With God Daily - What It Means to Believe

In a recent survey, 74 percent of Americans said they believe in God, 79 percent said they believe in miracles, 69 percent believe in angels, 38 percent believe the 2020 election was stolen, 13 percent believe in Bigfoot, and 4 percent believe Elvis is still alive. In each of these statistics, to believe means to affirm the existence or reality of something. For modern, post-Enlightenment people, belief simply means cognitive agreement with an idea.

Most of us carry this mental understanding of belief into our life with God as well. We assume that to be a Christian means assent to a certain set of doctrines. We even call this bundle of theological ideas one’s “beliefs.” Therefore, changing one’s beliefs amounts to changing one’s mind. It is all very abstract and cerebral because our modern culture assumes that belief happens in one’s head. (This also explains why children and those who do not possess full cognitive abilities, are regrettably viewed and treated as less than full participants in some church communities.)

Unfortunately, many of us impose this modern, intellectual understanding of belief onto our reading of Scripture and few consider that the the ancient world had a very different view of it. Naaman’s story offers a good example. If we read 2 Kings 5 holding to the modern definition of belief as affirming the existence or reality of something, then we could say that Naaman always believed in Israel’s God. After all, he traveled from Syria because he believed Israel’s God existed and Naaman hoped he could heal his leprosy.

If Naaman always “believed” in Israel’s God, then how are we to understand his conversion in verse 17? In our culture, we think of a religious conversion as changing the bundle of ideas one agrees with. An atheist becomes a theist when she changes her mind about the existence of God. Or a Muslim becomes a Christian when he changes his mind about the bodily resurrection of Jesus. This is how we usually define conversion. But in Naaman’s story, there is no indication that he ever changes his mind about the reality or existence of Israel’s God. So, what did Naaman change if not his intellectual ideas?

In verse 17, Naaman declares that he “will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but YHWH.” For Naaman conversion did not mean a change in his doctrine, but a change in his allegiance. He transferred his loyalty from the many gods of Syria to the one God of Israel. This is what belief meant in the ancient world. To believe was far more than a mental affirmation of a thing’s reality or existence. Belief meant to give your full allegiance to something.

For example, when we “pledge allegiance” to the United States, we are not simply affirming the existence of the United States. (Obviously, the United States exists otherwise we could not give our allegiance to it.) To pledge allegiance means to give one’s loyalty to the United States and no other country, and that loyalty is manifested physically not just mentally. Merely believing in the reality of the U.S. does not make one loyal to it. Loyalty is revealed by what a person does.

This is how belief was understood in the ancient world. Naaman’s allegiance to the God of Israel was visible, physical, and bodily. He vowed to offer sacrifices only to YHWH and no other god. Naaman’s belief in the God of Israel wasn’t merely some abstract idea or doctrine in his mind. He didn’t sign a statement of faith or agree with a list of theological bullet points. His conversion was a shift in bodily allegiance to worship and obey only YHWH.

This kind of bodily allegiance is what the Apostle Paul meant when he commanded Christians “to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1). To believe in Jesus Christ does not simply mean to affirm his existence, his resurrection, or even his identity as divine. As the Apostle James says, even demons affirm these things (see James 2:19). What separates a Christian from a demon is not doctrine but devotion. To believe in Jesus Christ means to give our full bodily allegiance to him.

DAILY SCRIPTURE

James 2:14-24
2 Kings 5:1-27

WEEKLY PRAYER

Hippolytus of Rome (190 - 236)

Christ is risen:
The world below lies desolate.
Christ is risen:
The spirits of evil are fallen.
Christ is risen:
The angels of God are rejoicing.
Christ is risen:
The tombs of the dead are empty.
Christ is risen indeed from the dead,
the first of the sleepers.
Glory and power are his forever and ever.
Amen.