The Biblical Perspective of Believing

By Richard Sison | 2016

INTRODUCTION
One of the most common word you will find among the evangelical people is the word “believe.” This word has been over used and abused and became the battle-cry of many evangelist to bring in converts to their denomination. But what does believing mean really?



אמן - 'âman (aw-man’) - a Hebrew word for "believe" has many different meanings but all of them point towards action, which makes of "believe" an action word.
According to the Greek mind, "believe" πιστεύω - pisteuō (pist-yoo’-o) - is a state of mind, something that you know.
When the Brit Chadasha was translated to English, the Hebrew word âman and the Greek word pisteuō were deviated somehow from what the meaning of the word in its original language. However, from the perspective of the translators, they put a word as they understand it in their time and culture and “believing” in their time means “to hold dear, to love, to care and to desire.”
Today, the definition of believing has evolved again becoming a merely belief "to think" or "to accept that something is true, correct, or real"; "that state of the mind by which it assents to propositions, not by reason of their intrinsic evidence, but because of authority", meaning that, despite of the Bible, any authority can establish a belief as the "truth".

​How the Tanakh would define “believing”? The first appearance of the word 'âman is in Gen 15:6 referring to Abraham and it is an action word, not passive. The ancient Hebrew concept of 'âman or “believing” is to follow everything that a person is telling you to do. Abraham has to do something to prove that he believes. In Genesis 26:5 we read what Abraham did: "Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws", says the L-RD.

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