I used to think that action followed belief. The more years I spent in the church, the less I bought into that idea. For the last couple of years, I've even made a big point of saying (and writing) publicly that "action does not necessarily follow belief." Recently I've been reading Dallas Willard's book "The Divine Conspiracy", and he has really challenged me on this. Get ready...I'm about to recant an idea that I have promoted with gusto.
Action DOES follow belief. The sad fact is that most Christians don't believe what they know. I was equating "believing" with "knowing", hence my confusion. There is a huge difference. "Knowing" involves holding the right information in your head, and maybe even cognitively agreeing with it. Believing involves ordering your life around the idea as if it were so. Most Christians take the first option, erroneously thinking it to be the second. Therefore life change does not occur. We struggle with the same struggles. We attempt to force ourselves to be "good". We do mental gymnastics to try to justify how Jesus could describe a life for his followers that none would ever actually live (and not be lying). The fact is that we know what Jesus said and we know that He believed it. We know these things, but we don't believe them. We live as if there is going to be a standardized test at the end of our lives to determine our eternity (as if that were even the point). We hold the right "answers" in our heads (or so we think) and live our actual lives by the conflicting ideas that we actually believe. What do our churches and ministries need to do to move people from being Christians who "know" to Christians who actually "believe"? The world is waiting...
AE
11 comments:
Reminds me of this quote by Brennan Manning:
"The greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who proclaim Jesus with their lips, and reject him with their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."
Knowledge is what we are supposed to believe. Belief is what we act on.
However, we come to believe what we do as well.
An experience will shift our beliefs, if only we would allow ourselves to experience more.
Fajita,
I agree with you. I had almost given up on belief leading to action though. It turns out it CAN work both ways.
AE
Adam,
I am working on some lessons from 1 Peter currently and I was hit like a ton of bricks by a statement Peter makes - "Since you have been purified by obeying the truth..." I have probably read that passage a hundred times and every time I carelessly substituted "believed" for "obeyed". I think Peter would sum it up by saying that until you act on it you do not really believe it anyway! Obviously the connection between action and belief is a two way street (with many sideroads crossing here and there)and it would be a mistake to insist that the traffic only flows in one direction. However, if you do it long enough you will believe it. And if you really believe it you should put your money where your mouth is! Just a thought...
Application
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Teach, show, practice, repeat.
good stuff. someone's book pointed out that "believe" in most cases is a word that's better translated "believe into" - like the knowing that leads to action. thanks for posting - made me think.
It seems like half of God's revelation is what to do, and the second half is getting people to really do it. How often is Jesus saying, "Do you not know the prophets? Do you not know what is written?" Paul in the same way rarely seems to give new insight, but just keeps saying over and over, "Remember, remember, remember...what we told you, who you are, what you will become."
You don't know me, but we conversed a while back on your blog and I've enjoyed following your posts. I just started a new blog myself:
http://thegourd.blogspot.com
(sorry, I guess that was a plug.)
I've had a mantra on the subject that I haven't always lived by:
"Faith becomes fact when you act."
DW is changing the way I think as well. It is truly liberating to realize that my thinking has been the biggest hinderance.
I am truly drinking in the book.
Manual trackback: I linked to your post on my blog today. Peace.
Great post - Linked to this here
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