16-6-8 Loss of Faith in the Church
As wealth increased in the church, as they turned in on themselves, as they lost their focus upon grace, so in practice the church lost a real, basic faith. Reading through church literature about the resurrection of the Lord, it starts to get emphasized that people had touched Him or things connected with Him, and therefore believed. The 2nd century Epistula Apostolorum 11-12 speaks of how the disciples touched different parts of Jesus’ body and also His footprints, and therefore believed; Ignatius in his letter to the Smyrneans [3.2] says that those who touched Jesus were those who believed. This all stands in strange contrast to the way Thomas touched the Lord, in unjustified disbelief, and the Lord then pronounced a blessing on those who would believe without touching.
And we must ask ourselves, whether we today have much real faith, a mere grain of which can move mountains. Is not the temptation to trust in savings, technology etc., rather than in the God above?
