Faith versus “The Faith”

A woman I know keeps blowing my mind by doing things like throwing iftars at our church to celebrate the end of Ramadan with neighborhood Muslims. (And drawing a nice crowd.) Or brainstorming ways to love folks at the local housing project and suddenly finding herself running weeklong soccer camps for 90 kids. She has no problem with thinking big.

Many of you inspire me in just that way. One of you continually kicks tires of unexpected ways to kick off Jesus-based gatherings among secularists in your large city. Another finds yourself meeting powerful person after powerful person as you consider broad-based ways to stir up conversations about faith.

Not long ago I looked up every usage of the word "faith" in my English-language Bible. A couple surprises: (1) It's pretty much exclusively a New Testament concept; pretty much doesn't come up at all before that. (2) Even in the New Testament, it gets used in two different ways. In the synoptic gospels, faith is a thing—it's the stuff Jesus talks about all the time that either invites God's power or (because of its lack) repels God's power. Later in the New Testament, it becomes a body of belief, often called "the faith."

I'm not sure if there's any point to be made here about one fitting better in with Stage 4 and the other in Stage 2. But I do know that I gravitate more towards that Jesus-in-the-synoptic-gospels things, where our conversation is all about seeing astounding works of God as we develop our faith. I find myself less-interested in any sort of theological refining process, which is where we often seem to run with "the faith."

And, I don't know about you, but it seems to me I know lots and lots of awesome people who clearly, to my satisfaction, have whatever faith would be needed to go to heaven (they're clearly sincere), but who don't traffic in this synoptic-gospel "faith" that will get amazing things done.

Do you see a difference between "faith" and "the faith?" Do you gravitate more towards one than the other? (I'm not arguing that both don't have a place—they're both most definitely in the New Testament. I'm just talking on an emotional level.) Why? What have you learned as you've tried to make strides in "faith?"