Joysightings 52 Defining Faith and The Long Walk
Daily Bible Reading Phil Fields
Release Date: 03/24/2022
Daily Bible Reading Phil Fields
JOSHUA 12-13:As we heard yesterday, God fought for Israel, even causing the sun and moon to stand still. Basically the main central body of land was conquered in only two campaigns. It is important to remember that the total destruction of the people groups listed was commanded by God because of their disgusting pagan and idolatrous practices. Joshua 10:40 “… This was what the Lord God of Israel had commanded.” See also 11:20. PSALM 72:It is clear that this psalm, written by King Solomon— or more likely written about King Solomon, goes beyond Solomon, giving adoration to the King of...
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JOSHUA 10-11:The king of Ai trusted in appearances, and was defeated. And the leaders of Israel trusted in appearances and failed to ask God for guidance, leading to a problem that would later cause more pain. PSALM 71:This is a poem written by an senior citizen with examples for our prayers that are appropriate for ‘youth’ of all ages. ACTS 22:In the last part of Acts 21, people from the Roman province of Asia recognized Paul and started a riot in the temple. Paul was arrested and now gives his speech to the angry mob. NLT Translation notes:Josh. 10:39 He captured the town, its king, and...
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JOSHUA 8-9:Yesterday the walls of Jericho “came a-tumbling down” after some skillful trumpet playing while marching around the city for 7 days. The city was devoted to destruction, meaning that this was God's judgement upon them, and that everything was to be destroyed. Right after this amazing victory, Israel learned through a man named Achan that keeping treasures devoted to destruction makes oneself devoted to destruction. PSALM 70:David pleads in this psalm for help against his enemies. And this poem is a repetition of the last part of Psalm 40. ACTS 21b:Paul, Luke, and the other...
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JOSHUA 6-7:In yesterday’s reading, Joshua lead the people across the Jordan on dry ground, and they set up 12 stones in two places to be memorial reminders for the people of this miracle. All the men were circumcised, and the angel who is the commander of God's army revealed himself to Joshua. PSALM 69:In yesterday’s reading, I appreciated that the writer appealed to God based on the Lord’s ‘constant love’. Let’s continue the reading of Ps 69 with four verses appropriate to Jesus’ life. Note that verse 22 is quoted by Paul in Romans 11. ACTS 21a:Yesterday we heard Paul's speech...
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JOSHUA 4-5:In yesterday’s reading, Joshua sent out two spies. Rahab, who was a prostitute and later became an outstanding example of God's grace, protected them and eventually became a full member of Israel. The people of Israel crossed the Jordan miraculously on dry ground— even though the river was in flood stage, as Joshua leads following God's instructions. PSALM 69:This poem contains words that were quoted about Jesus (v. 4 and 9). Those verses give us an inside view of the nature of Jesus’ suffering while on earth in his public ministry. ACTS 20:In yesterday’s reading, Paul left...
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JOSHUA 2-3:Yesterday we started the book of Joshua, named after the man God chose as Moses’ successor. In this book we will see the victory of the Chosen People in conquering the Promised Land (chapters 1-12) and then the occupation of the Promised Land (chapters 13-24). Three times i n Deuteronomy 31, we heard the charge, “Be determined and confident,” and that command was repeated three more times to Joshua in chapter 1. PSALM 68b:This psalm starts with the words Moses spoke whenever the Ark of the Covenant was taken up to be moved to another place:“1 Rise up, O God, and scatter your...
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JOSHUA 1:Yesterday we read the conclusion of Deuteronomy with Moses blessing eleven of the twelve tribes with a prophetic blessing. And then Moses died and the Lord buried him in an unknown location in Moab. Now we turn to Joshua, the book named after the man God chose as Moses’ successor. In this book we see the victory of the Chosen People in conquering the Promised Land (chapters 1-12) and then the occupation of the Promised Land (chapters 13-24). Three times in Deuteronomy 31, we find the charge, “Be determined and confident,” and that command is repeated to Joshua in the...
