Belief is a Verb

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder                                     James 2:19

Belief is a verb. That is a position I have come to over the years as a Christian. Yes, technically, the word belief is a noun, but in terms of our faith, I think that one must live out belief, not just assent to a set of creeds or dogmas.

I stated in a blog some time ago this explanation as I went over the contents of a book I had just read…

One of the explanations the author used was that of the Hebrew language. It had a vocabulary of about 80,000 words. Compare that to the English language which has perhaps 400,000 words. Hebrews were used to having a rich and elaborate meaning to their words since they did not parse them out as freely as English-speaking people might. There may be several different associated concepts with one word in the Hebrew language.

When Jesus, for example, used the word “hear”, that meant that the hearer would not only hear the word, but believe it as well. Further, if one believed a concept, they were expected to act upon it as truth. In other words, hearing, believing, and doing were all tied together. If you hear your master tell you something, and believe it, the expectation is that one would act upon that belief.

Yes, simple assent to a truth does not make one a believer. In order to live out that belief, one must make it a part of their life and make it real. That is what Jesus called us into- a life changing and world changing model of his love for creation.

Prayer: Lord, help us to make our belief into a demonstrable faith, Amen