Faith and Unbelief

Mark 9:14-29

: The Difference Between Faith and Belief

Taken from

. Continued: If you ask most people, they’ll tell you that faith and belief are the same thing. I used to think so myself. And that leads to all sorts of confusion.

, which makes them very close in meaning. So close, in fact, that many modern Bible translations don’t always differentiate clearly between the two. And that leads to even more confusion.

When we equate faith and belief it can make Jesus seem a little contradictory.

For example here is how the

presents Matthew 17:20.

Matthew 17:20 (NLT)

Reading that, it seems like Jesus is telling his disciples that their problem is they don’t have enough faith. I mean what else can “you don’t have enough faith” mean, right?

But then he goes on to explain that by saying that we barely need any faith at all to see great miracles happen. Huh?

That doesn’t make sense. Why would he acknowledge that they had any faith at all if his lesson from that “teachable moment” was that they only needed a tiny amount of faith?

How much “small as a mustard seed” faith is enough? Presented that way it makes it seem like we need some standard to measure microscopic faith in amounts even smaller than a mustard seed.

Don’t know about you, but I can’t make any sense of that.

Now let’s look at how the

translates that same verse.

So Jesus said to them

To explain the difference, let’s start with belief. What does it mean?

You can go to a dictionary to look up 

 if you like. Here’s a good working definition:

So our beliefs are things that we are thoroughly convinced of. Usually (but not always) they are ideas, concepts that we gather through acquiring information and experience. Because of that, our beliefs can change over time as we gain more knowledge and experience more things throughout our lives.

Again, you can go to a dictionary and look up the meaning of 

.

To me, this is an easier way to understand it.

Faith includes our beliefs, but it is bigger than that. Faith requires action. If it doesn’t move us to do something or say something – actually take some kind of action – it’s not really faith at all. James said it this way.

So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.— 

Until we take action our “faith” is just a bunch of words. James says that unless faith produces action is in fact dead, or not faith at all.

As a side note, some people get confused and turned around on this point and try to do good things to generate faith. However James didn’t say the good things we do produce faith. He said our faith, if it is real and alive, will naturally move us to do good things.

But I digress.

The last part of that whole faith equation is 

.

 – Trust that is based on knowledge or past experience

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Rea Nolan Martin – Huffington Post

:

. A victim mind is already disadvantaged, but even a healthy, enabled mind runs into trouble.

The enabled mind may say,

The enabled mind says that if we hold our beliefs strongly enough, God will listen and favor us. 

.

. Faith is a product of the spirit.

The mind interferes in the process of faith more than it contributes to it. To have faith in the worst of times will no doubt require us to silence, or at least quiet, the mind. Faith is what happens when our beliefs run aground. The spirit can be buoyed by our beliefs, but can also be brought down by them when they prove inadequate, as they most certainly will at some point in the journey. Even the beliefs humans have held most closely have come and gone over the course of a lifetime or a millennium.

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Back to Text: What do we find?

: So don’t be discouraged…keep praying, keep believing, keep exercising faith!

: Was he referring to people in generation or to the disciples = (those who a work in progress), or both?

Some translations have the wording as ‘you are unbelieving’ or maybe it is ‘faithless?’

It could be a generalized comment that then pierces into the hearts of those who along with believing also have genuine faith and all the combinations of percentages or whatever.

: From Text

I don’t know what disciples did after that point. Did you grow? Were they discouraged? Did they feel inferior?

One thing it appears did happen, is that they went on.

: SO, what is the answer to difference between belief/unbelief and faith?

, the difference is that Faith goes on after believing is challenged and not immediately forth coming.

What we should have without any doubt is that with faith, all things are possible (even the things we can’t resolve or dictate)!