Function in Faith
My college degree is in mathematics (with a secondary education and computer science minor). With that, I spent my working career teaching high school mathematics at first and then being an actuary. So, you might say, I have some experience with mathematical concepts. Math doesn’t scare me.
This morning, my devotion included this:
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.” - 2 Peter 1:3-7, 10 ESV
So, with my background, I saw this and thought - Hey, this is a function. A function is like a box where you put something in and turn a crank and out pops something else. So, for example, multiplication is the function. When you put a 2 and a 3 in the multiplication box, out pops a 6.
As I read this passage from 2nd Peter, my biblical function starts with faith. When you add in virtue and then build on it with knowledge and then self-control and then steadfastness and then godliness and then brotherly affection and then love, what you get is not failing. Another description for not failing is winning.
In fact, Paul described his faith walk as a race…
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.”- 1 Corinthians 9:24 ESV
No where in the Bible, to the best of my knowledge, does it imply that your faith walk will be easy. And so, as I recall my mathematical education process, it started with addition and then expanded to include subtraction and then multiplication and then division. Next was the leap to using variables, or letters that represent an unknown number. Next was the leap to an even more abstract concepts of geometry, trigonometry and logarithms. Then even more abstract functions such as calculus, probability and statistics, and other specialized mathematical concepts. Finally, in advanced calculus, you, among other things, define what you mean by 2+2=4. The point is that these mathematical concepts all build and depend upon one another.
Years ago, I was teaching a college algebra class. I was working with an adult learner who was pursuing a nursing degree and needed some college credits in mathematics as part of her degree requirements. She was struggling with factoring polynomials. Part of the process involved finding what two numbers, when multiplied together, resulted in the starting number. The example I was working with her on required finding the factors of 49 (the answer is 1 & 49 and 7 & 7). I asked her what the factors of 49 were and she asked me to wait while she went to get her calculator. I told her to go back to her third grade teacher and demand a refund.
My point is that algebra demands, in order to be successful, a good grasp of arithmetic.
Likewise, your faith walk requires you to add skills to your faith to win the race.
