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Faith- Hebrews 11 Part 1

It's been a little while, but I got the idea to go through chapter 11 of Hebrews and go a bit in depth on each verse and person mentioned in the chapter. And so because I have some free time for summer I thought I would start. I'm not sure how long it will take or how in depth I may go on different days but I'm going to start. 


So here we go...


Chapter 11 verse 1 says, "Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen." (HCSB). 


Another translation says, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (ESV).


The King James Version says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."


Each of these versions uses different words. The English Standard Version uses a word that I wasn't quite sure of the definition so I decided to look it up. Conviction is a sense of guilt and shame leading to repentance. The Hebrew word yakah expresses the idea of conviction. It means "to argue", "to prove", and "to correct".  The Greek term elencho means "to convict" or "to refute". Conviction for sin is the result of the Holy Spirit awakening humanity to a sense of guilt. All these facts are from the HCSB Bible Dictionary.


Verse 2 says, "For by it [faith] our ancestors were approved." (HCSB).
This verse shows us that before Jesus came people were saved by faith that he was coming.


Verse 3 says, "By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible." (ESV). 
We may not know all the answers to how or why God created the earth as he did, but by faith we can know and believe that it was in fact God who created the world out of nothing. (Genesis 1-2:3)


I hope that by reading this you got something out of it. I hope I didn't just ramble. I'm still new to this whole blog thing, so I'm hoping to improve as I go. Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading.


In God, Emily

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