The bible doesn't change. People do.
Here is an example. Yesterday I was at my regular Saturday morning scripture study. At present we are working through sefer (סֵפֶר) Mishlei (מִשְׁלֵי), the book of Proverbs. We do a perek (פרק), chapter, a week and we are up to chapter 27. There are about 18 of us and it is a fairly regular group. One gentleman has a very difficult time raising his highly autistic son on his own. This Saturday I was speaking with him after class about his situation. His faith is very strong, but it wasn't always. Some years back he was an aethist, but something happened in his life that lead to him to be a strong believer.
The bible didn't change. He did.
Therefore, the question is: What causes someone to believe?
In this blog I am going to layout a fundamental pattern for the establishment of abiding faith.
Abiding faith means a deep, active, and continuous trust and reliance on God.
Abiding faith, deep trust, is above and beyond belief. Trust requires a mental choice that is a more difficult to make. That "choice" is an act of faith. A strong believer has an easier time making the choice to trust God. By developing our belief we are reducing the leap of faith required to have trust.
People can believe their is one God without trusting in that God. But people will not trust in God without believing. Therefore, belief precedes Trust.
The Lord gave us free will. One has to want to believe, to believe. If one wants to believe they will seek God. If they seek God, they WILL find Him. Once they do, they will believe. Therefore, the desire to believe precedes belief.
To Believe
Believing is the crucial first step toward a deeper and more meaningful sense of God. Believing readies the heart to take the final leap of faith into ultimate and abiding trust.
"Belief" establishes God's word as reliable ground. Belief provides the mental footing that prepares us to jump from the self, our ego, and to take the risk to trust God. Without belief there is no basis for reliance.
Why do people believe?
The reasons people want to believe in God are the reasons to believe in God. I know this is a circular argument, but its true. In other words, the capacity and even the tendency to believe in God is built into the human psyche. God instilled the desire to seek and find him into us.
While some view it as an evolutionary byproduct, theological perspectives argue it reflects divine design, where God implants a longing for Himself. Our Creator's desire for us is designed into our desire to find Him. That's the circularity: The reasons people want to believe in God are the reasons to believe in God. In effect, we are designed in God’s image.
Nurture Nature
Studies show children as young as three exhibit a natural predisposition to attribute purpose and agency to natural events, fostering belief in supernatural entities. Cognitive scientists like Justin Barrett describe this as the "natural operation of human minds," echoing John Calvin's concept of an innate awareness of divinity called sensus divinitatis. Research across 20 countries confirms humans are predisposed to believe in gods and afterlife, requiring effort to suppress rather than cultivate it. Rather than "nurturing nature," society and culture suppresses it.
The desire to believe is the reason to believe.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 states God "has set eternity in their heart," creating an innate sense of something transcendent beyond the temporal world. Psalm 42:1 compares the soul's thirst for God to a deer's desperate panting for water, implying a profound, built-in need. Romans 1:19-20 affirms that God's invisible qualities are "plain" through creation, rendering humanity without excuse for ignoring this innate knowledge.
The desire for belief in God proves reliable because its Object promises fulfillment to seekers. Philosophers like C.S. Lewis advance the "argument from desire," positing that our unquenchable longing for infinite joy points to its true object—God—much like hunger indicates food.
Jesus summed this up so succinctly when he said during his Sermon on the Mount, "Seek and ye shall find." Matthew 7.7
The thing I find so interesting is that Jesus didn't say what to seek or what you'd find. Thereby leaving the process open to the personal needs of each individual. Furthermore, it inferes that you'll find not only your true need, but God Himself.
What We Seek
People seek belief in God for a mix of innate (inborn) reasons: Longings, existential needs, and experiential draws.
Humans seem to have a compelling need to understand life's structure and for purpose beyond chaos.
Altruism, love, the beauty and complexity of nature, the conscience mind; All these point to a transcendent source rather than random evolution.
Fear of death and the desire for meaning amplify this desire—God offers hope, accountability, and belonging amid uncertainty.
