Finding Faith
Read Luke 18.
If you remember yesterday, Jesus was talking about his return, the "coming of the Son of Man." In today's passage, he's pondering what the future might hold. "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (18:8).
That question comes in between two incidents. First, he has told a parable about an unjust judge. Those who say the judge represents God in the parable are wrong. First and foremost, God is not unjust! (Jesus points that out himself!) And, beyond that, Jesus is telling the story to draw a contrast. Basically he says, "If this unjust judge can respond to a persistent widow, an annoyance, how much more will God respond to the children he loves? God is just and he will give his children justice." That's when he asks this question.
The next incident involves the ever-present Pharisees, Jesus' most frequent religious sparring partners, in another parable about prayer. There are two men who go up to prayer, Jesus says, and the Pharisee (the one everyone would assume was holy) prayed his repetitive prayer, trying to impress God with how much he had done. The other man, a tax collector (synonymous with "bad, bad person"), prayed a simple begging prayer, asking for mercy and nothing more. The "punch line," of course, is that the tax collector is the one whose prayers were heard and not the holy man.
Are these just two random stories that Luke stuck together? Or are they together for a reason, joined by that simple question: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" What if faith has something to do with trust (it does)? What if faith in prayer has to do with submitting our requests to God and trusting him to do what is right, rather than "bothering God," wearing God down or trying to impress God? I think often in our current cultural religious landscape, we get all worked up about formulas and getting a lot of people to pray and praying "enough" times (how many is "enough"?) in order to get God to answer. That's far from a Biblical model for prayer. I wonder if Jesus isn't asking this question out loud because he knows our tendency to try to use prayer to manipulate God. "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" Will he find people who simply trust the God of the universe, the God who will always do right, the God who desires that sinners turn and repent (cf. Ezekiel 18:23), the God who loves his children? Will he find people who trust? Will he find faith?
Will he?
If you remember yesterday, Jesus was talking about his return, the "coming of the Son of Man." In today's passage, he's pondering what the future might hold. "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (18:8).
That question comes in between two incidents. First, he has told a parable about an unjust judge. Those who say the judge represents God in the parable are wrong. First and foremost, God is not unjust! (Jesus points that out himself!) And, beyond that, Jesus is telling the story to draw a contrast. Basically he says, "If this unjust judge can respond to a persistent widow, an annoyance, how much more will God respond to the children he loves? God is just and he will give his children justice." That's when he asks this question.
The next incident involves the ever-present Pharisees, Jesus' most frequent religious sparring partners, in another parable about prayer. There are two men who go up to prayer, Jesus says, and the Pharisee (the one everyone would assume was holy) prayed his repetitive prayer, trying to impress God with how much he had done. The other man, a tax collector (synonymous with "bad, bad person"), prayed a simple begging prayer, asking for mercy and nothing more. The "punch line," of course, is that the tax collector is the one whose prayers were heard and not the holy man.
Are these just two random stories that Luke stuck together? Or are they together for a reason, joined by that simple question: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" What if faith has something to do with trust (it does)? What if faith in prayer has to do with submitting our requests to God and trusting him to do what is right, rather than "bothering God," wearing God down or trying to impress God? I think often in our current cultural religious landscape, we get all worked up about formulas and getting a lot of people to pray and praying "enough" times (how many is "enough"?) in order to get God to answer. That's far from a Biblical model for prayer. I wonder if Jesus isn't asking this question out loud because he knows our tendency to try to use prayer to manipulate God. "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" Will he find people who simply trust the God of the universe, the God who will always do right, the God who desires that sinners turn and repent (cf. Ezekiel 18:23), the God who loves his children? Will he find people who trust? Will he find faith?
Will he?
"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."
(Hebrews 11:1)
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