The information in the following links has radically changed my perception of Christianity and I believe it needs to change the church as well if the church is going to survive its present decline.
What “faith” actually is:
https://biblehub.com/greek/4102.htm
What “belief” actually is:
https://biblehub.com/greek/4100.htm
Long story short, “faith” is both the act of persuasion via divine revelation and the state of having been persuaded via divine revelation. Faith is a gift from God and cannot be obtained nor increased via any human efforts; this also means that the reception of faith or an increase in faith is not guaranteed even unto a receptive believer who invests in the faith they may have.
Second, “belief” is to trust or have confidence in something or someone. It has nothing to do with absolute knowledge nor proclamations of absolute truth.
Hopefully, it is becoming clear at this point that the church largely misunderstands and misuses these words. Just think of all of the times you have heard or perhaps uttered the phrase, “you just need to have faith”. However, the true weight of this failure in understanding may not yet be clear. So allow me to explain how the church’s misunderstanding and misapplication of these words are leading to its demise.
It is not uncommon, both within Christianity and outside of it, for “faith” to be understood as, “Belief without evidence” or for some Christians it may be more like “divinely inspired belief without need for further evidence even though some may be found”.
While Christians can come close to a correct understanding of faith, the tendency is to couple faith with what it can achieve: justification, sanctification, glorification, giving direction, or inspiring belief. These are things faith can achieve. However, they’re not the substance of what faith is.
I believe the distinction between faith and its uses is important because confusing faith with its potential uses can be incredibly damaging.
For example, there is a tendency to couple faith with belief in a way that not only ignores the way Abraham and Sarah failed to believe God’s gift of faith when He told them they would have a child in their old age, it also flies in direct conflict with John 20:29, and worse, it disqualifies myself and those like me from Christianity.
I have read the Bible, and have studied what the Bible claims about Jesus. However, I cannot know to what extent the Jesus in the Bible is authentic to God if there is one. This inability is made ever the more evident when we discover things like the story of Jesus’ encounter with the woman caught in adultery was not in the original manuscripts and is likely to have been added to the bible centuries later. (“To Cast the First Stone: The Transmission of a Gospel Story” (Princeton, 2018), by scholars Jennifer Knust and Tommy Wasserman)
Certainly, I can study and learn how the Bible is historically accurate and well preserved to an extent, but this tells me nothing of God’s endorsement of it. Such an endorsement would require a gift of faith God has chosen not to give me for some reason.
Certainly, I have experienced seemingly miraculous things in my life, but none of which have served to verify anything I once thought I knew about God. Additionally, the fact that a God may be at work in my privileged life while there are children in this world being sexually abused and starving to death, makes me hope for alternative ways to understand the seemingly miraculous things in my life.
Taking into account all of my life experiences I cannot say I have been given any faith. I cannot say I have encountered Jesus so far as I am aware. Additionally, God has never given me the faith/divine persuasion I would need to know the Bible is true or at all endorsed by Him.
If belief requires faith then God has forsaken me and those like me; there is no place in Christianity for the likes of me.
However, in my studies, I have found that faith is not a necessary element of Christianity, and despite all of my uncertainty and lack of faith, I still choose to trust Jesus even if I cannot bring myself to fully trust the vessel containing His story.
I am open and receptive to a relationship with Jesus and I trust that, if Jesus is God and desires a relationship with me, He will make of my receptiveness whatever relationship He desires.
So ultimately, I believe there is a place in Christianity for myself and those like me. Granted I have had Christians agree that there is a place for people like me because there has to be a place for everyone who is willing. The trouble is that the place most Christians have in mind is hidden away where leadership can try to convince me of things only God can.
People like me are encouraged to keep quiet and out of sight until we conform to denominational rhetoric because my spiritual position is deemed dangerous and illegitimate and so is treated as such.
When you have spent your life passionately diving into scripture, apologetics, and theology such that what you learn humbles you to the point that it makes others who feel confident in their beliefs so uncomfortable that they deem you as a threat who might “corrupt” those who are “weaker in the faith”, it really feels like there is no place for people like me.
Biblically, if you appropriately understand and apply the words “belief” and “faith”, there is nothing dangerous nor wrong with my spiritual position. God may never choose to move me from where I am, and that would be ok.
Therefore Christians commit a huge injustice when they treat my spiritual position as dangerous. When they won’t permit their youth or other congregation members to consider the possibility that they may be in this position too. When I’m told to keep quiet because the truths I have learned, the ones that bring me so much peace, hope, and life, might be damaging for others, though the only reason it could be damaging is that there is no place in the church for people like me to go to, so people like me end up leaving the church. Whereas if my place were just as celebrated and legitimized in the eyes of the church, people like myself would feel no need to leave.
So when Christians will not permit their members to consider and hear my position, when Christians go around proclaiming to have absolute knowledge of the truth and expecting all other Christians to make this proclamation as well, people like me feel forced to either lie about their spiritual position or leave Christianity altogether.
There seems to be a widespread assumption that those who believe will always be gifted faith in this life. However, while it is promised that those who seek will find, it is not guaranteed that the finding will happen in this life. I suspect that this assumption is at the root of people’s impulse to alienate people like me until we have been gifted.
I have been involved in several gatherings where we all prayed for religious revival. Though the expectation was that the world would change and that we would double down on our holiness as a people set apart.Read these words, internalize them, and let them change you. Only then will there be revival.
Faith is a gift from God that is given in varying amounts to very few people and required of no one. (See the Strong’s definition linked earlier.)
Belief is purely a matter of trust/confidence, and if Mark 16:16 is legitimate, trusting Jesus and the baptism that Jesus provides given that trust, are the ONLY things required of us.
A Christian does not need to proclaim that they are certain God exists.
A Christian does not need to proclaim that they are certain the Bible is true and fully endorsed by God.
A Christian does not need to proclaim that they are certain Jesus existed, was God, or was validly represented by the gospel stories.
A Christian does not need to uphold the Bible as an authority on ethics or anything else.
As for the things a Christian does not need to be certain of, all of these things can only truly be known via gifts of faith wherein God specifically brings these matters up and professes them as true. Thus it is out of each person’s control as to whether or not they will be able to authentically be certain of any of these things.
Therefore, unless God truly chooses who is saved and who is not, certainty in these things is not required of anyone, and so proclamations of certainty towards these things should not be expected of anyone.
A person who is uncertain of the above yet is open and receptive to a relationship with Jesus and trusts that He will make of their receptiveness whatever relationship He desires, is just as valid a Christian as anyone with gifts of faith. All Christians, children, teens, adults, newer Christians, and seasoned Christians, should be aware of these sorts of Christians and should be free to consider the possibility that they may be such a Christian.
I am a seasoned Christian. I invested heavily into my beliefs and it led me here. Such a humbling journey should never be seen as a regression. Such a journey should never be thought of as a bad thing. Instead, it should be celebrated and encouraged.
