This post is part of a series on faith in the New Testament.

Here is a look at our third book in the New Testament filtering through all the examples we see of the word faith. This post will look at the twelve examples we see in the Gospel of Luke with a brief commentary on each.

Luke 5:20

When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”

Luke includes the same story we saw in Matthew 9:2 and Mark 2:5. Your faith is shaped by the people around you.

Luke 7:9

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.”

Here again we see the centurion from Matthew 8:10. Mark didn’t include this story in his Gospel. This is a powerful example of faith as a virtue, and we see Jesus bragging about this man’s faith to the people in the crowd. Each time I read the example of the Centurion I am envious of his faith, and of Jesus’ response to it.

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I was surprised by the level of conversation last week on my post called The Skill of Doubt. That post quickly became one of the all-time top commented posts on my blog. It created tons of discussion and hopefully led us all to be more objective with our theology and study of the Bible. I was recently sent an article on the same topic, written by Peter Enns. Here are a few of his highlights:

Doubt tears down the castle walls to force us on a journey. It may feel like God is far away or absent when in fact doubt is a gift of God to move us to spiritual maturity. Doubt is not a sign of weakness but a sign of growth.

When your faith has no room for doubt, then you are just left with—religion, something that takes its place in your life among other things—like a job and a hobby, something soft and comfortable. Doubt is God’s way of helping you not go there.

You can read the entire article here.

This post is part of a series on faith in the New Testament.

Here is a look at our second book in the New Testament filtering through all the examples we see of the word faith. This post will look at the seven examples we see in the Gospel of Mark with a brief commentary on each.

Mark 2:5

“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ “

Here we see Mark’s account of the story we looked at from Matthew 9:2. Jesus responds to their faith (plural) and forgives the paralyzed man as a result. This is our second example of the significance of faith in community.

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“I just read the Bible for what it says.”

Welcome to one of the most annoying statements I hear people say. Why? Because nobody does this.

We all have lenses, called presuppositions, that filter how we process what we read and experience. Think of it like wearing glasses with different types of tint on them. The more objective among us are aware of these lenses and take them into consideration when discerning truth. The subjective among us pretend they don’t exist or that they don’t affect them. Your personality by itself is a huge lens.

Don’t believe me? Click here to take a brief survey. It will give you your Hermeneutics score, which basically shows you how theologically conservative or liberal your lenses are. We use this in hiring new staff as it quickly gives me a glimpse into the presuppositions that you have.

What’s your number? I encourage you to leave it as a comment on this post.

A healthy response to this reality may surprise you. It’s doubt. I’m talking about healthy doubt for the purpose of finding greater clarity and not doubt to excuse laziness or to hide behind. As I’m learning lately, not everyone has the ability to doubt in a healthy way. I submit that there are at least three ingredients needed to doubt through your presuppositions:

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