward: Because he loves us, we’re to love one another. We’re to love as he does: Generously, self-sacrificially.

We’re spurred to do this because God’s in us. He’s not just observing from the outside, from some lofty position outside of time and space, cheering us from the stands as we run the race of life. He’s here, empowering us, making us able to love. He corrects us when we don’t, supplies us when our love is deficient. He drives out our fears so we learn to love from pure motives—not because we’re worried about hellfire, about the consequences of displeasing God. He drives out our desire for reciprocity, for compensation, for getting something back.

People who don’t know God, totally don’t understand this. How on earth can we Christians love people so utterly selflessly? How can we forgive murderers? How can we give charity to the unworthy, to people who won’t even say thank you, to people who exploit us and try to take more than their fair share?

They assume we must be doing it because we expect divine reciprocity: Some heavenly reward for all our good deeds, some pie in the sky when we die, by and by. They’re offended when we create charities which do this stuff, and they’re outraged when those charities can access government grants. (Worse, when government programs act charitably too.) ’Cause that’s their tax dollars, which they only want spent on killing terrorists with drones.

This outrage is our tip-off that we’re dealing with someone who doesn’t know the difference between charity and hospitality. When we see pure, selfless aghápi coming from a person—and we likewise have God’s love coming out of us—we can immediately identify them as someone who actually knows God. They might not call themselves Christian, but it makes no difference: They know God. You can’t love like God unless you live in God.

And, at the same time, you can’t live in God unless you love like God.

No, it’s not a formula. It’s a relationship.

So that’s the way we maintain the proper godly sort of love: Stay in God. Don’t so much concentrate on making sure the love we practice fits precisely with Paul’s definition. Don’t get legalistic about love; that’ll really warp it. Instead, concentrate on the relationship with God. Let him make sure we stick to Paul’s definition. As we live in him, we exhibit true, pure, charitable love. As well as all the other fruits of the Spirit.