A Working Definition of Faith, and Why You Need One
By Michael Kelley
The Princess Bride was released in 1987, and for almost 40 years, it has been considered a nearly perfect movie. Enjoying a Rotten Tomatoes rating score of 96%, it’s a love story, a mystery, and an adventure all rolled into one.
You might remember that in the movie, a group of three villains kidnapped Princess Buttercup, but they were then pursued by the mysterious man in black. And the man in black overcame challenge after challenge in chasing after them. After each challenge, the leader of the three kidnappers would look back and say, “Inconceivable!”
Eventually, Inigo Montoya, one of the other three kidnappers, remarks, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Words are like that sometimes. They become so ingrained in our vocabulary that we use them without thinking, and many times, we actually forget what they mean.
Consequently, when we use a word it might not mean the same thing that someone who hears it thinks it means. For Christians, the word “faith” can be like that.
“Faith” is one of the most used words in our Christian vocabulary. It appears about 250 times in the New Testament. Not only so, but it’s the central component and the driving force of our lives. Indeed, as the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 11:6, “Without faith, no one can please God.”
But not only is the word used among Christians; it’s also used in other environments as well. Because it’s so familiar to us, and because it’s used in the broader culture and not just in Christian circles, we run the risk of assuming we know what it means without ever having clarified a definition. For example, we might have one or many of the following misunderstandings regarding faith:
We might misunderstand faith to mean a purely intellectual acknowledgment of something. It ONLY means to agree with the truth of something.
Another misunderstanding is that the object of faith is irrelevant. In some ways, this is the other side of the coin, that as long as you believe, the correctness of what you believe is not that important.
Or we might misunderstand faith to be a condition you fall into and out of - that is, you really don’t have anything to do with faith. Either you have it or you don’t.
So then, what is faith? Here’s a working definition for us to get our minds around:
Faith is the gift of active trust resulting in good works.
Now just to expand on that definition a bit - we should humbly acknowledge that faith is a gift. Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44). And “No one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father” (John 6:65). Believing in and of itself is a gift of God and therefore a matter of grace.
But faith is not static; it is dynamic. We make daily choices to believe or not to believe, and the evidence of our choices to believe or not to believe are good works. So this faith, which comes to us by grace, is meant to be put to work each and every day. It is active in nature.
And finally, this faith is effective, and the effect is good works. Here’s how Paul describes those three components:
For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do (Eph. 2:8-10).
For Paul, these are the components of authentic salvation: Salvation is by grace, through faith, and unto good works. If “faith” is the gift of active trust resulting in good works, then the working definition of works, in this context, is similar:
The tangible results that flow from a life of active trust.
Let’s make sure we are not only using the right word, but also understanding the right implications of that word. Faith is not some ambiguous feeling you either have or don’t have; neither is the object of that faith meaningless.
Faith is a gift. And it is active. And it results in good works.
Michael Kelley is a husband, father of three, author, and speaker from Nashville, TN. His latest book is a year-long family devotional guide called The Whole Story for the Whole Family. Find his personal blog at michaelkelley.co.