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DEUTERONOMY 33-34: In yesterday's reading, Moses showed Israel that the leadership was given to Joshua, and he gave the command that this book of Deuteronomy be kept near the Arc of the Covenant. Then God gave Moses a long song to teach people, to help them remember. In this song, God described some future events as happening in the past tense. This is a feature many prophetic writings. Here is one detail you might want to notice today in chapter 33: In Moses’ blessings for the tribes of Israel, only 11 are listed. So I’m giving a digging deeper challenge: Which tribe is left out, and what...
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DEUTERONOMY 31-32:Yesterday in Deuteronomy Moses reviewed the covenant and again stressed that the choice is between life and death, and between experiencing blessings or curses. Be aware that in the poem dictated to Moses by the Lord, the Lord speaks of things that were in Israel’s future as if they had already taken place. This is called propleptic past tense, and is a feature of prophetic writings. PSALM 66:Our glorious God deserves glorious praise. Note that this psalm shows the importance of confessing our sins to God. ACTS 18:In Acts 17, opposition hounded the steps of Paul, Silas and...
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DEUTERONOMY 29-30:Yesterday in Deuteronomy Moses ratcheted up the fear index to the red level. And the scary thing about the threats he used to motivate the people to obedience is that they later all came true, as we will see in books like Judges and 2 Kings. PSALM 65:Today’s Psalm is a hymn of joy and mighty praise. ACTS 17:Yesterday we heard of how Paul and Silas were beaten and put in jail. This was as a result of freeing a slave girl from demonic bondage. Their overnight in jail led to the jailer and his family becoming followers of Christ. But the next day, as requested, Paul and Silas...
info_outlineAfter being directly involved in Bible translation since 1983, I have wanted to share with younger generations about the things I have learned from my experiences as a Bible translator— the things that made the most impact on me through my years. I have now decided to put a few of my most important stories in this JoySightings podcast. I know that I am never going to write a book. But now if anyone ever asks about my experiences, I will have a place to send them: Go to JoySightings.info and start at episode 52. I hope to add several other stories this year. Today I will also read one more parable of Safed the Sage.
When we were about 7-8 years into the Orya translation project, back around 1991, Nahe asked one Sunday morning to have a private conversation with me. Nahe and I had never had much communication, so I felt it was an unusual request. I knew him mainly as a young guy who made his income by cutting trees into lumber with his chainsaw. He was strong and athletic, but a man of few words.
He came that evening and we sat down together in my candle-lit rustic cabin’s front room. He said, “You wouldn’t have heard this, because it happened in another village. I got very sick and died. When I came back to life, the men were already building my coffin. But while I was dead, I went to heaven and saw wonderful things. The people in heaven are so happy and rejoicing.”
He ended his story with tears in his eyes saying this, “I cry every single day because I know that someone like me can’t go to heaven. What do I have to do to be saved?”
I thought, “Oh boy! A chance to be a real missionary! This will make a good prayer letter.” (But I was in for a surprise!) I immediately answered his question from the book of Acts chapter 16, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:31)
Nahe answered, “That’s just it! How can I tell if I have believed?”
I responded incredulously, “Can’t you tell if you’ve believed something?”
And he said, “We Orya people don’t think so.”
That’s how the conversation went according to my understanding of it in those moments. But what we said really meant this:
I answered wrongly from the book of Acts, “Have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.”
Nahe’s answer made sense, “That’s just it! How can I tell if I have faith?”
I responded incredulously, “Can’t you tell if you have faith?”
And he said, “We Orya people don’t think so.”
The difference is between ‘believe’ and ‘faith’. It took a little while in the conversation before I figured out what Nahe was saying. This was a heavy moment for me, because I realized that the word for ‘believe’ that we had used in all our translation work for six years was wrong, including verses in Scripture booklets we had carefully checked and distributed.
Long before we arrived in Guay, the word that the Orya people used to translate ‘faith’ was ei gwen, or to have ‘inner fruit’. By ‘inner fruit’ the Orya meant the inside part that you eat when you take off the skin. It’s the inside of the papaya or watermelon. The situation might be compared to buying a papaya at the market. You don’t know whether the inside is red or yellow until you take it home and cut it open.
