hebrews on Beliefs

Belief doesn’t create truth. Unbelief doesn’t destroy truth. Christian faith goes beyond reason but not against reason.

Many Christians are terrified of doubting their faith. We avoid questions and challenges in favor of keeping things comfortable and familiar. We worry that if we open ourselves up to the possibility o...

What is "Deconstruction"? What is it Not? Many pastors I know have told me that one of their most pressing pastoral concerns right now is knowing how to minister to people who are decons...

When people are asked what they believe in, they give, not merely different answers, but different sorts of answers. Someone might say, “I believe in UFOs”—that means, I think UFOs are real. “I believ...

Maybe God has given some people belief like a pier, to stand on (and God has given those people’s steadiness to the church, to me, as a reminder, as an aid), and maybe God has given others something e...

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong as long as you are merely using i...

Faith makes all evil good to us, and all good better; unbelief makes all good evil, and all evil worse. Faith laughs at the shaking of the spear; unbelief trembles at the shaking of a leaf, unbelief s...

Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.

Faith according to our Lord’s teaching in this paragraph is primarily thinking; and the whole trouble with a man of little faith is that he does not think. He allows circumstances to bludgeon him. . ....

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

The only conclusion I have ever been able to reach is that we must pray God to increase our faith, a faith without which one cannot love or hope. 'Lord I believe, help though my unbelief.’

Faith is a voluntary anticipation.

By misinterpreting the Enlightenment and the corresponding rise of empiricism as an existential threat to Christian faith, many frightened Christians sequestered themselves into rooms of certitude.

While global flights and online booking have made travel easier in many ways, other aspects, often related to safety and security, still create challenges. As often as I fly, I could tell you plenty o...

If we desire our faith to be strengthened, we should not shrink from opportunities where our faith may be tried, and therefore, through trial, be strengthened.

What greater rebellion against God, what greater wickedness, what greater contempt of God is there than not believing His promise? For what is this but to make God a liar or to doubt that He is truthf...

Faith does not grow in spite of suffering, but through suffering, when hope learns to contradict reality.

There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that...

At the heart of this story is Jesus’ generous offer of himself to Thomas... Thomas had established the conditions for his faith: He must be allowed to touch Jesus’ wounds…. Jesus does not censure Thom...

Heavenly Father, we confess that we often take stock of your work and your goodness based on what we have and see in a particular moment. We follow the desires and encouragements of crowds rather than...

If I were making a list of benefits like the one Mike McKinley imagines, only this time using the devil’s actual logic, it might look more like this: Experience the excitement of new romance. Get th...

Remember Miss Haversham in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations? Her entire life was defined by the fact that she was jilted on her wedding day. People can become very attached to their pain and i...

Generous Lord Jesus We confess that we do not receive others with compassion. We object to being interrupted And respond with anger or frustration. We confess that we do not share generously Not trus...

There was once a sculptor who worked hard with hammer and chisel on a large block of marble. A little child who was watching him saw nothing more than large and small pieces of stone falling away left...

Some years ago I had a pastoral relationship with a couple of people who were deeply in love with each other. They believed that God wanted them to get married so they could consummate their love. The...

In his book of sermons titled The Magnificent Defeat, Frederick Buechner mentions two qualities of childlikeness. First, children have no fixed preconceptions of reality. If someone tells them that ...

Fear and growth go together like macaroni and cheese. It’s a package deal. The decision to grow always involves a choice between risk and comfort. This means that to be a follower of Jesus you must re...

Draw us close, Holy Spirit, as the Scriptures are read and the Word is proclaimed. Let the word of faith be on our lips and in our hearts, and let all other words slip away. May there be one voice we ...

Frank Laubach recounts the profound shift in his life that came when he wholeheartedly committed to following God’s will: Before that moment, I was barely alive—like a tree rotting from within. Bu...

I’m a huge advocate of catechisms, for example, having used this approach with my kids. I even wrote one. The strength of a catechism isn’t in memorizing the questions and answers of the catechism; th...