Defining Faith
As theo-engineers, we require an "operational" definition of faith that is scriptural. While the Hebrews 11:1 definition of faith ("the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen") is scriptural, it is not "operational" in the sense that the terms "substance" and "evidence" refer to things not present: if you hope for something, you don't have it and you don't see it, and an engineering treatment based on the principle of "by their fruit ye shall know them" requires that the fruit (or evidence of it) be visible. I am not saying that Hebrews 11:1 is not true, but that the expression of that underlying truth does not point us to a practical test for its existence. The Writer's use of the greek word that we translate as "substance" was a technical philosophical term that indicates that this verse was intended for use by philosophers and theologians rathern than "engineers" (who, at that time, were very strange fellows who built machines that helped the Roman Army more efficiently kill people and break things).
Providentially, the author of Hebrews gives us a definition that is ideally suited for our purpose a few verses later! Here is Hebrews 11:5-6:
5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found , because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony , that he pleased God. 6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Incredible! Here, The God to Whom a thousand years is as the watch that passes in the night, and Whose nature lacks nothing and needs nothing, is here said to be unable to bear the thought of Enoch being in any state that would make the man unavailable for any length of time, and that the solution God came up for this "problem" was to "take him"! The writer of Hebrews understands the tremendous import of Enoch's translation, and goes on to tell us that it was because Enoch pleased God, informs us that the part of Enoch that pleased God was his faith, and gives us the two critical properties of faith in practical and usable forms.
The first critical property of faith that pleases God is that it believes that He Exists. Recall that the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, the proper name God gave to Moses when the latter asked Him His Name, comes from the Hebrew word that says "I AM", or "He who IS". I am Here, God is saying. I am Present, He assures the Hebrew slaves. The very first step to really understanding Christian Symbiosis is to grasp, understand, and believe that you literally and truly are the Temple of the Holy Spirit, that His presence (evidenced by literal and real neuro-chemical changes) links you as a member in full and good standing into the body and life of the Corporate Being called God, and to live like it. A man or woman who believes that they possess a car will act as if they owned a car when they needs to go grocery shopping. They will possess something called a "car key" to operate the car they "believe" they own. Their plans for transportation will rely on the capabilities of the car they believe they own. More importantly, they will not make transportation plans that require the capabilities of a truck that do not exist in a car, or require operation of the car outside of its capabilities. These behaviors, as well as the use of the car, are observables that are subject to confirmation and verification.
The second critical property of faith that pleases God is that it believes that that linkage, and those associated neurochemical changes, is something good and worthwhile to diligently seek. There are two greek words in the second phrase worth examining. The phrase "diligently seek" comes from the single greek word "ekzeteo", and was used by Jesus to describe the attitude of Justice demanding an accounting for the murder of innocent blood in Luke 11:50-51. It was used by James to describe the kind of seeking for God that the Gentiles were supposed to do in Acts 15:17, but Paul says men don't in Romans 3:11. Peter used it in 1 Peter 1:10 to describe the level of inquiry the Prophets of old subjected the prophecies that God gave to them that predicted future events. Most significantly, the Writer of Hebrews re-uses the word later in Hebrews 12:16-17 to describe the desperate seeking of repentance that Esau employed after he lost his birthright so that it could be restored to him. This last usage ideally describes the attitude we must have with regard to the great Birthright of the Holy Spirit within us right from the start, lest we lose Him with equal regret. A man or woman who believes that they possess a car, and have resolved to use that car to go grocery shopping, will keep their car keys in their purse or pocket, and will curse and swear at themselves while ekzeteo-ing for them if they are misplaced, and will panic if they believe them lost or stolen.
The second greek word of importance used to describe the second critical property of faith is the word "misthapodotes", and which the KJV translates as "rewarder". This is the only place in the entire New Testament that this word is used, and it refers to a paymaster, the payer of a bounty, or the one handing out rewards. Given how often the word "reward" is used in the New Testament, it is incredible that proclaiming a distain for rewards from God is a mark of piety in some circles, and that some Internet Calvinists counsel those desperately seeking salvation that they should be grateful if they are sent to Hell "for God's Glory"! These misguided people have confused the righteousness required for salvation with the service one renders to God after being saved and receiving the Holy Spirit in response to believing in Jesus Christ as God and Savior. These people lump the vain and useless works "righteous" people do to merit salvation with the works "God prepared beforehand so we could walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). Paul's discussion in 1 Corinthians 9:1-12 was in opposition to people with this pseudo-pious attitude who went so far as to deny that a pastor or evangelist should be financially supported. In that passage, Paul states that the whole point of people getting involved in plowing, sowing, and reaping was that by "putting a stake into" the operation, they would be able to have a reasonable hope of sharing in the harvest . He even pointed out that God, through Moses, specifically ordered the Israelites not to even muzzle their oxen while they were threshing out the grain so that even they could share in the harvest! It is not credible to believe that God has such a regard for other people's kine, but not for His own Kin.
