Reflections on Acts, Part 3—BELIEVE

My final thoughts on our Acts study are about belief. During the weeks of the study “believe” was on my mind a lot because the word is used by Luke so frequently. Here are some examples:

Acts 4:1
But many of those who had heard the message believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.

Acts 4:32a
And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul;

Acts 8:12
But when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized men and women alike.

Acts 10:43
Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.

Acts 14:1
In Iconium they entered the synagogue of the Jews together, and spoke in such a manner that a large number of people believed, both of Jews and Greeks.

Acts 16:30-31
And after he brought them out, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

Acts 28:24
Some were being persuaded by the things spoken, but others would not believe,

If I am not mistaken (Someone please let me know if I am.), all forms of the word “believe” used in Acts are derived from the Greek root word “pistis,” which Strong’s defines as follows:

1) conviction of the truth of anything, belief; in the NT of a conviction or belief respecting man's relationship to God and divine things, generally with the included idea of trust and holy fervour born of faith and joined with it
a) relating to God
1. the conviction that God exists and is the creator and ruler of all things, the provider and bestower of eternal salvation through Christ
b) relating to Christ
1. a strong and welcome conviction or belief that Jesus is the Messiah, through whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God
c) the religious beliefs of Christians
d) belief with the predominate idea of trust (or confidence) whether in God or in Christ, springing from faith in the same

2) fidelity, faithfulness
a) the character of one who can be relied on

Those of you whom I know are reading this are probably thinking, “Yeah, so what?” The emphasis in Acts upon belief and believers and those who had believed made me think often about the jargon we use in our postmodern Christian culture. We ask people if they are saved, if they have asked Jesus to come into their heart, when did they dedicate their life to Christ, and so on. Acts is about BELIEF. Why have we gotten away from using the word “believe”?

I think it’s because the common use of “believe” in our culture doesn’t mean very much any more. People go from religion to religion saying they believe each one as they experience it, but that can’t be true because if they really believed they would never walk away from a faith they claim to believe. Also, postmodern culture accepts that what each individual chooses to believe is okay and that there is no objective truth. Therefore, to believe in something is of much less consequence today than it would have been in the early church when believing on Christ could result in death or imprisonment.

“Believe” no longer has any weight, but “pistis” is weighty indeed because those who believed in the first century church were very different from the people around them. Their lives changed as a result of their believing the gospel, and the gospel spread because of their dedication to Christ and their example in the way they interacted with each other (See Acts 2.).

In Believing God, in her discussion of “pistis,” Beth Moore says, “…faith is not something that you have. It’s something you do.” True belief results in action, and anyone who claims to believe but doesn’t live like a believer cannot be a believer according to the picture of belief painted for us in Acts.

All this talk of belief makes me want to veer off into the direction of Christians not really knowing WHAT they believe, but I will save those musings for another day.