I would like to
seriously discuss the phrase "believe in" as it is used (and when it was used) in the Christian Bible concerning God and Jesus and how it is used in the world today concerning living persons.
From Strong's
Pisteuo = Believe: to think to be true, to be persuaded of, to credit, place confidence in
When we refer to "believing in" living individuals we aren't saying that we believe they exist.
For example, when I say I believe in my husband, I'm not saying I believe he exists. I'm saying I am confident that he is capable of accomplishing a certain task or situation at hand.
If I believe in a politician's foreign policy, I'm not saying I believe it exists, but that I trust what the policy says.
In these cases we have seen the person perform or have read the documents and trust in what we experience and understand. We can clearly communicate our knowledge or experience to others as to why we trust. Others can also see and hear what we did.
Numbers 14:11
The LORD said to Moses, "How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst?
This author shows that the people supposedly had signs to experience and to assist them in making their decision.
Mark 1:14-15
Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."
Here the author shows that the people were able to see Jesus and hear the good news that he preached, which was supposedly that the Kingdom of God was at hand. They were dealing with a physical person.
The Books of Mark, Matthew, and Luke do not present the need to "believe in" what Jesus was, but what he said concerning the coming of the Kingdom of God.
The later Book of John, OTOH, very heavily stresses belief in the name and what Jesus supposedly was, but not necessarily in the good news that Jesus preached.
Today when someone asks, "Do you believe in God or Jesus?" the assumption is do I believe that they exist now. It is asked in the same way that people ask do you believe in fairies or the Easter Bunny. If these things existed outside of the imaginations and books that housed them, then we wouldn't need to believe, we would see them and know they were there. No one asks "Do you believe in cars?"
When I searched for what "believing in" God means today I find the following:
To believe in God means:to believe we are under Him, responsible to Him, accountable to Him.
to accept that God exists.
to realize that He has spoken.
to see that life has a meaning.
to believe that He is all-powerful and that we are His subjects.
to experience real happiness and joy.
to eliminate all forms of violence and exploitation from human society.
Believing in God means:our lives and actions must reflect His existence.
believing that life is basically good and worth living.
To believe in Jesus means:you accept not only what Jesus taught but also what He claimed about Himself.
to trust our life to him.
walking in His footsteps and following His example.
Obviously tradition has added quite a bit to what "believe in" means.
The people of the Bible supposedly had physical evidence from which to make their decision.
Today we are expected to trust without it.
So does "believe in" in regards to God and Jesus mean to accept that they exist or to trust their abilities?
™ Version 4.2