While these two words are enlightening in themselves, combining them creates additional synergy: Faith is believing that God exists and surely rewards those who intensely seek for Him. This assurance of being rewarded is founded on hope that God is just and gracious, based on a history of grace shown to others. This is why Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13, included hope with faith and love because he viewed hope as an essential component of faith. It is to encourage others to believe God is a rewarder that the writer of Hebrews recounts the experiences of the Faithful in chapter 11.
A Seeming Contradiction
At this point, astute readers may think that I've run into a sort of contradiction: how could a servant with an attitude of "We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do", as Jesus mandated in Luke 17:10 rightly expect to be rewarded by God as if He were a paymaster?
Part of our problem in looking back at that era, especially if we are Americans, is that we look at servitude (submission) through the lens of the odious institution of Southern slavery. Although Southern slavery was somewhat more enlightened and kinder than the way the Romans practiced it, the way the Hebrews handled slaves, especially fellow Hebrews who had to sell themselves into bondage is the most ideal way to implement any form of forced servitude, and was initially imitated in Colonial America by the practice of apprenticeship and bond service. (It devolved into Southern slavery during a period of over 10 years when the Virginia legislature used a loophole in the royal charter to avoid individual accountability while passing patently self-serving laws that those with money and land found useful and profitable to keep and extend.) In the Hebrew model, servitude was limited to six years, and was to be cut short if the Jubilee year rolled around during the period of service (Exodus 21:1-11; Deuteronomy 25:10). In some cases, the freed Hebrew servant was to be liberally supplied with enough goods to make a new start (Deuteronomy 15:12-17). Cruelty to the servant that resulted in disfigurement as small as losing a tooth required emancipation (Exodus 21:26-27, more on this later). The mandate that servants were to enjoy the Sabbath rest along with their masters were uttered by God Himself from Sinai (Exodus 20:8-11). In fact, if a master wanted to keep a particularly valuable Hebrew servant, the only legal way to do so was to literally win his affection so that the man would declare it in front of the city judges (Exodus 21:5-6) and submit to being bored through the ear to seal the deal (Deuteronomy 15:16-17). (In actuality, the practice of releasing Hebrew servants on the seventh year was never practiced, and the only time it was done was by Zedekiah during the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 34:8-22). Shortly afterwards, the former masters re-enslaved their servants despite having made an oath similar to what God cut with Abraham (Genesis 15). In response to this, God swore, through the prophet, that no mercy was available to any of those who participated in the emancipation ritual, thus sealing the doom of Judah.)
It is an essential article of the Christian faith that Jesus Christ perfectly kept the Law of Moses. That law included all of the references that I have cited above with regard to the treatment of servants, so if we wanted to know how a True Jew should have treated his servants, we Christians believe you can't get a better example than Jesus.
Even a cursory examination of the New Testament shows that not only was being a servant of Jesus a good condition to be in, but was viewed as a better one than being a Son! Take, for instance, the parable of the prodigal son: the prodigal hated his father and wanted distance from him, but the (perceived) better treatment his father gave his servants compared to himself led the prodigal to return to his father's house as a servant rather than a son. There was very good reason to believe this is true, for when the fatted calf was killed and everyone was bidden to party up, it was the servants who were partying while the elder son was left in the field, forgotten and unappreciated (which people seem to refuse to consider when trying to make him a greater villian than the prodigal. Or the father, who probably drove the prodigal away by the same thoughtlessness demonstrated toward the elder brother). The decision of the father to reaccept the prodigal as a son rather than a servant worked against the prodigal in the long run: I believe the "parable" of the prodigal son actually happened, and that what the father said to the elder son ("all that I have is yours") resulted in the prodigal not getting anything when the father died and the elder son inherited everything. Doubtless believing that the father intended that he"double dip" by taking another third out of the elder brother's two thirds of the estate (the eldest son got twice the portion of the others to help finance the care of the surviving mother), the prodigal went to the elders. He was rightly rebuffed since a bit of math shows that giving him what he wanted would have left the Elder son with 44% of the estate, contary to the Law requiring that he get 66%. Frustrated, the prodigal appealed to Jesus, who also rebuffed him (Luke 12:13-15), labelling that attitude as covetousness. Doubtless, the prodigal then got with Jesus and told Jesus his side of the story hoping Jesus would change his mind, only to get rebuked a second time when Jesus later re-told the story in response to the Pharisees complaining about his ministry technique and put in the part about the Elder Brother getting the entire estate (Luke 15:11-32). We don't hear about how the Elder Brother reacted to his father's entreaty, because the prodigal obviously left that part out of his version of the story. What we can most probably deduce was that the father failed to properly assuage the hurt the elder son felt, and when he died, the elder son kicked his brother out of the house. Ironically, given the above laws regarding servants, the elder brother would have been obligated to take care of his brother if the latter had been accepted as a servant!
