Here’s another nugget from the Official Collection of Proverbs and Random Thoughts from Jeff the Twisted, Slightly Off-Center Philosopher:
“Following Jesus is more about action than it is about belief.”
Correct? Incorrect?
Why or why not?
Wayward Son
Musician. Composer. Recovering perfectionist. Minister-in-transition. Lover of puns. Hijacker of rock song references. Questioner of the status quo.
I'm not really a rebel. Just a sincere Christ-follower with a thirst for significance that gets me into trouble. My quest has taken me over the fence of institutional Christianity. Here are some of my random thoughts along the way. Read along, join in the conversation. Just be nice.
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Jeff,
I think that is incorrect. The reason is that belief drives action.
One can only follow Him when they believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that deligently seek HIm. Also, we love Him only because He first loved us. And it is because of that love that we choose to serve Him. It is also because service to God is done out of gratitude for what He has already done for us.
You have to believe it before it can affect your actions. That’s my thought on the matter.
Blessings,
Gary
I was going to say that it is correct… There are a lot of people who “believe” but don’t actually do any following. Just check any church Sunday morning.
But, maybe it still is incorrect despite the apparent evidence to the contrary. Even though all those people say they “believe”, obviously they don’t believe what Jesus told them to do because they are not doing it!
I guess we need to qualify what we mean by “believe”…
I might be inclined to agree with this:
“Following Jesus is about action than emanates from belief.”
If you say you believe and it does not drive you to action, do you truly believe?
Great answers, all. 🙂 This response is to the first four comments in general…
I think Rainer nailed when he suggested we qualify what we mean by “belief.” If we believe the way the Bible teaches it, then yes, Gary is right. The statement is incorrect. To the early church (and derived from the Hebrew mindset in general), belief drove you to act. If you didn’t act on it, you didn’t really believe it–just as Jeff Nelson has suggested. Belief and faith (trust) were basically synonymous.
But “belief” today has been reduced to agreeing with a set of facts. You can agree with statements all day long, and it does not cost you anything to do so. And unfortunately, this form of belief defines many Christians. To put it crassly–“all talk, no walk.” 🙂 This mentality reduces Christianity to forming theology and doctrine, and focusing on having the “right” beliefs about Jesus, rather than learning to live as He taught us to live.
This is essentially what I was driving at when I put this statement up for discussion–that there are too many claiming to believe certain things about Jesus, and too few who do not challenge themselves to act on what they say they believe.
In this, I agree with Kansas Bob: “Following Jesus is about action that emanates from belief.” It is true that they really are both important, but imho what *defines* a disciple, a Christ-follower, is if they are *following* Jesus–not what they say they believe.