Belief vs Faith

Philippians 1

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5)

Can you tell me the difference between “belief” and “faith?” Can you?

If you can, please do tell me, because I’m really struggling. Really struggling. You see, I know that, as a Christ-follower, a person of The Way, I need an abundant supply of faith. Life in my time and place demands it, and I fear that I come up very short when a strong faith is required.

Who am I? Let me introduce myself. I am Lucius, a retired Roman legionnaire living in Philippi in what you call the first century. And, most important, I am a Christ-follower, one whom you will call a Christian.

Legionnaire from Trajan’s Column

2nd century

At least I think I am. I try to be. But, you see, that’s my dilemma. I mean, does saying that I’m a Christian make me one? Isn’t there more to it than that? Doesn’t it require some evidence of faith in Jesus of Nazareth?

I haven’t been a Christ-follower for long. It was just about a year ago when a man named Paul, together with his friend Silvanus, came through Philippi. I heard Paul preach about this Jewish man, Jesus, who had been crucified by Roman legionnaires in Jerusalem, and who, according to Paul, had been raised from the dead by his god, whose name is YHWH.

You must understand that before I heard Paul preach, you would have considered me to be a pagan. Yes, a pagan who worshiped pagan gods; gods like Diana and Apollo and numerous others. In my time, you see, there is no shortage of gods. You just pick the gods you like and worship them. It’s all very casual and the notion of only one god is very foreign to us.

So, as a cursory worshiper of those gods, what was required of me?

Not much, really. Actually, all that was required was to follow certain practices and rituals. There was no expectation of any particular change in my behavior, nothing would suggest that I could expect these gods to intervene in my life in any way. They were there, but not really alive to me.

When I became a Christian, though, everything changed. First of all, I felt a stirring of my spirit, a feeling I’d never before known. It was like a new life had been given to me, one with a new hope. And I became a member of a small community of Christians, people who care for one another and who express a love for Jesus and his father, the YHWH god that I mentioned before.

The pagan population in Philippi does not understand us. They see us as strange, especially since we worship one god, and also a man who was crucified as a common criminal. We take our lives as Christians much more seriously than the average citizen, who gives surface allegiance to the emperor and to an assortment of pagan gods.

As a result, we are looked down on, and we are persecuted. Let me give you an example.

“So,” my comrade will tell me, “Your god was crucified, executed for some unknown crime by soldiers of Rome, soldiers just like you and me. He doesn’t sound like much of a god. Does he expect all his followers to commit crimes that call for crucifixion? Have you picked out the crime that you will commit? Can I come and witness your crucifixion?”

He went on, “It’s a shame, Lucius, that I am, like you, retired from the legion. Otherwise, I might have been ordered to actually participate in your crucifixion. Wouldn’t you like that?”

It goes deeper. “Why?” another comrade asked, “Why do you follow a god who is the god of slaves? A god of the poor? Why do you even associate with such deplorable, sub-human people? You’ve lost all self-respect, and you’ve certainly lost the respect of your comrades from the legion. Get out of the gutter, man, and rejoin respectable society. Come back and we’ll do all those fun things that we used to do.”

These taunts from former comrades have translated into exclusion from Philippi’s mainstream community. Christians have lost friends, lost employment, and in some cases, have been forced out of their homes and businesses. We are what you in your time will call “second class citizens.”

In some cases, violence has broken out. Just passing one of our leading citizens on the street has resulted in pushing and shoving, with some of the retired legionnaires now being privately employed as enforcers of an order of society that keeps Christians in check.

There is nothing to be done. Our magistrates uphold the social order that put them in office. So, in each and every confrontation, we are at fault, arrested, detained and put up for trial. Personally, I have spent days in the city jail, convicted for breaking a law that I was innocent of.

The women in our community fear for their safety, as they travel the city’s streets in great vulnerability. Their purses, their jewelry and even their bodies seem ripe for the picking by petty thieves and criminals. And for us, there is no recourse to the law. Our victimization is complete.

So, let me go back to my original question. What is the difference between “belief” and “faith?”

When I became a Christian, I was asked if I believed: if I believed in our YHWH God and in Jesus Christ, His son. I said I did, and was as sure of that as I could be. I mean, it was so much more of a commitment than I’d ever made to our pagan gods. And it came with hope for a richer life.

But was just believing enough? It doesn’t seem so now, now that I’m living every day, suffering with my new friends from the persecution that we endure. Perhaps faith calls us to go deeper than belief, to hope for light in midst of darkness, putting our beliefs to the test.

Part of me wants to fight back. I mean, I spent most of my life as a legionnaire, and I have the scars to show for it. A battle is there for the asking and if it comes, part of me will want to join the fight.

But my wounds from this rejection, especially from my comrades, in some ways hurt more than the wounds that I suffered in battle. I mean, we are cast down in ways that cause me to question my own worth as a person.

It would be so easy to answer this persecution with a fight for our self-respect. But that is not the way we’ve been taught.

Just recently, we received a letter from Paul. Believe it or not, he is in prison in Rome. It’s unclear as to the charges against him. And in his letter, Paul exhorts us to keep our faith strong. Here is a sample of Paul’s message:

Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel and in no way frightened by those opposing you. For them, this is evidence of their destruction but of your salvation. And this is God’s doing. For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ but of suffering for him as well, since you are having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I still have. (Philippians 1)

“The faith of the gospel?” Yes, the gospel of Jesus Christ, our Lord. And in His gospel, we are told over and over that we must “rejoice and be glad” when we are called to suffer on His behalf. And we are told that our suffering is “God’s doing.” A “privilege.”

What does this mean? Is there a difference between “belief” and “faith?” All I can say is that it seems to me that faith calls me to accept, in great hope, where God has placed me, and accept the circumstances in which I find myself, knowing that in all things, God is in charge, not me. Even if, as a result, I must suffer rejection and persecution. But it’s not easy, and so, as I said, I struggle.

So, where has God placed you? In what circumstances? Can you, like me, strive to accept in great hope where life has brought you in your faith as a Christ-follower? Can you endure the struggles that you face? Can you, in your life, stay true to the gospel of Christ?  I pray that you can and hope that, likewise, you can pray for me.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11)