re help in article apr geneva rutgers edu lmvec westminster ac uk william hargreaves writes i m a commited christian that is battling with a problem i know that romans talks about how we are saved by our faith not our deeds yet hebrews and james say that faith without deeds is useless saying you fools do you still think that just believing is enough actually i don t think there is any conflict if we really understand what these passages say first what is faith if you study the meaning of the greek and hebrew words so translated i think you will come to the conclusion that the word means a lot more than mere belief faith means both trust and action if you do not put your belief into action it simply cannot qualify as faith i think this is what james means when he says that faith without works is dead and i will show you my faith by my works remember james was writing to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad this probably means he was writing to those who would hear the gospel much later and wouldn t understand the meaning of the original greek indeed i suspect james was writing to us today among others he intended to reach paul on the other hand wrote mostly to the people of the roman empire who generally understood the meaning of the greek another key to why there is no conflict is to look at paul s statements in their context i think you will find that when paul contrasts faith and works it is in the context of comparing the gospel with the law meaning the law of moses this was the great burden of paul s life as the apostle to the gentiles he would go convert a bunch of people then the judizers would come along and try to convince them that they also had to obey the law of moses cf acts chapter in this context paul condemns the idea of being saved by the works of the law saying that we are saved by the blood of jesus and our faith in him i believe that a better translation for today would be that we are saved by faithfulness i think faithfulness today has a meaning closer to what the original writers intended now if someone is fully believing but there life is totally lead by themselves and not by god according to romans that person is still saved by there faith i think you misunderstand romans what paul is really saying is that god prefers a faithful gentile who does not keep kosher to a kosher jew who fails to stay faithful in the more important matters of following the lord and having charity toward his fellows but then there is the bit which says that god preferes someone who is cold to him i e doesn t know him condemned so a lukewarm christian someone who knows and believes in god but doesn t make any attempt to live by the bible in the sense of faith described above you cannot have real faith and be lukewarm if you know god but are lukewarm unfaithful you are worse off than the person who never heard of him remember jesus in the parable of the pearl of great price mat and again in the one on the treasure hidden in the field mat indicates that the price of the kingdom of god is all we have i agree with you in general including the fact that pistis has some of the force of faithful however if you take that too far you can end up with something that paul definitely would not have intended being faithful means following god in all things to say that we are saved by being faithful is very close to saying that we are saved by commiting no sins i assume that s not what you meant i have almost given up on finding a specific verbal formula that completely captures this however i think paul is describing what i d call a basic orientation including aspects such as trust and commitment jesus speaks of it as rebirth which implies a basic change we may still do things that are sinful and may fail to show the new life in christ in many situations where we should but in any christian there had better be the basic change in orientation that jesus calls being born again clh