People turn to God in adversity. Facing enemies, crisis and desperation... adversities catalyzes the need for the strength we lack to overcome forces against us. Pain, loss, emptiness, loneliness and deep remorse make us yearn for that which will help us cope.
People find power, forgiveness, transformation, peace and joy through faith. Individuals achieve outcomes that become compelling testimonies. Seeing and hearing others testimonies leads to believing. The witness of others implants a hunger for belief.
Hebrew Shows Us and the Bible Tells Us
Leha’amin (להאמין) is the everyday infinitive for "to believe," as in "I want to believe" (אני רוצה להאמין).
"Believe" (להאמין), "faith" (אמונה) have the same Hebrew root, "amen" (אמן). A Hebrew root is by & large 3 letters. In this case it is א-מ-ן.
This א-מ-ן root also yields adjectives and nouns such as ne’eman (נֶאֱמָן) meaning “faithful or trustworthy” and emunah (אֱמוּנָה) meaning “faithfulness" or "steadiness.” They are all expressions of proven reliability and they all share the same א-מ-ן root. From a Hebrew standpoint, faith is built on belief.
Ultimately it requires an act of faith whereby we let go of self and take hold of God. Faith enables us to cross over into a trusting relationship.
BELIEVING VERSES TRUSTING
you are the one Israel praises.
In you our ancestors put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.
To you they cried out and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.
Believing and trusting overlap significantly but carry distinct nuances, especially in biblical and everyday language. The core distinction is that "believing" centers on intellectual assent or conviction that something is true—accepting a fact, promise, or statement as reliable. Trusting goes further, implying relational reliance, action, and dependence, often built through experience or commitment. "Trust" (batach root בטח) emphasizes bold confidence and security, like leaning into support (e.g., Psalm 22:4).
Here is common practical illustration:
Believing: "I believe the chair will hold me" (mental acceptance).
Trusting: Sitting in the chair (acting on that belief).
You can believe facts about God without trusting Him personally; trust demands surrender and obedience. Emunah (faith) is a lived-out reliability; mere belief without action falls short. See the story of Abraham in Genesis 22.
HE BELIEVED
Genesis 15:6— he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him as righteousness.
Because Abraham believed (Gen 15:6, echoed here), God swore by Himself: "By myself I have sworn... because you have done this... I will surely bless you" (Gen 22:16-18). This is what's called a causative action (he'emin). We can read of cases of relational trust in God exhibited by the prophets.
The verb הֶאֱמִין (he’emin, “he believed”) defines a person's act of entering into, or resting on firmness—placing one’s weight on what is reliable. For the Hebrew sages, saying Amen is a verbal declaration that what has been said is reliable, trusted, and firmly embraced.
THE BEGINNING OF BELIEVING
Isaiah 7:9-14—And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah; if you do not believe, it is because you cannot be believed." 10 And the Lord continued to speak to Ahaz, saying, 11 "Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord, your God: ask it either in the depths, or in the heights above." 12 And Ahaz said, "I will not ask, and I will not test the Lord." 13 And he said, "Listen now, O House of David, is it little for you to weary men, that you weary my God as well? 14 Therefore, the Lord, of His own, shall give you a sign; behold, the young woman is with child, and she shall bear a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel.
Many Hebrew teachers draw “pictograph” associations for the three letters in Amen.
א (Aleph) – often associated with an ox head, conveying strength, leader, or the divine source. (Aleph=1)
מ (Mem) – associated with water, suggesting chaos, depth, or what is hidden and unknown. (Mem=40)
נ (Nun) – associated with a sprouting seed, suggesting life or offspring. The Hebrew letter Nun (נ) is strongly associated with birth, new life, offspring, and continuity, (Nun=50)
On a tangent, I find it interesting that the Hebrew word for truth (emet אֱמֶת) is one letter difference than Amen אמן. In Amen the last letter is a Nun ן verse a Tav ת. You could say that to turn steadfast faith into truth you need to convert the Nun (the seed) to a Tav (a cross).
