The Power Of Unfeigned Faith

2. As relating to God it is the conviction that God exists and is the creator and ruler of all things, the provider and bestower of eternal salvation through Christ. In my research I discovered that this is the word used for faith in the entire chapter of Hebrews 11.

3. As relating to Christ it is a strong and welcome conviction or belief that Jesus is the Messiah, through whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God.

4. It refers to the religious beliefs of Christians. A body of truth that we be-lieve in and teach to be the truth. This is also the same word used in Jude 3 where the writer said, “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common sal-vation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should ear-nestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”

2. Consider second of all the word unfeigned.

a. The greek word is anupokritos (pronounced an-oo-pok’-re-tos) and means unfeigned, undisguised, sincere. It has the idea of an undiluted faith.

b. In my study I compared other translations and discovered that the NIV uses the word sincere and the NKJV uses the word genuine. The Webster’s dictionary defines unfeigned as sincere and genuine. The KJV uses the word unfeigned which in this in-stance encompasses the full definition of the word as being both sincere and genuine. I believe it takes both qualities to successfully raise a generation to accept the faith that we believe in and trust in.

c. To understand the full meaning of unfeigned let’s look at the opposite word which is feigned. According to the Webster’s dictionary feigned means pretended; sham; counterfeit; assumed; fictitious.

d. So the implication that Paul is saying concerning the kind of faith that was passed on to Timothy is that it was not a counterfeit faith or a faith that someone made up but it really is a genuine and sincere faith.

B. If we are going to pass on this faith to the next generation then we must experience it first. There are two qualities that I believe following generations observe in our lives as we attempt to pass on unfeigned faith to them. Those qualities are found in the definition of the word unfeigned and they are genuine and sincere. Succeeding generations are looking for genuineness and sincerity in those who have preceded them. Let’s consider the two words genuine and sincere is an effort to understand how this is passed on to the next generation.

1. According to the Webster’s dictionary the word genuine means possessing the claimed character, quality, or origin; not counterfeit; authentic; real. And the word sin-cere according to the Webster’s dictionary means free of deceit, hypocrisy, or falseness.

a. People are looking for something that is real. People are looking to see if you possess what you say you possess. Because there are so many things that are being done today in the name of religion people really want to know if you are authentic, if you have that quality that makes you distinct from everything else in the religious world today.