Leap of Faith?
True pistis [faith-allegiance] is not an irrational launching into the void but a reasonable, action-oriented response grounded in the conviction that God’s invisible underlying realities are more certain than any apparent realities.
Stepping out in faith is not intrinsically good in and of itself, as if God is inherently more pleased with daring motorcycle riders than with automobile passengers who cautiously triple-check their seatbelt buckles; it is only good when it is an obedient response to God’s exercised sovereignty.
We are not to leap out in the dark at a whim, or simply to prove to ourselves, God, or others that we have “faith.” But the promise-keeping God might indeed call us to act on invisible realities of his heavenly kingdom.
If the call is genuine, we may indeed by bruised by the leap. Yet if it is genuine, in gathering the bruises from the hard landing, we can be certain that we will come to look more like the wounded Son, which is the final goal of redeemed humanity.
If the call is not genuine but an idolatrous response to a false god of our own making, we may jump into the emptiness only to find ourselves unable to gain secure footing or to reverse course.
True pistis is not an irrational leap in the dark but a carefully discerned response to God’s reign through Jesus over his kingdom and that kingdom’s frequently hidden growth — Matthew Bates, Salvation by Allegiance Alone, p. 20.
