You Can Have TRUE FAITH

"Faith Follows the Thing Heard"

It is not enough, however, simply to have a Bible or even to believe that it is inspired.   "Faith," writes the apostle Paul,  "follows the thing heard."  (Romans 10:17)  Hearing the Bible,  not just having  a Bible, is what builds faith.  You "hear" what God has to say by reading and studying his Word.  Even young ones can do this.  Paul says that "from infancy"  Timothy was taught "the holy writings" by his mother and grandmother.  Does this suggest that some king of brainwashing was involved?  No!  Timothy was not manipulated or deceived in any way. He was "persuaded to believe"   what was heard and read. -2 Timothy 1:5; 3:14, 15.

Sarah Jayne became persuaded in the same way.  Like the first-century Beroeans, she "received the word [from her parents and other teachers] with the greatest eagerness of mind."  As a little child, she no doubt put instinctive trust in what her parents told her.  Later, as she grew up, she did not just blindly or passively accept everything she was taught.  She 'carefully examined the Scriptures daily as to whether these things were so.' -Acts 17:11.

Next time: You Can Build True Faith

Watchtower, 2001

You Can Have TRUE FAITH

When Sarah Jayne was 19, she learned that she had ovarian cancer.  Following surgery, she felt good and was optimistic about the future.  So optimistic, in fact, that when she was 20, she got engaged and began to make plans for her wedding.  That same year the cancer returned, and she learned that she had weeks to live.  Sarah Jayne died in June 2000, just before she turned 21.


WHAT impressed visitors to Sarah Jayne's bedside in the hospital was her calm  confidence about the future, along with her deep faith in God and his Word, the Bible.  Despite the terrible tragedy she was facing, she was sure of the resurrection hope-that she would see all her friends again.  (John 5:28, 29)  "I will see all of you in God's new world," she said.

Some dismiss that kind of faith as delusional.  "What else is the afterlife but a belief among the insecure," asks Ludovic Kennedy,  "that at the last trump there will be cakes and ale, even caviar and trumpets for them too, that in some leafy Eden they will share happy hours with those who have good before and others who may well come after?   To that, we must raise a counter question.  Which is more reasonable-to believe that  "this life is all we have, so we had better make the most of it," as Kennedy suggests, or to believe in God and his promise of a resurrection?  Sarah Jayne chose the latter.  How did she develop such faith?

Next time: "Seek God . . . and Really Find Him"

Watchtower, 2001