DIONYSIA STILL SPEAKS

Jerusalem, 38 AD: Dionysia had lost control of a piece of property she owned, as a result of a local court ruling, and had appealed the case to a higher court in Alexandria,  sending her slave to Alexandria with a stone box containing the legal documents which would prove her claim of ownership.  Unfortunately, the slave lost his life in a fire which destroyed the inn where he had put up for the night.  For 2,000 years the sands of the desert covered the ruins of the inn, the charred bones of the slave and the stone box.  When archeologists, recently uncovered these remains, they read the note Dionysia had sent with her legal documents to the judge in Alexandria.  “In order that my lord and judge may know that my appeal is just, I attach my hypostasis”.  The legal documents which Dionysia referred to as her “hypostasis” were, in fact, the title deed to the disputed property, the evidence of her ownership.  “Hypostasis” is the Greek word translated “substance” in Hebrew 11:1, “ Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”,  and its technical meaning in the business world of the first century church was “title deed.” Three other words in this passage need clarification: Evidence (gr. elegchos) means demonstrated conviction, things (gr. pragma) means a thing done, and hoped (gr. eipizo) expresses continuous action. Heb. 11:1 literally translated: Now faith is the title deed of things already done and therefore continually hoped for, the demonstrated conviction of these things which are not yet being seen. God has already decreed “things” done in eternity and determined the timing for when they will appear in time.  Our faith is our title deed of ownership and is demonstrated by our conviction while we wait. This faith produces real hope, expectant desire, not a rash, feebly grounded wish or a dream of hope; not the child of a wish but a firm grasp on an unseen fact, making the unseen as real to us as the seen.  “For we walk by faith not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7).
 

NOW FAITH IS THE TITLE DEED