DEAR FATHER PAUL: I was watching a T.V. preacher recently and he said that “true faith, the kind of faith that pleases God, is blind.” He went on to another subject without explaining further. But is that true? Is it in the Bible? I thought God gave us minds to understand things. Robert
DEAR ROBERT: What a wonderful and fascinating question. Thank you for sending it.
So what is faith anyway? And for that matter, what is truth? Faith and truth are very closely aligned. So are they what we see on T.V.? … The Internet,? … The News Media,? … The Culture,? Are faith and truth absolutes or are they “relative and unknowable?”
I come from the perspective that both faith and truth ARE knowable, absolute and unchangeable and that their definitions are clearly spelled out by for us by God in his word, the Bible.
So my answer to your question must begin with a very clear Bible truth found throughout the Bible … that “God is a Spirit,” and our relationship and dealings with him are mostly on a spiritual, supernatural level, NOT a natural (flesh and blood) level. In the Gospel of John, Chapter 4, verse 24 Jesus himself clearly addresses this all important issue when he says, (King James Bible) “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” This fact sadly keeps a lot of people from any kind of close relationship with
God, because they believe the mantra of today’s culture, “I can’t believe in or worship anything that I can’t see, hear, touch and understand.” Or, “I must understand first, THEN I will believe.”
But the Bible teaches the exact opposite. It teaches “blind faith in God!” God wants us to believe (have faith) first, THEN he will give us all of the understanding we seek.
Why is this? Because the Bible teaches that “God is beyond our understanding,” … Job 36. And also that “his ways are higher than our ways.” Isaiah 55. So trying to “understand God” is a dead end. God honors faith and faith alone … not understanding.
But for people who stubbornly require proof BEFORE faith, God (in his great love and mercy) PERSONALLY came to the earth, over 2,000 years ago. He came in a natural, flesh and blood human body as the promised God / Man, Jesus, the Messiah, the only Son of the Living God. He lived among us humans for thirty-three years and his life, teachings and miracles are recorded in great detail for us in the first four books of the Bible’s New Testament … Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Apostle John, who walked closely with Jesus for over three years, bears witness to Jesus’ deity in I John 1:1 (New Living Translation) “We proclaim to you (Jesus) the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands.”
So the many, verified, first-person stories of Jesus in the Bible are all of the “proof” that God intends to give. Sorry.
For this reason those who insist that everything about God must be tangible and provable rather than received by faith … will have no excuse when they stand before God in judgment.
But to answer your question directly, yes the Bible does, indeed, clearly teach that true, God pleasing faith MUST BE BLIND!
So how does the Bible (God) define faith anyway, and why does the Bible teach that any faith that pleases God, must be blind? The New Testament book of Hebrews, Chapter 11 is often called “the greatest chapter about faith in the entire Bible.” I urge you to read and study it carefully.
Hebrews. Chapter 11 begins, in verse 1, with God’s own very clear and very simple definition of what (God pleasing) faith actually is. It says this: (New Living Translation): “FAITH IS THE CONFIDENCE THAT WHAT WE HOPE FOR WILL ACTUALLY HAPPEN; IT GIVES US ASSURANCE ABOUT THINGS WE CANNOT SEE.”
“Assurance About THINGS WE CANNOT SEE.” Get it? Blind Faith! Chapter 11, goes on to list some twenty-four actual examples of Blind Faith in the Bible, from Able to Abraham, to David, to the prophets to the martyrs whom God has accepted and honored because of their blind faith even unto death.
So, Robert, true godly faith is indeed blind. It doesn’t have to have proof, and it doesn’t have to have understanding. Blind faith is having an inner peace and assurance of godly things we can’t necessarily see in the natural realm. Understanding and education are fine, but God calls us to demonstrate a blind faith with zeal, for it alone is what truly pleases God and causes him to act.
Do You Have A Question? Send it to me at paulmassey@earthlink.net and I will try to answer your question in the paper
Father Paul Massey is Canon to the Bishop of the Diocese of the Mid-South of the International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church and is assigned to The Cathedral Of Christ The King in Sharpsburg, Georgia.