An aside: Treating the "parable" of the Prodigal Son as an actual event that happened in rural Palestine during Jesus' ministry rather than a parable clears up a lot of "bad behavior" on the part of those wresting the story into a parable. By casting the father as God, interpreters feel they need to justify the father's thoughtless slighting of his older son as something perfectly okay. They also feel pushed to demonize the elder brother who, being so badly treated, reacted as any deeply hurt child would in real life who sees evidnce that he is perceived by his father, not as equally favored, but as literally dis-favored. In their eagerness to emphasize the forgiveness to the prodigal son that they want everyone to practice, expositors sometimes feel the need to kick the face of the elder brother. In doing so, they convey the message that patient faithfulness is to be disregarded, ignored, and is of no value. By ignoring the lessons to be taught from this real-life (mis)behavior, such shallow expositors create more unnecessary bitterness than if they treated this as a real story populated by flawed people. There was plenty of blame to go around, and a real live counselor would have had plenty to say about everyone's behavior. In the end, treating this as a real-life story puts the emphasis on the fact that the father, though flawed, still loved and forgave his prodigal son while respecting the faithfulness of the faithful one. What is irritating about those who use the parable form is that it allows them to excuse bad behavior toward the faithful, and gives themselves "permission" to demonise them some more when those faithful point out that bad behavior toward themselves. If there are any such "expositors" who are saying "I don't mean to hurt anyone!", then I point out to you that your problem is that you think you aren't hurting anyone because you don't feel any pain yourself when you do it. That, of course, should be obvious, for if you are the one doing the spearing, you are not the one feeling the pain!
If anyone feels, like I do, that the elder brother got a raw deal in return for his faithfulness to his father, be assured that Jesus' attitude toward faithfulness is far different and much better: the parables of the talents and the pounds indicate that if you are a good and faithful servant, you were treated very very well, but if you are a lazy and unfaithful servant, you are treated very very roughly. I don't know about you, but if I worked to turn one pound ($300) into ten pounds ($3000) and was given 10 cities in return, I would certainly say "We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do"! On the other hand, Sons in the parables don't do very well: servants have a better chance of surviving trying to deal with rebellious tenants than the Son the vineyard holder sent (Luke 20:9-16). Based on this, the fact that that the disciples and Paul (including James, Jesus' own half-brother) consistently portrayed themselves as Jesus' and God's servants should be seen as them prudently "counting the cost" and rightly concluding where the better and more sure returns that would be manifested lay.
Still, at the same time, God strives to ensure that there is balance in all things, especially in His dealings with us, for what we have to understand before we can truly understand what Jesus was saying regarding servants and servitude is that God follows the Jewish model of treating servants and slaves, scrupulously following those rules and regulations that He commanded his people the Hebrews to follow in the Mosaic Law ("Yes Calvin, God DOES practice what He preaches"). Under this scheme, the way servants were treated required that their master take the initiative to reward them openly, and it is this time of "openly rewarding" His servants that Jesus is speaking of in the two parables of the servants increasing that which their master entrusted to them. On the other hand, the parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates the way sons and daughers were expected to have their needs met, which was by exercising their right to draw upon the resources of their own family on their own initiative. A servant can neither specify the "when" nor the "how much" of their reward, while sons, once they come to maturity (James 4:2-3), must take the initiative. The Younger Son/Prodigal took the initiative to demand his full share (one third) of the entire family estate, while the Older son inadvertently surrendered all the possible opportunities to throw parties because he did not take the initiative to ask for or get a kid to make merry. We "have not because we ask not" (James 4:2). We should not regard the (very real and hurtful) mistake of the father in forgetting to call his faithful older son to the party being thrown for his "lost but now found" younger brother as representative of the normal way he treated his older son, for it was very excusable given his joy at the return of his younger son: The father was showing more respect to his elder son than we do today, for he did not degrade him to the role of a servant waiting anxiously for the date and amount of any "servant's reward". For sure the servants partied while the Elder brother labored in the field, but keep in mind that they did not have his right to choose what to slaughter, and certainly not the right to decide whether to party at all. In Psalm 77, when Asaph struggles with the fear that the problems he is facing are indicators that God has forsaken him. His response is to recall what God did for Israel in the past as a precedent for assuring himself that God had not forsaken him. The Elder Brother could have boldly approached his father to demand a kid for a party, and if he had been refused (very doubtful), could have easily (and very justly) complained to him, and everyone else, "You Scrooge! You begrudge me a kid to make merry while you gave my brother his third of the estate to party up? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? Wait until the village hears of this!" Far be it that God, the greater and more perfect Father, behave like that! The sons are treated as slaves as long as they act like slaves.
So what was it that Jesus was not only trying to say, but live out, before those disciples and us?
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