Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Dead Faith

In Tim Keller's commentary on the book of Romans, he asks the following question: "How can we tell if our "faith" is empty, dead, and under God's judgment?"

He goes on to say that there are two signs of a "dead faith":


  1. There is a theoretical-only stance toward the word of God. The moralist or dead orthodox Christian loves the concepts of truth, but is never changed by them. They often see how a sermon or Bible text ought to convict others, but they seldom (if ever) let it convict them. A real Christian finds the Bible "living and active" (Hebrews 4:12); when they hear it or read it, they are convicted, comforted, thrilled, disturbed, melted, slammed down, lifted up. 
  2. There is a moral superiority, an in-built bragging. If you are relying on your spiritual achievements, you will have to "look down" on those who have failed in the same areas. You will be at best cold, and at worst condemning, toward those who are struggling. Rather than speaking words of encouragement to the struggler, helping to lift them up, you speak words of gossip about them to others, to show yourself in a comparatively good light. A sign of this condition is that people don't want to share their problems with you, and you are very defensive if others point out your problems to you.
Do either of these two signs fit your "faith"?

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