Day: September 7, 2020

Confidence · Faith · Persuade

Faith – Apistos – Unbeliever

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Faith 2As mentioned in my earlier post, I was in discussion with my Sunday School teacher and we verred into the topic of faith.  This topic addresses the first Greek word in our table below

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

This post will consider Apistos, ἄπιστοςNo Faith

Strong’s Definitions
ἄπιστος ápistos, ap’-is-tos; from G1 (as a negative particle) and G4103; (actively) disbelieving, i.e. without Christian faith (specially, a heathen); (passively) untrustworthy (person), or incredible (thing):—that believeth not, faithless, incredible thing, infidel, unbeliever(-ing).

Apistos

This is the root word discussed earlier, with the prefix of “a” attached.  Having this prefix, negates the word, or in other words, creates the opposite of the term.
Consider a man who calls himself a theist – one who believes in God.  Place an “a” in front of this term and you find Richard Dawkins. (an athiest).
Unbeliever/Infidel

1 Timothy 5:8

But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

infidelI used to read the KJV religiously, and in that translation, the term “unbeliever” was translated “infidel”.  This always bothered me since it is such a loaded term.
This verse actually convinced me of the need to provide life insurance for my wife, since it was so closely associated with the description of widows in this passage.
Again, this verse will be dealt with in a Conditional Security post I will provide, so I will leave the reader to that.
In conclusion of these past few posts, it seems obvious (at least to me) that the condition of unbelieving is not irreversible.   If you are in a state of unbelief, change your mind. 
Change your will.
Make a decision to follow the Master.  Consider the gospel of the grace of God and don’t throw away the invitation to enter into belief. 

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