What if we just exhaust the subject on faith till the next day? What do you think?

Mark 4:39-40 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?

By now it should be easy to see that Jesus rebukes the disciples for a lack of trust and loyalty, which by this time he should have justly earned from them, having already shown his miraculous powers and wisdom.

Mark 6:5-6 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

We've seen a lot of skeptics quote this verse lately, saying that it indicates that Jesus was a charlatan who (like our modern "faith healer" Benny) needed people to have "faith" and excused away ability to heal real diseases as a lack of faith. The word "unbelief" here is apistia, meaning a lack of pistis.

In light of our better understanding of pistis, the problem is indeed not with Jesus but with the lack of loyalty and trust by those who reject Jesus. Like the ungrateful client in the client-patron relationship, the people rejected Jesus as a patron in spite of his acts of grace, thereby dishonoring him. (Note how this affects the meaning of Mark 6:4: "A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.") To reject a gracious act was the height of dishonor.

Jesus could not heal these people not because of a lack of power, but because of ingratitude and a rejection of his gracious patronage. A rejected patron could and would never force his gracious gifts upon a client who didn't want them!

Finally we look at this most-often misbused use of pistis by Skeptics who prefer the Twain definition:

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Blind faith? Not at all. The list that follows offers examples of people who had been given undeniable proof of God's existence and power. Pistis here is a matter of trust in a God who has demonstrated His ability to be a worthy patron, and the examples are those of clients who, knowing this ability, trust in God's record as a patronal provider.

Hebrews 11:1 therefore is telling us that faith (trust in our patron, gained by conviction based on evidence) is the substance (the word here means an assurance, as in a setting under, a concrete essence or an abstract assurance) of things hoped for (this word means expected by trust, which is something earned!), and the evidence of that which is not seen, which in context means we expect, based on past performance, continuing favor from our patron, who has already proven Himself worthy of our trust by example, and this trust is our confidence in the fulfillment of future promises.

Blind faith? No -- it is faith grounded in reality.

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With these things in mind, let's now look back at our case examples and see where they go wrong.

A "faith healer" named Benny Pophagin offers to heal Joe of his lumbago. Benny lays hands on Joe and prays, but the lumbago remains. Benny waves Joe away, saying, "This is your problem. You don't have enough faith."

As Mark 6:5 shows, Benny is full of bologna. Anyone who trusts God already has all the "faith" they need. What Benny misses is the central truth that this trust is not something giving us carte blanche to get everything we want. What we do get remains in the patron's good grace.

A Christian faces several objections to his beliefs that he cannot answer. He says, "I don't care what people say, I still have faith."

Our Christian probably does have "faith" even by the right definition -- but it needs to be grounded in something firm and not held blindly.

The famous skeptic Mark Twain said, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."

Like our friend Benny, Twain was badly misinformed. "Faith" is believing what you know to be true and trustworthy. Once again, one may argue about whether the evidence is indeed trustworthy, but contextually it remains that true faith is far, far from blind.

In conclusion: If you as a Christian have held one or more of these views of faith, we offer this in humbleness as a corrective. Your faith does not have to be, and was never intended to be, a blind trust -- not in God, and not as something you hold even in opposition.

A reader summed it up well:

"If our faith was supposed to be blind and not grounded in evidence, then there is no reason for God to reveal anything. There would be no reason for Jesus to perform miracles for all to see, or no reason for Jesus to teach things about the Kingdom of Heaven, no reason for Jesus to appear to his disciples after h