Belief & Believing

1/24/2019

Belief. What is belief? What is A belief? What should be believed? What should NOT be believed? How do we come to understand what should be and what should not be believed? and finally, How shall we teach others what to believe? … This could get to be a long subject. I’ll try to be brief. (Not something to which many preachers ever lay claim.) 

Belief is an attempt to be sure of something; something one accepts as true or real. It can also be described as a conviction or confidence, also a conclusion.

Well, then, let’s think in terms of what would bring that about in one’s mind. A barrage of spoken words(as in brain-washing?) The reading and re-reading of words, a collective thought running through them? Living a certain principle or ethic extensively into one’s life until it becomes a “second nature?”

Each of these could and do often lead to belief. So, then, these things are to be tested, to be tried and proven by any and all means. Sometimes I think of my opening frame of reference as being unfair. I had parents who had a strong belief in the King James Bible, believing it was true whether they understood it or not. That isn’t a fair way for me as a starting point to teach others what I believe is true. I never had an unbeliever’s frame of reference, not ever, any time in my life. (One brief moment of doubt about a month before I trusted in Christ for salvation.)

But, that hasn’t stopped multitudes of people from changing their minds, coming from total non-belief (not the same as “unbelief”) to full belief of the King James Bible. So, how does that come about? Because of faith.

Faith (the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen) has another definition by secular man: complete trust or confidence (after that comes an application to religions or systems of this trust/confidence definition.) Then, Hebrews 11:1 is still the clearest English words for the definition of “faith.” Since we take the Heb.11:1 (notice the 1+1+1=3) definition as the best, we have started on a road that will take us into the KJB for further explanation. We cannot now go to any other secular words for clarification. This fits perfectly to my way of thinking. If it doesn’t for you, tell me your basis for belief, for believing, and tell me why I should start with your way instead of here: Rom.10:17, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Now to identify where is the word of God, and why I should “believe” it as a word that cannot be denied. Low and behold, I go to the same book—the KJB, and not to commentaries about it, whether the commentators believe the KJB or do not. 

Looking at recorded words from days gone by has come to be unreliable in the last 200-300 years. The re-writing of history has become suspected by almost every one who desires to believe in reverse. That is, they “form” an opinion from how they have been in”form”ed as though they know that to be true, then retro-write history to get an “authority” for their belief or unbelief. I understand how difficult it is to find verifiable historic documents in support of anything, the KJB not being an exception. So, we look for multiple historical accounts which say the same things (reasonably) and use them as a basis for our trust in the KJB. 

I have read several of the proponents for reliance on the KJB, men who’ve spent their lives in defense of it. Edward F. Hills, D.A.Waite, James Son, Peter S. Ruckman, J.J. Ray, and others who’ve written smaller volumes. Some copy one another, but each has a segment of original history study. To me, the greatest way to develop a sense of trust and confidence in the KJB is to study it. To study all these men of God, excellent students all, is helpful, but I never found it increasing my faith in the word of God as much as simple opening up the book and following the Scripture’s own definition of understanding the doctrines of it: Isa. 28:9-13; line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little.

The Lord told the opposition and the friends the same thing: settle in your heart: Lk.21:13-15. My exhortation for you is “down deep:” settle it down deep in your heart, where is the truth, how can I rely on it.May it be the Word of the Living God, settled in my mind in the year 1979, when I came to one simple place and I said: “Lord, I’m just going to believe what I read in your word, the King James Bible.”

Thanks for reading, the Elder