Dear Mark,
Thank you for your careful reading of “Lessons from the Town of Bedrock,” YouthWorker Journal, January/February 2008. I appreciate your heart for students and your commitment to truth—a desperately needed combination to minister to today’s students.

I want to assure you that my assertion regarding the connection between behavior and “believe/belief” was not cooked up from a webpage or from a nice-sounding urban legend. Rather, this has come from what’s amounted to a 10-year personal study of the gospel of John and a long-time curiosity with the Greek word pisteuo, particularly as it relates to John’s use and its use in extra-biblical works. To further assure you, I want you to know how right you are when you wrote that Jesus accomplished all we need for faith and salvation. Any actions we do are because of our faith, not in order to achieve faith. Behavior connected with belief comes about after our salvation.

You volunteered the possibility that you misinterpreted my point, which it seems you did. You also strongly raised some questions that need to be addressed. Because you question my scholarly basis, I’m going to have to sound more scholarly and schoolmarm-ish than I like. To the casual reader who might happen along, I apologize, but I’ll seek to make it as painless and enjoyable, as possible.

First, to your questions regarding my assertion that the Greeks’ word for “believe” indicated a level of belief that synergized with behavior: I’ll be touching on the noun form “belief” (pistis) and the verb form “believe” (pisteuo).

You asked for scholarly, peer-reviewed research published by a reputable publisher. So, let’s start with the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Eerdmans), the granddaddy of them all (known in scholar circles as “Kittel’s”) and probably the largest dictionary of Koine Greek.

In this work’s article on the pisteuo word family, you’ll see numerous instances of ancient Greek literature using the word pisits to convey a sense of trust that leads to obedience or to some sort of action. I’ll grab a few examples. Aeschylus of Eleusis used pisits to describe a “confidence” in using weapons. Xenophon of Athens, a student of Socrates, writing in Historia Graeca, used a form of pisitis to denote the “faith” needed between parties in the enacting of a treaty. Similarly, in Xenophon’s work Anabasis, he used the adjectival form of pisitis to describe those who entered into a contract together as “trustworthy.”<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--> In all of these examples the different parties had such a high belief in something that they acted upon that belief by using a weapon, signing a treaty, or by entering into a contract.

The Kittel’s article also notes how Greek writers, such as Plato, particularly in Respublica, drew a distinction between belief—a belief described as “trust”—and knowledge, which is expressed more as insight and understanding.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--> Some of Plato’s writings indicated the infinitive form of pisteuo (pisteuein “to believe”) could even carry the nuance of “obey.”<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[3]
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Shortly after the establishing of the early church, some Hellenistic literature writers discussed matters of religion. Plotinys of Lycopolis in Egypt drew a distinction similar to Plato’s between knowledge and belief, writing that man ought to be led by “knowledge” to “belief.” Kittel’s also cites a writing by Vettius Valens, a Greek astrologist in the second century, indicating that belief was then more than “theoretical conviction” but “piety” as well.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[4]<!--[endif]--> Considering Valens and Plotinys wrote well after the first century strongly indicates that the connection between belief and obedience/action found in pisteuo, as put forth by earlier writers such as Plato, carried over the New Testament era.

In The NIV Theological Dictionary of New Testament Words (Zondervan, edited by Verlyn Verbrugge) which is an updated abridgement to Colin Brown’s New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, we get a sweeping conclusion to the classic usage of pistis (faith) and pisteuo (believe). Verbrugge notes that pisteuo carried a nuance of “to obey” as found in extra-biblical literature. In commenting on pistis (faith) Verbrugge echoes Kittel’s in that “…pisits as faith in God stood for “theoretical conviction. But stress was laid on the belief that life was constituted in accordance with this conviction.” <!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[5]<!--[endif]--> This is the crux of connecting belief with behavior—that life (behavior) is constituted in accordance with conviction (belief).

I’ve long been curious about John’s use of the word pisteuo. As you probably know, he used the verb form of pisteuo, (“believe”) on nearly 100 occasions but didn’t use the noun form pisits (faith, belief) at all, whereas the other three gospels used pistis quite extensively. In fact, John used the word pisteuo more than the other three gospels combined! I find this fascinating and his uses give us a richer view of this word. Scholar Leon Morris, in The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans), notes in particular that John’s use of pisteuo with the preposition eis (which gives us “believe in/into”) indicates that “faith for John, is an activity that takes people right out of themselves and makes them one with Christ” [emphasis added].<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[6]
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You asked for solely extra-biblical sources, but you can’t ignore the most famous behavior of all connected with the New Testament’s use of the word “believe”: “repent” (e.g., Mark 1:15 and Matt. 21:32).

I’m barely familiar with your term of “synergism” as a theological term, and I assume you don’t mean “syncretism” (something I’m much more familiar with and more pertinent to biblical study). My use of “synergized” was simply a quick way (in my attempt to stay within my 600-word limit) to describe the connection between belief and behavior. I certainly was making no reference to synergism.

There is action involved in trusting our souls to Christ. Our attitudes adjust. Our outlook changes. We turn around. Our kindness becomes more Christ-like. We forgive as we have been forgiven. In the words of Verbrugge, our lives are “constituted” to line up with our belief. If none of these things happen in a life, could one make a case that a person really doesn’t believe?
I hope this helps you see this is not opinion, conjecture, or interpretation, but rather an observation that is deeply rooted in scholarly word study. Based on these examples of extra-biblical literature alone, you cannot ignore the Greeks’ connection between belief and action. Belief meant something. It meant acting on a particular belief. But remember, the belief precedes the action. Believe, then act. Let’s use this information to help our students deepen their commitments and lock into the kind of belief God is looking for: belief that changes their lives.

Thanks again for your heart and attention to detail.