Two years ago while training for the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon I followed the directions in a book called, Four Months to a Four Hour Marathon. In the book were several benchmarks that were designed to help me gauge how well I was progressing in order to reach the goal of a four hour marathon.
Every month or so the book said I should be running such-and-such distance at such-and-such pace. And I tried to keep up. Having never been a runner it was not an easy task. I was grateful for the tests spread out in the book to help me judge how well I was progressing and I was amazed at how fast and long I could run. In the end I finished the Marathon at 5:17, but I was not too disappointed. It was the worst conditions they had ever had (47 degrees and raining, including some hail) and, as I said before, I am not a runner.
In the book of 2 Corinthians Paul talks a lot about the Corinthian Christians faith. The church in Corinth was having some problems. This whole faith in Jesus thing was new to them. They weren’t used to their new normal yet and were struggling to put their faith to practice in their daily lives. In the 13th chapter Paul encourages them to “Test” themselves to make sure they were “solid in the faith.” I think thought that was a good idea but was puzzled on what a good test for solid faith might look like.
If you were going to make a test to help someone determine if they were on solid ground in their faith walk what would you include? Would you want to see a lack of sin in their lives? Do you see a lack of sin in your own? Would you consider an addiction a disqualification for faith? What about language? Would you put church attendance or volunteerism on the list? What about Scripture memory? How would you gauge the Holy Spirit’s presence in a life? Before you consider writing such a test it would be beneficial to honestly look at your own life and consider where you might fall on your own test. My guess is that you and I would probably fail our own solid faith tests.
It just occurred to me that the church Paul was addressing didn’t even have “Scriptures” to memorize!
How hard must it have been to maintain faith in the first century? No Bible. You couldn’t turn the TV on at any hour of the night or day and watch a Sunday sermon or teaching. They didn’t have the Bible on CD or dramatic readings. They didn’t have denominations so it was difficult to know who was from where. And no Bible colleges or seminaries existed to pump out indoctrinated students of their particular brand of theology.
Here’s what they did have, every once in a while, an Apostle would come to town. In between those visits other disciples like Titus or Timothy might stop by. And they even got a letter once or twice a year from someone important. But in the case of Corinth (and probably every other place except Jerusalem) they had false teachers and faith abusers who infiltrated their church and tried to stir up trouble or take advantage of grace.
So what would YOUR faith test look like?
Here’s some ideas I’ve come up with…
• Can you say honestly that you believe Jesus is the Son of God and your Savior?
• Would you say that you are improving in the areas of: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control?
• Are you attempting to be in prayer-contact with your Father on a daily and continual basis?
• Are you able to recognize your own sin and seek repentance?
• Would those who don’t know you figure out that you are a Christian if you spent 30min talking with them?
How are you doing?
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