What Is True Faith? (Do You Really Believe the Way the Bible Says to Believe?)

For a long time now, I have pondered the concept of what it means to believe.

What qualifies a person to be an actual believer? How does one believe? Do we believe not as we want to believe, but as the Bible says? What should we believe?

It really isn’t that hard to find a “believer.”

But why do we call this person a “believer?” What do we mean by that?

The short answer is that our modern-day definition of a “believer” is someone who believes in Christ.

They agree with the general doctrine and most foundational beliefs of Christianity.

And this is all it means. It goes no further.

But if you really explore this matter, this is not what a “believer” was in the New Testament.

And it’s possible that we may not currently be “believing” as it instructs us to.

What Is True Faith, According to the Bible?

Paul and the first-century Christians did not have the same understanding of true believers that we have today.

They did not think that a “believer” was someone who simply believed, and that’s it.

The Greek words for “faith” are:

• noun - pistis

• adjective - pistos

• verb (“believe”) - pisteuo

These words mean so much more than an intellectual agreement with something (“I believe in / agree with Christ”).

As a matter of fact, scholars say that this word is difficult to translate into English because there really isn’t just one word that can convey its meaning.

If you’re bilingual, you’ll know this struggle!

About half of our church members speak both English and Spanish, and I often overhear them speaking in Spanish.

I then ask them what that word or phrase means in English, and they respond with, “It’s like, uhhhh…” or they start snapping their fingers and ask someone else how to bring that out in English.

This is because words in other languages don’t always translate nicely into English.

In truth, there are some words in the Bible that scholars are just completely stumped on, and the words we see for them in our Bibles are really just good guesses.

For the pist- word family, we kind of have a slight grasp on its meaning, and we usually just translate it as “faith” or “believe.”

These are good translations, but they still don’t do it full justice. There is more to this word.

The word actually means something more like:

• “believing allegiance”

• “faithful allegiance”

• “trusting loyalty”

When Paul mentions “believers” in his letters (pisteuontes), it carries the idea of “those who are convinced, submit in trust, and declare loyalty.”

An author named Gordon Zerbe says this, and he adds that there are three layers to a true Biblical believer:

1. Conviction (the agreeing part)

2. Trust

3. Loyalty

Zerbe suggests that the word “believer” should be more accurately translated as “loyalist.”

True “Belief” MUST Have Obedience and Loyalty

If you read Paul’s letters carefully, you can see how this pistis faith operates (and how it should operate in our lives today).

Paul does not separate faith and obedience. For example:

Romans 10:16 ESV

But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?”

Notice how Paul uses “obey” and “believe” interchangeably.

This joining of “belief” as an agreeing with your spirit and soul to “obedience” shows Paul’s true definition of “believing.”

It is devotion and commitment that naturally lead to obedience and works.

When Paul wrote to people, he wasn’t primarily concerned with their intellectual agreement with what he was saying about Christ.

He was more concerned with their faithfulness. Their loyalty.

He wanted them to be public witnesses through actions and allegiance (“living epistles”) to show their true pistis.

This is how we should believe in him today. As Jesus said, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said.”

Not however we want to believe in him.

Uncomfortable, Risky Faith

In Paul’s day, they were surrounded by cults and pagan beliefs.

You have to put yourself in their shoes.

Early Christians were slandered with shocking accusations—cannibalism, incest, human sacrifice, and more.

At first, identifying as a Christian could be considered a criminal offense in the eyes of certain rulers.

This was a new religion, right?

While many viewed Christians with suspicion or hostility, others liked their moral restraint when it came to sex, commitment to justice, and rejection of worldly indulgence.

Some were even amazed that, despite lacking formal philosophical training, Christians could hold their own in intellectual debates.

In their culture (the Greco-Roman era of the first century), religion was not just something you did on Sunday. It was a part of everyday life.

It affected your work, children, politics, spouse, and many other aspects of your life.

In the Roman world, people were actually “born into” specific local gods—deities you inherited as part of your identity from birth.

Worship of these gods wasn’t just spiritual, but it was cultural and communal.

So, think about it: You’re born into this world with certain gods, whom everyone expects you to follow and have allegiance to.

But now, a man named Paul talked to you about Jesus, and you’re making the switch!

That’s why Christianity’s rejection of such pagan practices was so disruptive.

One of the biggest problems Romans had with Christians was their rejection of these societal norms.

The Jews, while seen as strange and even irritating for their devotion to a single God, were tolerated because their religious practices were tied to an ancient tradition.

The Romans made space for that.

But Christians were different.

Many of them had only recently been pagans, engaged in the worship of Rome’s many gods.

Now, seemingly overnight, they had renounced all of it.

Unlike the Jews, Christians couldn’t appeal to a long heritage to justify their uniqueness.

To the pagans, Christians were suspiciously new, rebellious, and without the historical legitimacy to back up their radical beliefs.

Through all of this, true faith was born and emerged.

True faith (pistis) meant that you changed your loyalty to something else (Jesus), and this bled into every aspect of your life.

Their faith was always public and missional, and therefore, it was always risky.

This is why “belief” is deeply connected to “loyalty” and complete trust.

Faith and Works, Belief and Loyalty

James said it like this:

James 1:22-24

²² But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ²³ For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. ²⁴ For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

James 2:17-19

¹⁷ So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. ¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. ¹⁹ You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!

In other words, true faith will produce works and loyalty. It will create undying allegiance.

“Belief,” in the sense of agreement with what is said, is not enough.

Because even the demons believe.

James says that if a person claims to have “faith,” but this is not visibly demonstrated through works and allegiance, then they really don’t have faith.

Which means there might be a possibility that they’ve never really received or believed on Jesus “as the scripture has said.”

You see, true faith bleeds loyalty and allegiance, even in the most uncomfortable circumstances.

Let’s admit that, unfortunately, all these things occur within present-day Christianity:

• Christians are not taken seriously by their family, friends, and literally anyone else

• They’re not winning anyone to Christ

• Their “prayers” are ineffective and seem “unheard”

• Their lives are not effective witnesses

• Their allegiance is only there as long as things are comfortable. They’ll put it down anytime they want.

• “Faith” is only something they do on Sundays if they feel like it

• They have trouble being committed and laboring for Christ

But true faith is simple: It will show in your loyalty to this faith-life.

You’ll be loyal to prayer and have an attitude of trust. Your actions will show allegiance to “the Way.”

You’ll be committed, consistent, and loyal to the gathering of the saints.

I wrote about the importance of church last week, and I think it goes well here.

For example, it's not good to skip church often, but then expect your children to have undying Godly morals and consistency in their life.

You can't expect someone to take your faith seriously if you only attend sometimes.

Whenever someone invites a "non-loyal Christian" to breakfast on Sunday morning, they will neglect the gathering for this.

What kind of witness for Christ is that? Wouldn't it be more effective if we told them that church was important to us, and that we'll catch them next time?

But sadly, a "non-loyal Christian" will not consider this, because they don't care about being loyal to Christ and his church anyway.

They don't care about their witness.

Also, "loyalists" won’t “quit God and church” when things don’t go their way and times get hard.

Do you have loyalty and allegiance to Christ and his ways?

Or do you just “agree” with what is said about him?

Drop a comment below: Give an example of what you believe is true faith!