Chapter 11 tackles the definition of faith. In the past faith brought the divine approval to the men who trusted God. In the present it enables us to understand that the things we see and touch are actually dependent on what is invisible to us. Faith is the encounter with God in which a taste of his goodness enables us to trust in him even without the evidence necessary to convince a skeptic. By faith we can understand life as God’s gift and see the world about us as his creation. The writer lists the witnesses to faith; Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah. All these people died without seeing the fulfillment of what was promised. But they looked forward in hope to God’s promise. Their lives show that they were concentrating on a better country, that is, a heavenly one. God has prepared for them a city, an ordered civilization, secure against its enemies, prosperous and peaceful. The succession of heroes of faith continues with Abraham, Isaac, and Moses. The preacher seeks to move his readers to ask themselves, “If they did so much with so little, what will be expected of us who live in the day of fulfillment?”
Chapter 11 tackles the definition of faith. In the past faith brought the divine approval to the men who trusted God. In the present it enables us to understand that the things we see and touch are actually dependent on what is invisible to us. Faith is the encounter with God in which a taste of his goodness enables us to trust in him even without the evidence necessary to convince a skeptic. By faith we can understand life as God’s gift and see the world about us as his creation. The writer lists the witnesses to faith; Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah. All these people died without seeing the fulfillment of what was promised. But they looked forward in hope to God’s promise. Their lives show that they were concentrating on a better country, that is, a heavenly one. God has prepared for them a city, an ordered civilization, secure against its enemies, prosperous and peaceful. The succession of heroes of faith continues with Abraham, Isaac, and Moses. The preacher seeks to move his readers to ask themselves, “If they did so much with so little, what will be expected of us who live in the day of fulfillment?”
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