Another teaching on Faith

[Peterlag]

In the New Testament “faith” is most often translated from the Greek noun pistis (#4102 πίστις), which like many other Greek words has several meanings including “trust” Romans 3:38, 1 Corintians 15:14, “faithfulness and reliability” (Proverbs 12:22, Matthew 23:23, Romans 3:3, Galatians 5:22, and “proof and pledge” (Acts 17:31). Also we find pistis in the New Testament and later Christian writings being used as a designation for the entire scope of religious practices and beliefs of the followers of Jesus as in “the Christian Faith” (Galatians 1:23). “Faithfulness” and “trust” were both very common meanings of pistis and that is why it was also used in the everyday Greek-speaking world. However, pistis in the New Testament means “trust” much more than it does “faithfulness” and when pistis is translated “faith” in phrases like “faith in God” or “faith in Christ” or “have faith” it means “trust” or “confidence” or “assurance.”The early Christians would have readily perceived the meaning of pistis as “trust” or “confidence” and that meaning can be easily confirmed by checking any good biblical lexicon or Bible dictionary such as the following...

• “With the predominant idea of trust (or confidence)” (Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament).
• “Firm persuasion, a conviction based upon hearing” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words).
• “Firm persuasion” (A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament by E.W. Bullinger).
• “State of believing on the basis of the reliability of the one trusted; trust, confidence” (A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, W. Arndt and Wilber Gingrich, 2000; usually abbreviated “BDAG”).
• “It is the attitude of complete trust in Christ...” (The New Bible Dictionary).
• “In the New Testament, ‘faith’ is used in a number of ways, but primarily with the meaning ‘trust’ or ‘confidence’ in God” (Hollman Bible Dictionary).

We read in Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith [pistis] is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (NIV). The NASB uses slightly different vocabulary but gives the same message which is “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” So the Bible itself defines pistis as assurance or confidence in something and a good way to express that in English is by the word “trust.” Faith has been defined and explained so many different ways that it's a difficult concept to grasp, but “trust” is simple to understand. The lexical sources listed above defined it when they defined pistis as a confidence, a firm persuasion, a conviction based on the reliability, or trustworthiness... of the person or thing that is trusted. Trust also has to have an object and by that I mean something that is trusted. The human mind cannot “just trust” because we have to trust something. It can be God, our spouse, our friend, or even that the sun will come up tomorrow, but trust requires an object because we have to trust some trustworthy thing.

And our trust does not make or force anything to happen. We trust the sun will come up, but that does not make it come up. We trust that our so-far-always-reliable-car will start when we turn the key, but that does not make it start. We trust our friend will help us in a pinch, but that does not force them to help. We trust God loves us, but that does not make Him help us in any given situation. Pistis (trust... faith) is not a force because it does not make things happen. It's easy to see why pistis, which means “trust” or “confidence” came to be translated “faith” in our English Bibles. The Latin word fides (pronounced feeˈ-dace), which means “trust” was often used to translate the Greek word pistis when the New Testament was translated into Latin and fides was a good translation because just as the Greek word pistis meant “trust or confidence” so did the Latin word fides. The Latin word fides became the root of the English word “faith” as the English language developed many centuries later as also did the word “fidelity."

The English word “trust” has Indo-European roots and came into our language via the Old Norse which is very different from the Latin root “fidelity." The English language was built over time from many different word-roots, which is a major reason why modern English has so many different words that seem to mean the same thing. The statement “take it by faith” has echoed throughout Christianity for centuries, but it never occurs in the Bible and is not a biblical concept. We cannot make ourselves trust something that is untrustworthy or that we do not understand. This concept is not well understood. It's often said “I don’t understand electricity but I trust it.” That statement is not actually correct. What most people trust about electricity is that it works because the light always comes on when we flip the switch and we always get shocked if we touch the “hot” wire. That's not “trusting electricity” as much as it's trusting that electricity reliably does certain things—and we do understand and thus trust that part.

Translating pistis as “faith” instead of “trust” has obscured the simple truth that we don’t trust what we don’t understand. Most people are not really sure of what “faith” is and so they accept the Church teaching that they can have faith in something they don’t understand. We can “accept” something and not argue about it even if we don’t understand it, but “accepting” something is not “trust.” Once we realize pistis means “trust” is when we can understand that the phrase “take it by faith” is equivalent to “just trust me.” We become suspicious and are inclined not to trust a salesperson when they say “just trust me” and so we should also think twice when someone is talking about a biblical subject and says “just take it by faith.” It should be a signal to us when a person teaching cannot explain the doctrine they are teaching and or that the doctrine is untrustworthy when we are told to “take it by faith.” The biblical meaning of the Greek word pistis is “trust” but that is not its primary meaning “on the street” today. Many Christians and most non-Christians think “faith” means “firm belief in something for which there is no proof” (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11^th edition, 2004).

