Our text for this morning is from II Timothy. I have to say up front that II Timothy is not considered by biblical scholars to be one of the great masterpieces of biblical literature. Some have even raised the question of why it is there at all. The main problem that they have with it is its conservatism. It defines faith as holding on to the past. By the time II Timothy was written, faith had become a tradition. Faith is now a set of doctrines. In other words, faith had become a noun. It's "The Faith."

In the rest of the Bible, faith is always a verb. Faith is going on an adventure. The very first example of faith we have is in the Book of Genesis, the example of Abraham and Sarah leaving their comfortable existence to go on a journey to a Promised Land, promised to them by a God they ca…