What is faith, really?
To answer that question, the Christian cannot escape Hebrews 11. The text for this Sunday deals with faith "more directly than any other text in the New Testament," according to biblical scholar Richard A. Spencer ("Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16," Interpretation, XLIX [July 1995], 288-292).
The dueling debate over this text among commentaries is whether or not it describes/defines faith or the future. If you are looking for a dictionary definition that fits faith into tidy, neat categories, you cannot find it here. But if you are looking for a description of life lived in relationship to God, and how people act who enjoy that relationship, then here it is.
Two schools of interpretation dominate the exegesis of Hebrews 11. Since Luther onward, the Protestant and eventually Rom…