Often that definition has been used to ridicule Christians and admittedly “believing in something for which there is no proof” and that seems like a questionable practice. So how did that non-biblical definition of “faith” develop? Doctrines were brought into Christianity over the centuries that were not biblically sound and some were not even logical. When those doctrines were questioned because there was no proper biblical answer is why the answer often given by the church authorities was simply “take it by faith.” The history of the Christian Church has many examples of wonderful Christians who were pressured or tortured into taking things “by faith” that did not make sense to them. Thus, over time “faith” came to mean a belief in something for which there is no proof, and the average Christian is not enough of a linguist to know that the commonly accepted definition of faith is not the actual biblical definition of the Greek and Latin text, and so they wrongly think that “belief in something for which there is no proof” is a biblical definition of “faith.” The meaning of faith changed again for many Christians in the 20^th century although the meaning of “belief in something for which there is no proof” has remained alongside the newer meaning.

In what is now called “the Word of Faith Movement” is how the word “faith” has come to denote a power or force of the mind that can appropriate things that can force God or “the universe” to bring things to pass. Many denominations reject the teaching of the Word of Faith Movement because they believe biblically that “faith” is not a force or a power of the mind. However, millions of Christians believe the biblical word “faith” means a power of the mind that can bring material things into one’s life, move mountains, produce healing and bring financial wealth. Let’s say you have a friend whose car is being fixed and so you offer to give them a ride to work. They trust you will actually show up and give them the ride and so they accept. Then because you are trustworthy is why you keep your promise and give them the ride. But did their trust in you somehow force you to give them the ride? Their trust gave them the confidence to be ready to be picked up at an appointed time, but it was your power that supplied the ride. Furthermore, you did not have to offer them the ride in the first place even though they were a trusting friend. At no point did the fact that they trusted you force you to act on their behalf.

Biblical trust works the same way and this is why we trust that God can heal, but that does not force Him to heal, and our trust does not give us the power to heal without God. The fact that our trust in God does not “make” things happen explains why “faith” seems to fail so often. The Word of Faith Christian ministers and power of the mind unbelievers both believe in a "law" based on the power of the mind that allows people to get what they want by somehow affecting the physical world. One of the problems with the doctrine of the Word of Faith Movement and non-Christian groups that teach about the power of the mind is that it puts the emphasis on the individual—you. Since most of these groups teach that it's a “law” that if you have faith you can bring into your life whatever you want is how it puts the pressure on “you.” Kenneth Hagin, a Word of Faith minister once wrote “That’s what you’ve got to learn to do to get things from God... have faith in your faith” (Having Faith in Your Faith, p. 5).

E. W. Kenyon is one of the founders of the Faith Movement who wrote in his book "The Two Kinds of Faith" that “faith in your own faith is the law of success in the realm of the spirit” (p. 36). Kenneth Copeland wrote “faith is a power force. It's a tangible force. It's a conductive force. It will move things. Faith is a spiritual force” (The Force of Faith p. 13). The Word of Faith ministers say the problem is “you” when this “law” is not working in your life. We need to become clear that “having faith in your faith” is nothing more than having faith in yourself and that is not what Jesus said to do to accomplish God’s will in your life. Word of Faith ministers teach you can make things happen in the physical world by your faith and so it's common to hear them use the phrase “have faith for” or “believe for." Many Christians are surprised to learn that no phrase like “have faith for” occurs in the Bible. The reason is simple because we don’t have the power to make things happen. God has the power. This is why we read in the Scriptures to “pray for” because we can’t “believe for” things and make them happen, but we can “pray for” things and let God make them happen.

The wrong doctrine in the Word of Faith Movement about “faith” has obscured the right doctrine about “trust.” The teaching of the Word of Faith Movement has infiltrated so much of Christian thinking that for many Christians “trust” is not a good translation of pistis. Many Christians think “faith is much bigger than trust” and this is a serious problem since pistis is not “bigger than trust” because pistis is “trust.” No ancient Greek speaker would have thought pistis referred to a power or force of the mind, and they would not have thought that their own mind could tap into a spiritual “law” in such a way that they could just have pistis and then the universe would have to respond to them. Could it be possible God created us in such a way that we too are not happy when people do not trust us— and similarly could it be possible that He is not happy when people don’t trust Him?