In A Word: Pisteuo (I Believe)
In A Word: Pisteuo (I Believe)
CAUTION. In this era of amazing advances in technology, there are sometimes unexpected consequences that turn out to be harmful to our Christian faith. One of these harmful improvements is the flood of believers who read scripture online, on the smart phone, on the computer screen. I’m convinced there should be a warning label on every one of the online Bibles… CAUTION: SKIM AT YOUR OWN RISK. So many of us now read the Word like we would read our emails or social media or the daily news. We skim the material hurriedly, superficially, carelessly. We skim the Scripture. Skim-reading the Bible doesn’t really bury the seed very deeply, of course. And in our skimming, we would be more likely to just skip over an important word or phrase without thinking, a word that could be vital to the whole passage. The fact is, the Bible is full of single words or short phrases that are too important to simply gloss over as if it wasn’t there. There are times in the Word when single words are intended to feed us, nourish our faith, stimulate us to think at a deeper level about the biblical text.
There are single words in Scripture that are like stop signs asking us to stop and consider carefully, to pause before moving forward in the reading. This series on my blog will try to unpack some of these power-packed words or phrases in Scripture… Words like: Behold; Rejoice; Truly; Woe; Blessed; Beware; Come; If. And I will attempt to also explore the meanings of some short phrases that are single words in the original biblical language, such as “Himeni” (Here I am); “Shema” (Listen and Do’); “Splagchnizonai” (deeply moved with compassion); “pistence” (believe), and “kal-v’chomer” (How much more). If it is poetically possible to “see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower, and hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour,” as William Blake once imagined, then certainly we readers of Scripture can find a world of meaning in a single word, we can grasp something profound in a simple phrase.
“I believe! Help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).
The father’s heartfelt and candid statement of faith has stood the test of time. It is a cry from the heart, a cry of imperfect faith. And it is the common refrain on every believer’s mind if we are honest with ourselves. There is always, always, a shred of unbelief in a Christian’s faith, no matter the level of spiritual maturity. There are constant challenges to one’s faith. Sometimes during a bout of suffering, doubts threaten to make a mockery of belief. Sometimes the presence of sin in and around us bring us moments of legitimate self-suspicion and questions of God’s sovereignty. Sometimes there are questions that only God can answer, and He seems to be quiet, so we seem to be walking in the dark. Doubts can be redemptive, however. A person with no questions or doubts just may not be engaging in the type of thinking that is needed to build a strong faith.
As novelist Frederick Buechner once put it, doubts can be ants in the pants of faith…. They keep it alive and moving. In this story, the father, reflecting his apprehensive doubts, said to Jesus, “If you can do anything...” Jesus replied quickly to the father with “If? What do you mean if? Of course I can do something! All kinds of things are possible to anyone who truly believes.” The father’s honest, realistic statement grounds us in the type of transparency Jesus loves. I believe in you, Lord. Help me where I struggle with that belief. Help me use my doubts to strengthen my faith. Help me when I am weak and my faith seems small and inadequate. Help me when I don’t fully trust you. Help me during my weak moments, when I have experiences that challenge my faith. Help me in my unbelief. But I only come to you, Lord, because the bottom line is I truly believe in you.
I Believe (from the Greek word, Pistis): I faithfully trust in; I have loyal faith in; I am persuaded to rely upon; I have full confidence in; I am convinced of the truth of; I entrust my well-being to. The Amplified Bible translates “Pistis” as meaning “that leaning of the entire personality on God in absolute trust and confidence.”
A Description of Pistis from Hebrews 11:1: Trusting in the reality of what we hope for, and accepting what we need to prove the unseen; Being convinced of what is needed to bring our hopes into reality; Being fully persuaded that something is real even if we don’t see it; Accepting as real fact what is not revealed to the senses; Trusting in the hopes of our unseen foundation; Being confident of what we hope for, and convinced about things we do not see.
“It is impossible to please God, or be well-pleasing in His sight, without faithfully trusting in Him.” (Hebrews 11:6).
