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a. Holman defines FAITH: Trusting commitment of one person to another, particularly of a person to God. Faith is the central concept of Christianity. One may be called a Christian only if one has faith.
i. Holman adds: Our English word “faith” comes from the Latin fides, as developed through the Old French words fei and feid. In Middle English (1150-1475) “faith” replaced a word that eventually evolved into “belief.” “Faith” came to mean “loyalty to a person to whom one is bound by promise or duty.” Faith was fidelity. “Belief” came to be distinguished from faith as an intellectual process having to do with the acceptance of a proposition. The verb form of “faith” dropped out of English usage toward the end of the sixteenth century.
The Prodigal Son in the Key of F
Feeling footloose and frisky, a feather-brained fellow forced his father
to fork over his farthings. Fast he flew to foreign fields and
frittered his family’s fortune, feasting fabulously with floozies and
faithless friends. Flooded with flattery he financed a full-fledged
fling of "funny foam" and fast food.
Fleeced by his fellows in folly, facing famine, and feeling faintly
fuzzy, he found himself a feed-flinger in a filthy foreign farmyard.
Feeling frail and fairly famished, he fain would have filled his frame
with foraged food from the fodder fragments.
"Fooey," he figured, "my father’s flunkies fare far fancier," the
frazzled fugitive fumed feverishly, facing the facts. Finally,
frustrated from failure and filled with foreboding (but following his
feelings) he fled from the filthy foreign farmyard.
Faraway, the father focused on the fretful familiar form in the field
and flew to him and fondly flung his forearms around the fatigued
fugitive. Falling at his father’s feet, the fugitive floundered
forlornly, "Father, I have flunked and fruitlessly forfeited family
favor."
Finally, the faithful Father, forbidding and forestalling further
flinching, frantically flagged the flunkies to fetch forth the finest
fatling and fix a feast.
Faithfully, the father’s first-born was in a fertile field fixing fences
while father and fugitive were feeling festive. The foreman felt
fantastic as he flashed the fortunate news of a familiar family face
that had forsaken fatal foolishness. Forty-four feet from the farmhouse
the first-born found a farmhand fixing a fatling.
Frowning and finding fault, he found father and fumed, "Floozies and
foam from frittered family funds and you fix a feast following the
fugitive’s folderol"? The first-born’s fury flashed, but fussing was
futile. The frugal first-born felt it was fitting to feel "favored" for
his faithfulness and fidelity to family, father, and farm. In foolhardy
fashion, he faulted the father for failing to furnish a fatling and
feast for his friends. His folly was not in feeling fit for feast and
fatling for friends; rather his flaw was in his feeling about the
fairness of the
festival for the found fugitive.
His fundamental fallacy was a fixation on favoritism, not forgiveness.
Any focus on feeling "favored" will fester and friction will force the
frayed facade to fall. Frankly, the father felt the frigid first-born’s
frugality of forgiveness was formidable and frightful. But the father’s
former faithful fortitude and fearless forbearance to forgive both
fugitive and
first-born flourishes.
The farsighted father figured, "Such fidelity is fine, but what forbids
fervent festivity for the fugitive that is found? Unfurl the flags and
finery, let fun and frolic freely flow. Former failure is forgotten,
folly is forsaken. Forgiveness forms the foundation for future
fortune."
Four facets of the father’s fathomless fondness for faltering fugitives
are:
1) Forgiveness
2) Forever faithful friendship
3) Fadeless love, and
4) A facility for forgetting flaws
by Timothy E. Fulop
Timothy E. Fulop is Assistant Dean of Faculty, Columbia Theological Seminary
"A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down."
Listen to this news clipping. “Gambling, robbery, sexual immorality, and violence is prevalent. Half of all children are born out of wedlock; purity and fidelity to the marriage vow are sneered out of fashion. Corruption in politics is rampant. The world is broken.” This clipping is from 1694.
It was in this time that John Wesley began preaching to the poor, a message of new life through the free grace of Christ. His message was one of assurance and the power of the Spirit. He taught that while sin remained it could not reign. In addition to a great preacher Wesley was an organizer, and those who accepted Jesus as Lord where put into bands. In these bands people strived to put scripture into practice and they called it holiness. Wesley had a great deal of observers, but his goal was to bring them to obedience of Christ<...
"Fidelity to the public requires that the laws be as plain and explicit as possible, that the less knowing may understand, and not be ensnared by them, while the artful evade their force."
Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.
"Great opportunities come to all, but many do not know they have met them. The only preparation to take advantage of them is simple fidelity to what each day brings."
A FATHER'S ROLE
James Dobson and Gary Bauer in their book Children at Risk articulate the importance of the father’s leadership and his role in the children’s emotional development and moral education: “Fathers must be there to tame adolescent boys, to give a young son a sense of what I means to be a man, and to explain why honor and loyalty and fidelity are important. For daughters, a father is a source of love and comfort that can help her avoid surrendering her virtue in a fruitless search...
"The condition of our hearts, the openness of our attitudes, the quality of our competence, the fidelity of our experience these give vitality to the work experience and meaning of life."
SermonCentral Staff
NOT A VOICE, BUT A LIFE
The late great Presbyterian clergyman and hymnist, Rev. Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1858 - 1901) once wrote:
"Christianity is not a voice in the wilderness but a life in the world. It is not an idea in the air but feet on the ground, going [Almighty] God's way. It is not an exotic to be kept under glass, but a hardy plant to bear twelve monts of fruits in all kinds of weather. Fidelity to duty is its root and branch. Nothing we can say to the Lord, no calling Him by great or dear names, can take the place of the plain doing of His will. We may cry out about the beauty of of eating bread with Him in His Kingdom, but it is wasted breath and a rootless hope, unless we plow and plant in His Kingdom here and now. To remember Him at His table and to forget Him at ours, is to have invested in bad securities. There is no substitute for plain, every-day goodness."
The late great writer of religious and inspirational poetry, Helen Steiner Rice (1900 - 1981), once wrote: "Show me the way, not to fortune or fame, not to win laurels or praise for my name...But show me the way to spread the great story that Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory."
We need to forget "political correctness" and concentrate on ways to spread the "Good News" to all people!
("Hymn Writers of the Christian Church," by Mildred C. Whittemore, c1963: Carroll E. Whittemore, published, London, England: Hodder and Stoughton Limited, p. 5. From a sermon by George Dillahunty, "A Politically Correct Gospel?")
