The faith of Pharaoh

Yikes, it's 5:00 Sunday night and I haven't written a word yet! But, knowing the THOUSANDS who would be on suicide watch this week if I don't post any fresh insights, I'm gonna go ahead and try.

I was listening (I work for an audio Bible company, remember) to Hebrews 11 - you know, the chapter sometimes called the "hall of faith" b/c it lists hero after hero and the crazy things they did b/c God told them to. It gets to the part about the Israelites crossing the Red Sea on dry ground, and how when the Egyptians tried it they drowned. And it commends the Israelites for their faith. Somehow that struck me as odd, and then I started thinking about what faith is and what it isn't.

I'm sure you know the story. The Israelites are fleeing Egypt, they've reached the Red Sea, don't have any boats and the Egyptians are about to catch them and haul them back to slavery (or maybe kill them). The people start worrying and complaining (as I'm pretty sure I would have), Moses touches the water and it divides in two.

Now, clearly this was a stunning development. As everyone in the world knows (unless you live in Albuquerque where there is no water) water doesn't just STOP and form a wall in mid air. I'm sure the people were pretty freaked out, but they go in anyway and get away. But think about that for a second. How much faith did that really take? They could see the dry ground in front of them, and they could either walk on it or stay put and get captured. I'm sure some were nervous, but once the first few people made it thru the rest could see that it was safe.

I'm sorry, but somehow this goes against my image of what faith is. Don't we think of faith of being something that we use in the absence of any evidence that it's the right thing to do or that it will work it? (Like Abraham sacrificing Isaac) I'll get back to this.

Secondly, the Egyptians can see the Israelites crossing on dry ground. Again, I'm sure they're freaked out (then again, after everything they just went through in Egypt maybe they were just sitting there thinking "of course the sea opened up for them. Why not?") At any rate, they can see that it worked for the Israelites so they figure they may as well go for it too. And, of course it doesn't work for them and they all die.

So my question is this: What made the "faith" of the Israelites better than that of the Egyptians? Seriously. They both saw dry ground where it shouldn't have been. Saw people crossing on that dry ground and decided to do the same thing. So what's the difference?

I think the answer has to do with what faith really is, and for this I look at Romans 4. Verse 3 says "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." But verse 9 says "faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness." Get it? Faith = Believing God. Those terms appear to be interchangeable in Paul's mind. To me, that can mean believing God when it sorta makes sense to (as in "the guy in front of me didn't drowned, so I'll try it too") as well as when it makes no sense at all ("sure I'll kill my son. Just tell me where and when.")

I like that. It makes faith less mysterious, and something I can wrap my brain around. It also means that I live by faith everyday whether I know it or not. For example, when I confess my sin I have faith that I am forgiven (1 John 1:9) even if I don't feel like it. When I give 10% of my hard-earned cash for what the IRS calls "no tangible benefit" I am exercising faith by believing what God says about tithing. I pray b/c I believe that God hears me (even though I often have no proof).

I also like that because it means a Christian's faith is grounded in something - what God says. In fact, it must be grounded in what God says. I made the point earlier that the Egyptians had as much faith as the Israelites ("the ground is dry, what the heck, let's try it") but their faith was only in what they saw and not in God. God never promised the Egyptians that they'd be spared. I don't blame them for thinking that since it worked for the Israelites it would work for them too. But their faith wasn't in what anything God had said to them so it failed. I see implications there for the "hyper-faith" doctrines (both inside and outside of Christianity) that teach faith in and of itself is all that matters. Having faith in mind-power or whatever else is no different in my mind than having faith in God doing something for us that He never said He'd do.

I'll have to come up with some catchy sign-off phrase, but for now I'll just say "Guess that's it for this time."