In your understanding, what does the application of Faith ( pisteuo) look like?
Salvation is by Grace through Faith.
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is this some kind of game ? Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, " the evidence of things not seen." there is no looks like in faith
Lets look at Hebrews 11.
"But without Faith" . This word "Faith" is Pistis in the Greek, a noun, a person , place, or thing. The Greek also has the corresponding verb pisteuo. Pisteuo is a verb an action word. The application of pisteuo as it relates to the living God is three parts known by some as the A,B,C's of Faith.
Action, based upon a belief, sustained by confidence. We dont fulfill pisteuo or the application of Faith without a continual, genuine, surrendered life. Based upon the belief He will accept the Surrendered life, sustained by a confident follow through that shows God we really stand on the fact our lives are not ours anymore but His now.
the fact that the translators didn't have the correct words available (faithe,faither,and faithing) to them creates a big stumbling block. The translators chose the words believe, believer, and believing to translate pisteuo. These words are only one third of a correct Faith response to His unmerited gift, which taken alone is error. These mistranslated words have made Gods word the object of Faith (Pistis), instead of God Himself, a realationship with a real living person.
If your seeing this as a game, i'll stop.
you cant see salvation we cant see Jesus u in heaven we know he lives in us we accept by faith . things Not seen evidence of things HOPED for and with out faith i can't please God a good hardy discussion i am all for.
Once a person has been born again, they are put into new hands...
Philippians 1:6 (KJV) Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
Yes we are to present ourselves as ones who were dead and are now alive. Rom 6:13, 7:4,12:1, but our willingness to 'surrender' is contingent on this sort of thing...
Philippians 2:13 (KJV) For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
In summary you seem to be putting emphasis on our faith, whereas I am putting the emphasis on God's faithfulness.
I believe the latter is more sure and I believe that's where faith is to lay it's head.
Romans 3:28 .......
"For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law."
In justification, faith receives a finished work of Christ performed outside of us and counted as ours — imputed to us.
Ephesians 2:8-9...
"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast."
The only kind of faith that counts for justification is the kind that produces love — the kind that bears the fruit of love. The faith which alone justifies is never alone, but always bearing transforming fruit. WHEN we are saved and BECAUSE we are saved, we will then have the need and ability to do good deeds.
John 3:16 declares that salvation is given to.....
“whoever believes in Him.”
Acts 16:31 proclaims..........
“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”
We (You) need to remember the fact that we are made right with God not through any merit of our own but rather through God’s own free grace. In Christ, we receive unmerited favor from God.
If we had to do anything to obtain our salvation then we would have to remove Ephesians 2 from all the Bibles in the world.
kept by the power of GOD
You are kidding us.......right?????
Do you believe that the North won the Civil War over the South?
How do you know that??? You read it in a history book and BY FAITH you believed that.
Do YOU believe that the USA won WW2????
How do know that ??? You read it in a history book and BY FAITH you believed that.
What We all know about Christ is what we have READ in the Book.....the Bible! Then you accept it by FAITH!
Source".A Grammar of New Testament Greek .......
“The importance of the difference between mere belief … and personal trust.”[1] Both these senses can be conveyed using the Greek word pisteuo. The context helps us to identify the different senses of the meaning of pisteuo. Then again, we also have the different grammatical constructions that also convey what the Bible author had meant by his use of the word. When pisteuo is simply followed by a noun in the dative case, it is merely rendered as “believe,” such as the chief priest and elders response to Jesus at Matthew 21:25, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’
However, in Romans 4:3 we have pisteuo follow by a noun in the dative in the Updated American Standard Version, yet it is rendered “For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham put faith in God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Now if you are saying that to be a Christian one must be willing not only to give up sin, but also to surrender his whole way of looking at things. Being born again by the Spirit of God means that we must first be willing to let go before we can grasp something else. The first thing we must surrender is all of our pretense or deceit, then I would agree.
If on the other hand you are trying to say that there is something (deeds/works) we must do to be saved, then I can not agre.
Strongs Greek dictionary: "Pisteuo means not just to believe".
Vines Greek dictionary: Pisteuo is "A personal surrender to Him, and a life inspired by such surrender."
It's a choice. God wants those ones who will choose Him.
And "Not believing" is faithing or pisteuo in reverse. The Greek word Apisteuo would be used in that case.
So faithing towards God is a continually surrendered life and living a life inspired by such surrender.
Faithing away from God is everything other that that.
He's the first goer of Faith, we are to follow.
Agree.
The Apostle Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans exactly where it comes from. Rom 10:17:.......
"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
Faith in God has several components. The first is believing that He actually exists. However, simply believing that God exists is not enough. As James 2:19 explains, the demons believe in God’s existence as well.
After acknowledging that God exists, the second element of faith in God is commitment. Faith that does not result in action is a dead faith, not true faith (James 2:26).
However, even a faith in God that motivates us to action is not enough. For faith in God to be genuine, we must accept Him as He has revealed Himself in Scripture. We are not allowed to accept the attributes of God that we prefer and reject the ones we don’t. If we do not accept God as He is, then we are putting our faith in a false god of our own making. Much “religion” does exactly this, but any religion not based on the Bible is a designer religion with a designer god. For faith in God to be genuine, it must be based on the genuine God. For example, the God of the Bible is triune, so true faith in God must accept the deity and personality of the Son and the Holy Spirit as well as the Father.
Correct!
I just see it as responding to the call of the father. We turn towards the caller in our mind (repentance), then make our first genuine act of faithing (pisteuo) with a surrendered life. At this point He does the accepting and the excepting. This simple faithing response repeats itself daily, hourly if need be taking us on a journey through the testing ground, the grafting process, ultimately to the sealing of His Spirit inside us.
