I ďŹnd the term believer fascinating. Some of its intriguing facets include its popularity today as well as the obfuscating manner in which people use it.
If someone were to ask you, âWhat is the most common word today for identifying someone following Christ?â What would you say?
My experience is that âbelieverâ trumps Christian, disciple, saint, or any other New Testament designation for Jesusâ followers. Would it surprise us that in the original language of the New Testament its occurrence, depending on how we reckon it, is at best relatively rare (around eight times) or at worst it never appears?
In the original language, pistos is an adjective meaning faithful. When faithful refers to a man or woman, translators might render it as the noun âbeliever.â Thus, âthe son of a faithful Jewish womanâ might become âthe son of a Jewish woman who was a believerâ (Acts 16:1).
What is happening is that in order to achieve an easy English some translations will express pistos as a noun (âIf you consider me to be a believer in the Lord,â Acts 16:15 NET). Other translations will adhere to its adjectival nature (âIf you have judged me to be faithful to the Lordâ ESV).
Still yet, some translations insert believer into the text in order to provide an easy to read Bible where that word is absent in the original text. For example, âthemâ might become âbelieversâ (Acts 16:4; 20:2). The bottomline is, in the original language, the term believer is rare at best.
By way of contrast, consider the frequency in the New Testament of the adjective agios (holy) when it stands alone as a reference to those in Christ. Like pistos, it too might be translated as a noun, namely âsaintâ (Colossians 1:2; Acts 9:13). Whether expressed as âsaintsâ or âholy peopleâ in order to designate Godâs people, agios occurs over 40 times in this manner just within the epistles! Yet, how often have you heard someone refer to a Christian as either a holy person or a saint?
So why does current usage invert the frequencies of âholy people/ saintsâ and âfaithful people/ believersâ as compared with their respective usages in the New Testament? I suspect several reasons might play a role.
Why do you think a preference exists for believer? Â Are people simply conforming to a common convention? Is it because believer provides an inclusive affirming description of the lowest common denominator within Christendom? Is it free from stigma and more palatable than alternatives? Does it offer a simple accurate description?
Perhaps the question, "What do we understand when someone is identified as a believer?" enables us to draw closer toward identifying its popularity. Remember, it was rare in the original language of the New Testament.
Regardless as to why it has become more popular than saint/holy person, another intriguing facet of this word is its susceptibility to ambiguity. And this might just be a major contributor toward its overwhelming usage today. More on this next week.
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