Qualifications of a Hero of the Faith

 Our own church is going through a sermon series on the book of Acts with the perspective of history making. Another pastor I know is going through a series regarding heroes of the faith based on Hebrews 11. It is interesting that none of the heroes in this epistle are professional religious leaders. They were shepherds, wives, government officials, and even a harlot. The closest you get are Samuel, the exceptional priest, and the prophets. 

If you were going to launch a global movement to transform the world, what qualifications would you put in your employment ad? How would you screen the résumés? Undoubtedly, as a top-notch leader of your organization, you wouldn't select fishermen nor hated tax collectors. You might, as Christ did, select a few of a friendly rival's leaders. 

One church leader postulates that today's churches wouldn't hire King David, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph (a felon), Peter, Paul, John Mark, et. al. A group of pastors is funneling their efforts to "equip the saints for ministry" in their respective vocations. I believe that's the original context of Ephesians 4.12.

To be a hero of the faith, how much do you have to be involved with the organized church? How much do you have to be in your community, in your business making a difference and pointing others to God?

Sola Scriptura?

 Martin Luther, in response to corruption in the Holy Roman Catholic Church in his time, coined his guiding principle of sola scriptura—only scripture—and not tradition as a means of discerning God’s will and truth. However, as NT Wright and others have pointed out, not even scripture shows we should use scripture as the sole guiding influence. God’s authority is greater than scriptural authority. “All authority under heaven and earth has been given to…” scripture? No, Christ. Other examples…

• God violates His own later handed-down law by punishing a murderer—Cain—not with an execution but banishment.
• The prophet Micaiah in 1 Kings 22 shows that prophets were deceived by relying only on scripture to determine if the king should attack a city.
• In the wilderness, Christ could have relied on Satan’s quoting of scripture as an authoritative plan of action, but Christ knew greater principles that countermanded those scriptural promises.
• Many people like to quote scripture that shows only a mustard seed of faith is needed to accomplish healing and therefore, when healing is absent, the fault lies with our faith…and yet the Author of our faith, Christ, prayed for a different outcome in the Garden of Gethsemane and the outcome didn’t change. Was this a case of a son praying for bread and a cruel father giving him a stone to eat? (Matthew 7.9)

In the age of literacy, for the last hundred years, I believe we’ve relied more on our ears than our spiritual ears to discern the will of God. We’ve stopped being living sacrifices and transformed from our worldly reliance on our own skills in order to know the will of God (Romans 12.1-3).