In chapter 4 of the Book of Amos, verses 1-3 are talking about people who pervert the truths of the church. They will fall into falsities in outermost things.

In the Bible, fish represent "lower" things than mammals, so we can interpret the fishhooks in verse 2 as meaning being caught and held fast in natural or lower things.

Verses 4-6 are about acts of worship such as tithes and sacrifices. These look similar to genuine worship, but are only external sorts of things. We can tell because ‘teeth’ (in verse 6) represent ultimates or outermost things (see Secrets of Heaven 6380). It follows that “cleanness of teeth” would mean outermost things that look good but only imitate genuine worship. The Lord exhorts, “Yet you have not returned to me.”

Verses 7-8. Some things true will remain, when where there are too many false ideas, the truths don't get through. This can be seen where the Lord says, “I made it rain on one city; I withheld rain from another city... where it did not rain the part withered.” Again the Lord exhorts, “Yet you have not returned to me.”

Verse 9. Afterward all things of the church are falsified, shown by blight attacking the gardens, vineyards, fig tree and olive trees. The last three represent spiritual, natural and celestial things, or all the things of spiritual life. “Yet you have not returned to me,” says the Lord.

Verses 10-11. The Lord explains the devastating things he allowed to happen: plague in Egypt, death of young men by swords, stench in the camps, Sodom and Gomorrah. This is because they are profaned by sensual knowledges. Profanation means the mixing of good and evil together. (See Secrets of Heaven 1001[2]).

This extends to all things of the church, with the church being the Lord’s kingdom on earth (Secrets of Heaven 768[3]).

With profanation “as soon as any idea of what is holy arises, the idea of what is profane joins immediately to it,” (Secrets of Heaven 301).

Now there is hardly anything left. “Yet you have not returned to Me,” says the Lord again.

Verses 12-13: Because people adamantly remain in their profane ways, they are warned, “Prepare to meet your God!”. This is the God powerful and mighty, “who forms mountains, and creates the wind,” and even more close to home, “Who declares to man what his thought is.” As intimately a knowing as that is, the Lord’s love for all humanity is contained in His exhortations for them to turn themselves to Him.

See, for example, Luke 6:44-45, and True Christian Religion 373.

“Faith” technically means “belief,” but it has taken on a thick layer of emotional import in the modern world, at least in terms of religion. Many people could happily entertain intellectual questions about what we believe to be true, but if those questions touch on our “faith” then they suddenly become an “attack.” We also use “faith” to describe the connection we can feel with God during emotionally charged worship services. This idea also filters through to secular uses: when we express “faith” that our favorite football team can win a game, that’s more of an emotional statement than an intellectual one.

One reason for that emotional content may be that Christian churches adopted the word “faith” to mean “accepting something as true even though it can’t be seen or understood.” For instance, the idea that God is one, divided into three persons without being divided. This defies reason, but Christians have long been called on to accept it as a “mystery of faith.” The idea that God the Father is completely loving, but that He requires the blood sacrifice and pleading of Jesus to let anyone into heaven is equally confounding, but is also an article of faith. Since it’s basically impossible to see the truth in these ideas from our minds, we have to simply believe them in our hearts, which makes them into emotional issues.

Swedenborg, however, uses “faith” in a more traditional sense, defining it as “an internal acknowledgement of truth.” That has some connection to the Christian concept of faith - it is truth seen and acknowledged, not necessarily truth that has been reasoned out and proven logically. But it’s not truth that defies logic; instead it is truth that is plain on its face.

Swedenborg is also clear that faith must include charity, or the desire and actual act of doing good to others, and that both act together to be complete. For us too, it is helpful to link faith with faithfulness, to God and to what we do. Swedenborg is consistently opposed to faith-alone: faith that lacks charity and good works.

For reference, and further reading, here are some key sections from Swedenborg's capstone theological work: True Christian Religion 337, 339, 344, 348, 355, 373, 393.

(Odkazy: Teachings about Faith 27, The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding Faith 1, 4, 11, 13, 18, 24, 25)