But again, fulfilling pisteuo correctly expecting something in return isn't a genuine surrender, expecting something in return would be a business deal or a kind of vending machine process. We are slaves to the one we surrender to. that puts us in a state of being where we have no right to make conditions.
Knowing Jesus isn't a prerequisite to fulfilling pisteuo and continually surrendered life. And theres nothing that says He's obligated to reveal Himself to us as we respond "in faithing". But in my experience i think He wants to have a intimate relationship wit each of His called out ones, revealing himself to those in secret as we respond to Him in secret.
IMO
A comment on Rom 10:17.
This passage was something i thought about for a long time and still do. I couldn't get my head around the fact that someone would have to hear the word of God for their Faith to grow. I don't have a problem with that concept, my problem is that the word of God as we know it was put together until the 1400's. So my problem is that as per Rom10:17 only those who had an opportunity to hear the spoken word of God could recieve Faith. Kind of handcuffs God the Father who calls and draws some to Christ. So thats one issue.
Second issue is that the deeper i looked at Rom 10:17, i realized for this passage to be true we would be putting God and His word on trial so to speak. Question, is it ever okay to put God or His word on trial with us sitting in the Judges seat? Obviously not.
I found some understanding in my strongs one day when it said that the word "hearing" in the Greek was speaking of a Courtroom hearing. Specifically said," compare to a courtroom hearing."
Look how the understanding of this passage changes by just putting the letter "A" in front of the word hearing.
"So then Faith comes by a hearing, a hearing by the word of God." A kind of courtroom hearing, with us on trial, our Faith or surrendered life being on trial. Being heard by the word of God , Jesus Christ.
Not down playing Gods word, but how can we use Gods word to provide Faith to us at the start of our walk before we have the Spirit of Christ in us . At this beginning point Christ is not ours, His word is not ours, and the promises in Gods word are not ours yet. Rom 8:9
One thing for sure, we'll all know on the other side.
I do not say this in any way to be in disagreement but it was a long time ago when Romans 10 was written. The KJV Bible was "printed" in 1611.
However the last book of the Bible, the Revelation was written and distributed in 96 AD. Job is the oldest book in the Scriptures and it is estimated at 2000 years BC. The Word of God has been available to men and a great deal of the New Test. is quotes from the Old Test.
Long ago before Paul wrote Romans, Isaiah 53:1 said.......
" Lord, who hath believed our report?"
The report was Isaiah’s message of the gospel concerning the Messiah. It was brought to the mouths of the Jews and offered to them, but that message was not obeyed. Paul verifies this by a further appeal to scripture; this time the passage is from the Septuagint.
Hebrews 4:2 says the same thing in that this tragic failure of the Jews to heed the good news.....
"For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.
Now......IMHO, the necessity of God's Word to provide faith to us CAN NOT BE OVER EMPHASZIED! IT IS THE POWER OF GOD UNTO SALVATION AND UNDERSTANDING.
The first step to coming to God is hearing what he says. This should be the purpose of any study of the scriptures. We must allow the scriptures to validate or invalidate our beliefs. If our thoughts and opinions differ from the Word of God then WE are the ones who must change.
I enjoy reading your thoughts. Welcome to the forum and I hope you continue to add to our understanding.
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There YOU go!
It seems to me that you are placing a LOT of emphasis on "FAITHING coming from a Greek word of "Pisteuo".
Then you stated.......
"Knowing Jesus isn't a prerequisite to fulfilling pisteuo and continually surrendered life. "
You are speaking to us in a high level of deep understanding so allow me to bring this back down to the "country boy" level.
So, let me ask you this question based on the following scenario from Acts 10:44-48. Now pay attention to the text. ........
"While Peter was still speaking these words, (what words?)'????
Acts 10:43.........
"Or Him all the prophets bear witness that through His/Jesus Christ name everyone WHO BELIEVES in Him receives forgiveness of sins."
Back to vs44.......
"was still speaking these words, the HOLY SPIRIT fell upon all those who were listening to the message.
vs45,......................
" And all the circumcised "BELIEVERS" (past tense and there's that pesty word that starts with a "B") who had come with Peter were amazed, (Why?) ???
Because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out upon the Gentiles also.
vs46.........
"For (or becasue) they were hearinhg them speaking in tongues and exalting God. Then Peter answered in verse 47........
"Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit JUST AS WE DID"
( can he?)
Vs48, .........
"And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay on for a few days."
So, my question then is .... what did these new converts do in order to receive the Holy Spirit? They "BELIEVED."
And notice they received the Holy Spirit "BEFORE" they were water baptized.
Now, what is the Greek word for "believing" at vs43 and the Greek word for "believers" at vs45?
Thanks major.
Nobody comes to Christ unless the Father calls them. Thats what i would consider the first step in a relationship with Christ.
When we all begin our walk by the Father calling us out, we don't have the spirit of Christ in us yet. He is not in us , and we are not in Him yet. Rom 8:9 As a result of this early state of being, He is none of ours (yet). And because Christ is none of ours, His word Cannot be ours, the promises in His word cannot be ours either.. I stand on the fact we can only connect with Christ by a continually surrendered life, including decisions supporting such surrendered life. This Faithing response will cause God to accept us into the salvation process, test us in the parable of the sower, through the grafting process, "THEN" , He seals His Spirit in us making Christ, His Word, and His promises ours to stand on. When we become this finished product, i do see Gods word as something that can make our Faithing stronger. But instead of reading other saints epistles, we should spend the large portion of our time writing our own.
Thanks for your kind discussion.