Entirely different is the prevailing attitude in the modern Church; far from recognizing, as the author of Hebrews does, the intellectual basis of faith, many modern preachers set faith in sharp opposition to knowledge.

Christian faith, they say, is not assent to a creed, but it is confidence in a person.

The Epistle to the Hebrews on the other hand declares that it is impossible to have confidence in a person without assenting to a creed. 'He that cometh to God must believe that he is.'

The words, 'God is,' or 'God exists,' constitute a creed; they constitute a proposition; and yet they are here placed as necessary to that supposedly non-intellectual thing that is called faith.

It would be impossible to find a more complete opposition than that which here appears between the New Testament and the anti-intellectualistic tendency of modern preaching.

— J. Gresham Machen, 'What is Faith?'

This is a great reminder of Amos... “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “When I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the Lord. “People will stagger from sea to sea And from the north even to the east; They will go to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, But they will not find it. - Amos 8:11,12 NASB