Dear Theophilus

Healing the royal official's son  by Joseph-Marie Vien, 1752 (Wiki) the text: John 4:43-54 When the two days were over, he went from that place to Galilee (for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in the prophet’s own country). When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival; for they too had gone to the festival. Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.’ The official said to him, ‘Sir, come down before my little boy dies.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your son will live.’ The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. As he was go...

I have been noticing more and more this week that my friends are talking about "believing in God." Usually I think this discussion is a great thing, but lately I have been wondering if it is actually good at all. Somewhere, in the mix of all the science and philosophy, enlightenment and post-modernism, "faith" has been merged with "belief." And, to be fair, I am sure belief is a part of faith somehow. But where the sacred scriptures talk about "faith in God" they rarely mean "belief in God." My sense is that the Bible spends little to no time at all talking about belief in God. And since we have a desire to talk about religion in dichotomies, theists vs. atheists, I feel that we are missing some key aspects about faith. The simplest possible meaning for faith is trust. Let that sink in.... .... .... ... can you already feel it? "I believe in God" is radically different than "I trust God." Isn't it?  But t...