2020-07-20 – Considering the Bible

Faith 2 As mentioned in my introduction to faith post, I was in Sunday School class a while back and had the opportunity to discuss Christian maturity with the teacher, and as you may have guessed, we wandered off into the subject of faith.

Faith

He had told me there are a number of Greek words in the New Testament that are translated “faith” in our English Bible, and I let him know I thought otherwise.

So I came home and did a quick study, using Blue Letter Bible web site. The following table gives a summary of the New Testament Greek words used when describing our English word “faith”.

Strongs #	Greek	Transliterated	English Equivalent
New Testament (Greek) for “faith”
G571	ἄπιστος	apistos	that believe not, unbelieving, faithless, unbeliever, infidel, thing incredible, which believe not
G1680	ἐλπίς	elpis	hope, faith
G3640	ὀλιγόπιστος	oligopistos	of little faith
G4102	πίστις	pistis	faith, assurance, believe, belief, them that believe, fidelity
G4103	πιστός	pistos	faithful, believe, believing, true, faithfully, believer, sure not tr
G6066	ὀλιγοπιστία	oligopistia	littleness of faith

faith 4 I’m glad he challenged me to look it up and I think we were both sort of correct.

The root word found in each of the above greek words is pistos/pistis, and when checked in that web site I like (see above), both are derived from the Greek word “peíthō”.

Strong’s Definitions

πείθω peíthō, pi’-tho; a primary verb; to convince (by argument, true or false); by analogy, to pacify or conciliate (by other fair means); reflexively or passively, to assent (to evidence or authority), to rely (by inward certainty):—agree, assure, believe, have confidence, be (wax) conflent, make friend, obey, persuade, trust, yield.

For future posts, I would like to explore the concept of faith, and each of the terms found in the table above. But for now, I would like to consider the root word peíthō.

Peíthō

In the Strongs Concordance definition above I have italicized a number of synonyms that are synonyms for the root word Peíthō.

Consider the following shades of the Greek word Peíthō.

Have Confidence

As mentioned above, and as further clarification (I hope) of the thought above, having confidence I feel is the continually growing and deepening of the initial belief.

As I have falteringly followed the Master through this journey, I have found His trustworthiness to be beyond my original hopes. His mercies are new everyday and I have sensed a growing confidence in the Saviors ability (not mine!) to guide and protect, to supply and correct, to help and to encourage.

To “Peíthō” is to have confidence in the One who is the object of faith.

Will you OBEY your curiosity and come visit my next post? Hope so, since I am really enjoying this study and hope to hear from those who find value in the posts. Thanks again!