Christian faith is rarely discovered...
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Christian faith is rarely "discovered" like a bolt out of the sky. It is transmitted generation after generation through a variety of people. Parents and family are obvious means of this transmission, although some Christians come from homes in which that faith was never held and possibly not even known. But even then one can usually find those who "carried the story" --friends, coworkers, neighbors, a wife, or someone like that.
Even when faith is passed on through printed material or through the media of radio and television, those words must have "flesh" put on them through interrelationship with other living bearers of the faith.
The faith we ourselves bear "came to life" through such living people --through an Abraham and Sarah who trusted that God would hold true to wherever the divine leading would take this man and woman of God; through a Moses whose work became a major turning point in the existence of Israel as he led the people of Israel by God's mercy out of slavery to the very boundary of the Promised Land; through an Elijah who spoke eloquently and acted faithfully in spite of his fear and trembling to sustain Israel in its life under God; through a Jesus who was nothing less than "the Word made flesh" dwelling among us and relating to us as a person among people, causing the love of God to "come alive" among us through his death on the Cross; and through a Timothy who bore a "sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in [his] grandmother Lois and [his] mother Eunice, and now ... dwells in [him]." This Timothy, a young pastor, is being encouraged, in turn, to become the living, vital connection to the next generation of faithful people.
Even when faith is passed on through printed material or through the media of radio and television, those words must have "flesh" put on them through interrelationship with other living bearers of the faith.
The faith we ourselves bear "came to life" through such living people --through an Abraham and Sarah who trusted that God would hold true to wherever the divine leading would take this man and woman of God; through a Moses whose work became a major turning point in the existence of Israel as he led the people of Israel by God's mercy out of slavery to the very boundary of the Promised Land; through an Elijah who spoke eloquently and acted faithfully in spite of his fear and trembling to sustain Israel in its life under God; through a Jesus who was nothing less than "the Word made flesh" dwelling among us and relating to us as a person among people, causing the love of God to "come alive" among us through his death on the Cross; and through a Timothy who bore a "sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in [his] grandmother Lois and [his] mother Eunice, and now ... dwells in [him]." This Timothy, a young pastor, is being encouraged, in turn, to become the living, vital connection to the next generation of faithful people.
