“Sirs, what do I have to do to be saved, to really live?” They said, “Put your entire trust in the Master Jesus. Then you’ll live as you were meant to live.”
Acts 16:30-31, The Message
Do you believe in Jesus? If you do, what does it mean for you to say that you believe in Jesus?
I ask these questions because I am growing in the wonder of what it means to say, “I believe in Jesus.” I am realizing that there is more to this simple faith-statement than I had thought. Tragically, we are part of the Post-Enlightenment, Post-Modern West that has reduced “I believe” to mean rational assent or having an opinion. So, we say things like, “I believe the earth revolves around the sun,” or “I believe the three angles of a triangle always equal 180 degrees.” We rob Biblical language and life if we think that “I believe” means merely giving assent to something as true.
Biblical faith is far more than “I believe THAT….” Biblical faith is “I believe IN.” Biblical faith is relational; believing in a person! When the Gospel commands us to believe in Jesus, it is a call for commitment of life and not mere cognitive assent to Biblical propositions. The late Wilfred Cantwell Smith was a Harvard historian of religion and Presbyterian minister, who traced the long history of “believing” through philosophical texts and Biblical passages. After exhaustive analysis, Smith concluded that there has been a sad diminishment in our culture’s understanding of what it means “to believe”; Smith wrote:
“The affirmation ‘I believe in God’ used to mean: “Given the reality of God as a fact of the universe, I hereby pledge to Him my heart and soul. I committedly opt to live in loyalty to Him. I offer my life to be judged by Him, trusting His mercy.” Today the statement may be taken by some as meaning: “Given the uncertainty as to whether there be a God or not, as a fact of modern life, I announce that my opinion is ‘yes’. I judge God to be existent.” (Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Faith and Belief: The Difference Between Them)
Our culture’s diminishment of what it means to believe is seen in any online etymological dictionary’s definition of “to believe”: “to believe comes from the Latin credo, which literally means ‘I set my heart’ (from cor, cordis, “heart” and -do, -dere “to put”); “Credo” (I believe) has the same root as “heart.”
For the saints who have gone before us, believing in Jesus meant was a matter of the heart! “I pledge myself to live in loyalty to Him; I hereby align my life, my behavior, my mind and soul, with His will for me; I consecrate and entrust myself to His love, justice, mercy, power…” (Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Faith and Belief: The Difference Between Them) We see this rich, full meaning of “I believe” in today’s scripture as the Philippian jailor asks the apostle Paul and Silas: “Sirs, what do I have to do to be saved, to really live?” Quick comes the glorious answer: “Put your entire trust in the Master Jesus. Then you’ll live as you were meant to live.” (The Message Version) Ah yes! Put our entire trust in Jesus for today and for all our tomorrows!
I am helped to give my heart to Jesus and to entrust myself to His will, by praying these words of Ignatius of Loyola:
“You have given all to me,
To you, Lord, I return it.
Everything is Yours,
Do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
That is enough for me.”
A fellow traveler,
Tim
