This episode turns on two words, and everything said about them sits in books anyone can open. Open one and read along with me. Half of what is listed here costs nothing, and I would far rather sit across from you while you look than have you take it from me.
Pull Up A Chair
What was open on the table
Before these words were emptied, they carried weight. Pistis was a guarantee. Emunah was a character. Faith was something you were.
The Greek word
Primary textπίστις · pistis
In classical and Hellenistic usage the noun carries a range that runs well past “belief”: proof, assurance, pledge, guarantee, a means of persuasion, the good faith on which a contract stands.
In Aristotle’s Rhetoric, a pistis is a proof — the thing that makes a case. A king sending pistis to a conquered city is sending a guarantee, not an opinion.
ReferenceWhere to check the Greek
LSJ — Liddell, Scott & Jones,
A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. πίστις. Free at the
Logeion project, University of Chicago.
BDAG — Bauer, Danker, Arndt & Gingrich,
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (Chicago, 2000), s.v. πίστις.
TDNT — Kittel,
Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 6, the πιστ- entry.
Open Logeion, type the word, and read the entry. It takes ninety seconds and you will see the range for yourself.
ReferenceRoman Faith and Christian Faith
Teresa Morgan
Oxford University Press, 2015 · ISBN 9780198724148
The major modern study of what pistis and fides actually did in the ancient world — relationship, obligation and trustworthiness between parties, rather than interior belief. If you want one book behind this episode, it is this one.
The Hebrew foundation
Primary textאֶמוּנָה · emunah
Firmness, steadiness, reliability — the faithfulness of someone entrusted with an office. Built on the root אמן (’mn), which is also where amen comes from.
A treasurer who does not steal. A watchman who does not sleep. It is a condition of character, not an emotion you generate.
ReferenceWhere to check the Hebrew
BDB — Brown, Driver & Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon, s.v. אֶמוּנָה (entry 530). Public domain and free online.
HALOT — Koehler & Baumgartner, Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament.
TDOT — Botterweck & Ringgren, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, the ’mn entry.
Primary textThe steadiness, made visible
“But Moses’ hands were heavy; and they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, and Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side and one on the other. And his hands were emunah until the going down of the sun.”
Exodus 17:12 · the same noun, used of hands that did not drop
This is the picture the word carries. Not a feeling about the battle. Hands that stayed up until sundown.
Having and being
ReadingFaith is a condition, not a possession
Something you have can be lost, stolen or borrowed. Something you are cannot be taken. The lexicons will give you the range of both words; what I do with that range — arguing that pistis and emunah together describe a person rather than a possession, and that the English “I have faith” imports a gap the originals do not carry — is my reading.
What is mine, and what is not: the semantic range is documented and you can verify every word of it. The conclusion I draw from it is mine, and I hold it open-handed. Sit with the words yourself and see what you find.
ReadingWhat the mouth reveals
“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” — Matthew 12:34
The verse is scripture. The diagnostic I draw from it — that I trust God will provide and God will provide report two different places to be standing, and that the extra words are the sound of a gap — is mine. It is offered as information, never as condemnation. Knowing where you are is the beginning of knowing how to move.
Creation as the framework
ReadingThe seed does not hope
The seed knows what it will become. The bird knows when to go. The tide knows when to turn. None of them are reaching across a gap — they are operating on something firm that was placed in them before they started. That is faith as the created order already practises it, and we are the only part of creation that gets to choose whether to follow.
A reading, and plainly mine. No lexicon will hand you this one.
What we know about these words
The range is documented. Pistis carried proof, pledge and guarantee in ordinary ancient speech, and emunah carried steadiness and reliability. Any standard lexicon will show you both, and two of the ones listed above are free to read tonight.
The condition still exists. We go back not to stay back. The old meanings are not better because they are old — they are worth recovering because they still describe something real, and still available, that we are capable of.