In 2 Chronicles 20:20 Jehoshaphat urges, "Believe in the LORD your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper." Believe so...Believing is crucial to trusting, so let's look at how believing happens.
In Exodus 4:1-9 Moses worries Israel "will not believe" (ya'aminu, יַאֲמִינוּ) his words, prompting miracle signs to confirm trust.
It is difficult to take the leap from believing to trusting. Several barriers can prevent someone who intellectually believes in God from fully trusting Him in action and reliance.
Obstacles to Trust:
- Fear of losing control – Despite knowing God's power, past disappointments or unanswered prayers create doubt in His goodness, making surrender feel risky.
- The desire for self-sufficiency – People want to rely on their personal strength for fear of vulnerability that comes with reliance on others.
Strengthening our belief helps to take the leap of faith. Belief typically precedes and grounds trust. One must first accept something as true to trust or rely on it actively. I see it as a pattern or a logical sequence.
Logical Sequence
Intellectual assent forms the foundation. Without holding God's word reliable, emunah (faith as steadfast action) cannot follow. It tells us in the New Testament that even demons intellectually "believe" (James 2:19) but lack obedient trust, underscoring belief's necessity yet insufficiency alone.
Abram believed the promise first, then acted in obedience (Gen 22), building relational faith. People establish belief through evidence (miracles, history) before risking trust.
The practical implication is to reinforce belief via scripture immersion and small obediences.
What Increases Belief
- Scripture - reading and hearing the great stories in the bible
- Calling upon God - prayer
- Personal encounters including personal testimony
- Miracles
- Amazement in creation
Miracles Serve As Confirmation For Belief
Isaiah 41 and 42 idols versus what God shows
Old Testament narratives show miracles explicitly confirming God’s word and calling, so that people believe on the basis of what they see.
Exodus – Israel’s foundational pattern Plagues and Red Sea: The signs in Egypt and the parting of the sea are repeatedly framed as “signs” so that Egypt and Israel will know that YHWH is God (e.g., Exodus 7:3–5).
After the Red Sea, “Israel saw the great power that the Lord used… so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses” (Exodus 14:31).
Manna and water in the wilderness: Provision in Exodus 16–17 not only sustains Israel but confirms that the same God who spoke at the Exodus is still present and trustworthy.
Exodus 4 – When Moses fears Israel will not believe him, God gives three signs (staff to serpent, leprous hand healed, water to blood) “that they may believe that the Lord… has appeared to you” (Exodus 4:1–9). The stated purpose is exactly what you’ve articulated: miracles serving as a basis for belief.
Elijah and Elisha – miracles validating the wordElijah and the widow at Zarephath (1 Kings 17:8–24): The jar of flour and jug of oil miraculously do not run out during famine, and then Elijah raises her son. Her conclusion: “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth” (1 Kings 17:24). The miracles serve as direct confirmation of the prophetic word.
Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:20–39): Elijah prays, fire falls on the water‑soaked sacrifice, and the people respond, “The Lord, he is God!” The sign publicly vindicates YHWH over Baal and confirms Elijah’s message.
Fiery furnace (Daniel 3): Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are delivered from the blazing furnace without even the smell of smoke. Nebuchadnezzar then blesses their God and issues a decree honoring Him, treating the miracle as proof that “no other god is able to rescue in this way.”
Lions’ den (Daniel 6): Daniel’s preservation leads Darius to proclaim that Daniel’s God is the living God whose kingdom shall not be destroyed, again interpreting the miracle as confirmation of Daniel’s God and faith.
Across these stories, the pattern is clear: distress or crisis → divine word/call → miracle → confession or recognition that confirms belief. In that sense, “seeing is believing” in the Old Testament operates as a divinely chosen pedagogy to ground and deepen faith.
Believing Readys One to Trust
“Believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1), which assume and address the will’s readiness.
“If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes” (Mark 9:23).
John 20:30—Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
2 Thessalonians 3:1-3—As for other matters, brothers and sisters, pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored, just as it was with you. 2 And pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil people, for not everyone has faith. 3 But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one.
Hands of Faith
The priests giving blessings
Recieving
