{"id":1738,"date":"2022-04-21T01:16:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T01:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=1738"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:34:11","slug":"secondhand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=1738","title":{"rendered":"SECONDHAND"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An old high school classmate of mine posted about his adult son on Facebook: &#8220;<i>I am really not a religious person, but my son could use all the prayers he can get. He has just entered a rehabilitation center.<\/i>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s heartbreaking. Not only because of all the pain and destruction which addiction brings, but even more because this man seems to grasp on some level that faith holds the key.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the key is not in his hand. He is left to summon secondhand faith.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It seems to me an indictment of the church that my old friend has no idea that authentic Christian faith offers exactly what he desires for his son: the breaking of bondage to sin followed by an actual desire AND ability to live a new, righteous life.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is doubtful the radical transformation my friend desires for his son could come apart from the power of God. I fear neither of them will find it in a culture of discount Christianity.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I will pray, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But will secondhand faith suffice for this father or his son?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An old high school classmate of mine posted about his adult son on Facebook: &#8220;I am really not a religious person, but my son could use all the prayers he can get. He has just entered a rehabilitation center.&#8220; It&#8217;s heartbreaking. Not only because of all the pain and destruction which addiction brings, but even [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1739,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions\/1739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}