Faith Requires Imagination and Examples: On the one hand, is it even possible to develop any faith at all unless one has a vivid imagination? The faithful are called upon to trust in the invisible, that the unseen is more real than the seen! To trust in God requires us to rely on the invisible reality of God! A true believer leans into the unseen arms of the Lord, and trust in His spiritual presence. To trust in God is to take God at His Word, sight unseen. This includes our eventual destiny, too. Our heavenly future in the New Kingdom is in the unseen world, and a person with faith continues to be convinced of the reality of that destiny. We need to grow in developing a vivid imagination, a sanctified imagination, baptized in the Holy Spirit. But on the other hand, perhaps everything isn’t unseen after all… Each believer is being seen, right? So each believer helps to prove the unseen power of God. Each follower is intended to make Jesus visible and thus prove the unseen. Each believer is to reveal God’s presence and power, and by doing so making the unseen God more visible to the world.
The Apostles’ Creed (youtube.com)
Faith in the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew word for faith in the First Testament is “Emunah,” which usually means faithfulness, and has overtones of steady endurance, loyalty, stability, and of course, faith. It is significant that the first time Emunah is used in the Hebrew Bible is in Exodus 17:12 at the scene of the first battle in the wilderness after their rescue from Egypt. “Joshua did what Moses ordered in order to fight Amalek. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went to the top of the hill. It turned out that whenever Moses raised his hands, Israel was winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, Amalek was winning. But Moses’ hands got tired. So they got a stone and set it under him. He sat on it and Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on each side. So his hands remained steady (emunah) until the sun went down. Joshua defeated Amalek and its army in battle.” The Hebrew word for faithfulness, or faith, is rooted in its original word of Amen, which means “Truth.” So it appears that the Hebrew vision of faith, is more like a faithful endurance in the truth, a steady firmness in living in the truth.
“In Christ Jesus, the most important aspect is faith (pistis) expressing itself in love. The only thing that matters, that really counts, is faithful trust as brought to perfection through the demonstration of agape love.” (Galatians 5:6).
Fleshing Out the Faith. Belief and trust is not just an idea or an intellectual conviction. To believe is not merely a head word, but instead is an active word. Any reliance on Christ must be fleshed out, it must be proven in one’s life. Genine faith is actively trusting in God as a lifestyle. This spiritual connection between the mental conviction and the fleshing out not only proves our faith to be genuine, but it also energized one’s faith. Faith is like a muscle that needs to be exercised to be useful. And like any muscle, when exercised it shows signs of life and is energized and strengthened. Our belief in the truth of Christ is truly authentic only when it is expressed outwardly in the way we live our lives. When we demonstrate our faith through love, we reveal if we even have any spiritual muscle at all.
Apostles’ Creed // Emu Music (youtube.com)
Agape Love Completes Faith– Agape love is the supreme of all the loves, and desires the highest good of someone else. Agape is “the highest level of love known to humanity,” (C. S. Lewis), and thus can only come from above, with God as its source. Agape love is the ultimate expression of God’s nature, the essence of His character (see Exodus 34). Agape love is not Eros, which is romantic love. It is not Phileo, which is brotherly love. It is not Storge, which is family love. Agape love is the divine love that can only come to us from the heart of God. Agape love is the love shared between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is truly the source of all these other loves, but it is only agape love that is poured into our hearts from the Holy Spirit, to those who believe in, trust in, are convinced of the truth of Christ. Agape love is an eternal virtue outlasting all the other virtues (1 Corinthians 13:8). Agape love is the primary fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Agape love, the sacred love of God, is universal, it is a gift, it is highly active, it is sacrificial, and it is unconditional. Agape was translated into Latin as Caritas, and thus agape has long been translated as Charity.
Faith without Love is Worthless, a Barren Wasteland. “What good is it, brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have a faithful trust (pistis) but has no actions to prove it? Is such pistis able to save him? Pistis, by itself, unaccompanied by actions, is dead. I will show you my pistis by my actions! You believe that God is One? Good for you! The demons believe that too. By the actions are one’s pistis made complete. A person is declared righteous because of actions and not because of pistis alone. Just as the body without a spirit is dead, so too faithful trust (pistis) without actions is dead.” (James 2).
So then, agape is impossible to obtain without pistis… love is not possible without faithful trust. And likewise, faithful trust is useless and incomplete without love. It takes to two to tango in following Jesus.