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Two Men Seek Faith

By Bill Hall

Two men seek faith. The first man's approach is to try to find solutions to all the problems. He has delved deeply into the difficult questions relating to the Genesis account of creation. He has read volumes on the flood. He finds the story of Jonah particularly challenging. He relies heavily on archaeology and secular history for confirmation of his solutions. He believes because he is satisfied with his own answers to the problems of faith.

The second man's approach centers upon Jesus Christ. He too has had to consider evidences and struggle with certain problems, but he is fully persuaded that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and has confessed that he believes that fact with all his heart. Believing in Jesus as the infallible Son of God, he does not question anything Jesus believed, anything Jesus said, or anything Jesus authorized to be said.

He, too, wondered about the Genesis account of creation, but his questions ceased when he read the words of Jesus: "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?" (Matthew 19:4‑5). If Jesus' stamp of approval was on the creation story, that was good enough for him. He didn't have the solution to all the problems, but he believed because Jesus believed it, and he believed in Jesus.

His faith in other Old Testament accounts was similarly established. He found Jesus' stamp of approval on the flood (Matthew 24:37‑39) and the story of Jonah (Matthew 12:40), and in fact, on all the Old Testament record in one sweeping statement recorded in Luke 24:44: ''Then He said to them, 'These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.”

Since the New Testament contains what Jesus said combined with what He authorized to be said, the second man had no trouble believing the New Testament. His faith in the whole Bible simply rests upon his faith in Christ as the infallible Son of God. He too finds the study of the problems of faith intriguing and challenging, but his own personal faith is not dependent on finding solutions to all the problems.

The first man's faith stands on shaky ground, for it is founded on human wisdom. Should some later archaeological discovery or other bit of evidence not now known prove his solutions to be false, the very foundation of his faith would be gone. He would have to seek new solutions or lose his faith entirely.

The second man's faith may not appeal to the highly sophisticated, but it is founded on the rock‑on the One who is "the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).

"So then faith comes by bearing, and bearing by the word of God"
(Romans 10: 17)