Faith that Works

 

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  (Hebrews 11:1 KJV)

This verse has always been the go-to definition of faith, yet I never really understood it.  It always seemed vague to me, allusive even.

I wanted the kind of faith that works, but I didn’t even know what faith was. 

Recently I wondered if the Strong's Concordance could give me more insight, so I looked up the word “faith” in this little verse, and this is what I found:

Faith (Strong's 4102) comes from the Greek word Pistis, and it means “persuasion… conviction… reliance upon Christ… constancy (unwavering) in such profession… assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity.”

No real surprises here, but I noticed that this Greek word comes from another Greek word, Peitho (Strong's 3982) so I decided to look that up too, and here’s where things got a little interesting. 

It turns out that Peitho, from which we get the word for faith, is a verb.

It means “to convince… to pacify or conciliate (come into agreement with)… to assent… to rely…  agree… wax confident, make friend…”

Piecing these definitions together, I began to see faith in a way I hadn’t seen it before.  Faith, in simple English, is “professing your belief unwaveringly, until circumstances come into agreement with your profession.”

Wow – all that from just one word, faith.

Now I looked up 2 other words from the same verse:

Substance (Strong's 5287) comes from the Greek word hupostasis, and it means “a setting under (support)…”  Dr. Spiros Zodhiates, Greek scholar and author of Lexical Aids to the New Testament, adds that the word substance is “used for a basis or foundation.” (Zodhiates et al., 1991)

Evidence (Strong's 1650) comes from the Greek word elegehos, and it means “proof, conviction…”  This word comes from the Greek word elegeho (Strong's 1651), which means “to confute, admonish… convict, convince, tell a fault, rebuke, reprove.”

All these new definitions paint a perfect word picture in my mind of faith and how it works.

Faith is “professing your belief unwaveringly, which builds first, the foundation (substance) for your blessing to manifest, and second, the manifestation (evidence) itself, to the admonishment of all the doubters and naysayers.” 

 

 

blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. (John 20:29 KJV)

What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. (Mark 11:24 KJV) 

References:

 

Strong, James. Strongs Exhaustive Concordance: Showing Every Word of the Text of the Common English Version of the Canonical Books, and Every Occurrence of Each Word in Regular Order, Together with Dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek Words of the Original, with References to the English Words. Baker Book House, 1983.

 

Zodhiates, S., Strong, J., & Zodhiates, S. (1991). Lexical Aids to the New Testament. In The Complete Word Study New Testament: Bringing the original text to life. essay, AMG Publishers.