[Darris McNeely] Hebrews chapter 11 is called the faith chapter in the Bible. It's one of those fascinating passages of scripture, not only because it talks about faith, but because it gives many clear, concrete examples of individuals from scripture who lived out their faith within their life. Verse 1 of Hebrews 11 says this, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen for by it the elders obtained a good testimony" (Hebrews 11:1). Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Faith in itself is one of the concepts that is a bit vague. It's perhaps a bit unclear, yet it's so important to our lives. And yet right here in the first verse Paul talks about faith having evidence, solid, concrete evidence of something that we can hang our life upon. And he goes into many examples to begin to explain that.

When you think about evidence, we usually think about a court of law where people bring forth evidence to prove their case, to convict someone of a wrongdoing.  And they'll bring a murder weapon, a gun, a knife, whatever it might be. And they'll lay that out as clear evidence to prove their particular case.

That's how we look at what is needed in order for matters to move forward in a court of law. God has evidence too of His existence, of a life that can be lived that is successful based on His laws. And God's evidence, Hebrews 11:1 tells us of things that are not seen is just as concrete and just as clear as this wood right here that frames this chalk board I'm writing on or this board in itself or this piece of chalk in my hand. Solid, concrete. God's evidence of His existence, of faith, and of actions that we are to take is very clear.

It's not something that we can always see and we can put on a table and we can measure and we can analyze in that way, but as chapter 11 goes on God brings out the evidence of things not seen through the actions of men and women who lived by faith, the same type of faith that you and I can live by whether it's Abraham, Noah, Abel, Enoch and Sarah and others.Their actions, their lives were concrete examples of faith and an evidence by which we can base our life upon. Faith is something very real. Faith is very important. We'll explore this in some future BT Dailies.

That's BT Daily for now. Join us next time.