"But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."
Galatians 3:23-26
Faith is a deep concept, so I'm definitely not pretending that I know all about it, but I did find this passage interesting. It is talking about a progression from the law to faith, where we turn from students to children, which is kind of a cool analogy of a relationship with the gospel and with God that develops into being much more personal and valuable, which reminds me of the whole letter vs spirit of the law idea, and of the whole transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament, or home to college, or the transition from being on a mission to "real life."
Structure is important, and wonderful, especially when we're young. It is important to know the rules and know what to expect and to understand the boundaries. That gives us all the opportunity to learn to play fair and to succeed, and also to feel secure and safe in a context that we understand. And it is hard when we lose that structure and have to go out on our own, but it is also necessary, and good, because we learn more about ourselves and what we want and how things work without that rigid structure in place.
It's sort of like toys. Maybe we start out playing with toys that are easy to understand. Blocks, bricks, tinkertoys... but now we've graduated to computers and cell phones. In many cases we've gone beyond our personal ability to understand everything about our toys. We understand how to interface with the device, and have varying levels of expertise with hardware and software, but most of us couldn't make our own circuit board and don't really understand how everything inside works, so we settle for a working knowledge.
And that's what faith is--it is a working knowledge of how to interact with God, without knowing all of the details of how it works. Maybe it's more like the computer from Star Trek than the computers that we have now, because God's technology / comprehension level is many extra levels beyond our understanding, but still the same idea. Faith is the highest working knowledge that there is in the gospel. We don't know fully how God makes miracles happen in our lives, but we know that he can, and we know how to talk to him and what things drive away the spirit. It isn't the rigid rules that we sometimes want to help us feel safe, but it is freedom to learn more and to grow that relationship with God into something more than what we could have with only the law.
Today, let's take our working knowledge of faith and go forward... learning all that we can, and trusting God to lead us forward.
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."
Galatians 3:23-26
Faith is a deep concept, so I'm definitely not pretending that I know all about it, but I did find this passage interesting. It is talking about a progression from the law to faith, where we turn from students to children, which is kind of a cool analogy of a relationship with the gospel and with God that develops into being much more personal and valuable, which reminds me of the whole letter vs spirit of the law idea, and of the whole transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament, or home to college, or the transition from being on a mission to "real life."
Structure is important, and wonderful, especially when we're young. It is important to know the rules and know what to expect and to understand the boundaries. That gives us all the opportunity to learn to play fair and to succeed, and also to feel secure and safe in a context that we understand. And it is hard when we lose that structure and have to go out on our own, but it is also necessary, and good, because we learn more about ourselves and what we want and how things work without that rigid structure in place.
It's sort of like toys. Maybe we start out playing with toys that are easy to understand. Blocks, bricks, tinkertoys... but now we've graduated to computers and cell phones. In many cases we've gone beyond our personal ability to understand everything about our toys. We understand how to interface with the device, and have varying levels of expertise with hardware and software, but most of us couldn't make our own circuit board and don't really understand how everything inside works, so we settle for a working knowledge.
And that's what faith is--it is a working knowledge of how to interact with God, without knowing all of the details of how it works. Maybe it's more like the computer from Star Trek than the computers that we have now, because God's technology / comprehension level is many extra levels beyond our understanding, but still the same idea. Faith is the highest working knowledge that there is in the gospel. We don't know fully how God makes miracles happen in our lives, but we know that he can, and we know how to talk to him and what things drive away the spirit. It isn't the rigid rules that we sometimes want to help us feel safe, but it is freedom to learn more and to grow that relationship with God into something more than what we could have with only the law.
Today, let's take our working knowledge of faith and go forward... learning all that we can, and trusting God to lead us forward.
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