Nahe told me that the Orya people assumed that you couldn’t know if you had this inner fruit (or faith) inside you until you died. They thought that at the door of heaven, God would somehow do an operation to reveal if you had any of the right stuff inside you.
It was clear that if we used ‘have inner fruit’ to translate ‘believe’, then no Orya person could tell if they had done the required action to be saved. No one could have assurance of salvation! After that Sunday evening conversation with Nahe, all day Monday Boas and I and several others worked to make sure we found exactly the right word for ‘believe’ in Orya. The word for believe in Orya is not ei gwen, but taïblïblan.
There is a weird twist that has happened with the words for faith and believe in several languages that is not like the Greek words pisteuo and pistis. The Greek words have the same root, so they sound alike.
Greek | English | Indonesian | Orya | |
verb | pisteuo | I believe | Saya percaya | taïblïblan |
noun | pistis | faith | iman | ei gwen |
visually | clearly related | dissimilar | dissimilar | dissimilar |
If only pisteuo (I believe) and pistis/pisteos (noun/possesive noun) were translated into English with similar looking words like ‘I’m confident’ and ‘confidence’, we wouldn’t have so many false teachings being spread around! But because ‘believe’ and ‘faith’ share no visible or audible root relationship, the English noun faith has been allowed to wander— so to speak. The cohesion between pisteuo and pistis that was obvious for the original readers in Grrek has been lost in translation. Perhaps because of the influence of the KJV on Indonesian translations, the same thing has happened in Indonesian. The result is that the Indonesian word iman (like ‘faith’ in English) is used for all sorts of things, including inner fortitude, vague hope, blind trust, denominational faith, and a force for good luck.
Notice what happens in verses like Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. …” If you want to be saved, it would be a good idea to understand ‘faith’. But so many people who ask Nahe’s question, “How can I tell if I have faith,” will get all sorts of misleading answers.
Dear friend, anytime you want to understand what ‘faith’ means in a verse in the New Testament, just remember that you can substitute the word ‘believe’, ‘believed’, or ‘believing’ (whatever form fits) in place of the word ‘faith’. NLT translates Ephesians 2:8 as “God saved you by his grace when you believed. …” If you substitute the word ‘believe’ for ‘faith’ in translations that use that word, you will probably find that you want to add an object. You can choose an object from the context such as these: ‘believe in Christ’, ‘believe in the gospel’, ‘believe true teachings’, or ‘believe God’s promises’.
Now you know why in the Daily Bible Reading podcasts that I always substitute the word ‘believe’ or ‘fully believing’ for ‘faith’ in the NLT or GNT. It all stems from my conversation with Nahe. You see, I want people to know how to be saved.
Note that believing is a volitional act. We decide to believe, and we better hope our decisions are based on good logic and evidence. That is what makes it so different from the word ‘faith’. People believe that ‘faith’ just sort of happens. False teachers make money by promoting all sorts of things that they claim will increase your faith. But remember that in Greek, faith is the noun form for the verb believe. So if God gives you clear evidence of his power and love for you, like He did when he led the people of Israel out of Egypt, and then you refuse to believe in his good will for you, that is called stubborn disobedience. Believing is a volitional act. Deciding to believe what God says equals increasing your faith.
I wish I could tell you that Nahe followed through with my advice to fully believe in Jesus. Nahe’s widow goes to close friend Boas’ church, and I happened to meet her in his village two years ago. We both feel that Nahe never believed in Jesus to the point that it changed his life. But, interestingly, on that same visit to Boas’ village, two old friends there told me stories of their dying, going to heaven, and being told to return to this world. (If you ever experienced malaria, you would know how easy it would be to nearly die!) I am encouraged that both of my two old friends show signs of true new life in Christ.
Friends, I want everyone to get a clear answer to the question, “How can I be sure I am saved?” I want you to not get confused by the fuzzy word ‘faith’. Remember, faith is fully believing what the Bible says. Every time you read God’s Word and decide that you believe what you find there, you have increased your faith.