Day 148: Knowledge without Faith

Acts 26:1-8 :

Then Paul stretched out his hand, and made his defense. “I think myself happy, King Agrippa, that I am to make my defense before you this day concerning all the things that I am accused by the Jews, especially because you are expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews. Therefore I beg you to hear me patiently.

“Indeed, all the Jews know my way of life from my youth up, which was from the beginning among my own nation and at Jerusalem; having known me from the first, if they are willing to testify, that after the strictest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee. Now I stand here to be judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers, which our twelve tribes, earnestly serving night and day, hope to attain. Concerning this hope I am accused by the Jews, King Agrippa! Why is it judged incredible with you, if God does raise the dead?

It is alarming that sometimes, the very things that people claim to believe at church, they forget when the leave it. A person can go to church and talk about believing in the Bible and then have a problem with a six day creation, resurrection from the dead or the virgin birth. This kind of inconsistency shows that our “faith” is more like “momentary thinking.” Real faith shows through action, because faith means that we really believe what we say we believe. Faith isn’t like a club membership. Our actions reveal what we really believe no matter what we know.

Paul tells us in his statement that King Agrippa was an “expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews.” He was aware of what the Jews believed but had evidently chosen to take sides with the Sadducees. Even though he was educated, it was still “incredible with” him that God would “raise the dead.” There is a lesson in this for us today. Mere knowledge of the Bible isn’t enough to save anyone. What is required is belief in what it says. It doesn’t make sense to try to separate the supernatural from the Bible because we would rather not believe in it. We should accept and believe what God says and doubt what we think. That is true faith.