The Hill Oikos Blog

This week in our weekly meeting we were honored by the presence of another group of friends with Oikos Ministries. Kim and Marianne have been involved with the house churches from Oikos Ministries from the inception; and the crowd that usually meets with them met with us also. By the way, this is not unusual for us to do. Occasionally we will gather with another group of friends and enjoy fellowship with people that we don’t see as often.

This past week I’ve been considering the word believe. Over and over the New Testament refers to believing or not believing. In Matthew chapter eight Jesus marveled at a centurion soldier’s faith and told him as he (the centurion) had believed, the thing he had asked was done. In Mark chapter five Jairus comes to Jesus because his daughter is sick and dying. When Jairus is given the news of his daughter’s death, Jesus tells him only believe. Unbelieving comes up a lot too. In Matthew chapter thirteen Jesus comes to His own town and “did not do many mighty works because of their unbelief”.

The scripture that caught my eye on the subject of believe is Mark chapter nine, verses twenty-three and twenty-four. Just to get us “up to speed”, these two verses are the dialog between a father, whose son is afflicted by “a dumb spirit”, and Jesus. In the earlier verses we learn that the dumb spirit “dashes him (the son) to the ground and he foams at the mouth”. It is also made apparent that Jesus’ disciples were not able to help at all. When Jesus shows up on the scene it is clearly chaos and, according to Mark, Jesus drives the dumb spirit out of the boy. Good ending. However, it is the dialog between Jesus and the boy’s father in verses twenty-three and twenty-four that speak volumes about the dichotomy between our belief and unbelief.

Here is the dialog between Jesus and the boy’s father:

23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

The word that Jesus and the boy’s father used for believe is Pisteuo in the Greek. This is the definition from Strong’s Greek/Hebrew Dictionary:

Pisteuo - pist-yoo'-o
to think to be true, to be persuaded of, to credit, place confidence in
of the thing believed
to credit, have confidence
in a moral or religious reference
used in the NT of the conviction and trust to which a man is impelled by a certain inner and higher prerogative and law of soul
to trust in Jesus or God as able to aid either in obtaining or in doing something: saving faith 1bc) mere acknowledgment of some fact or event: intellectual faith
to entrust a thing to one, i.e. his fidelity
to be entrusted with a thing

I would like to take the liberty to offer my interpretation of what may have been said

Jesus: “Are you fully persuaded? Anything’s possible for those who are convinced!”

Boy’s father: “Yes! I am fully persuaded! But please Lord, convince me!”

Sometimes in those moments between our believing and unbelieving there is room for a miracle if we just ask.