There is a distinction between faith and trust in modern usage. Most people consider [faith] to be a spiritual idea. It is regarded as a pledge of loyalty or faith in a being. In actuality, trust would imply total dependence and confidence in another individual.
The original language and meaning
We must return to Greek, the original language of the New Testament, in order to comprehend what faith and trust mean in the Bible. The Greek word for “faith” has three main translations. Pistis is the noun form, Pistos is the adjective form, and Pisteuo is the verb form. The definition of each variant varies from the word “trust.” As a result, “pistis” (noun) denotes a trust in something or someone, “pistos” (adjective) denotes a person who is trustworthy, and “pisteuo” (verb) literally translates to “I trust.” Therefore, we understand the word “faith” in the Bible to mean “trust.” Consequently, trust and faith have the same meaning in the Bible.
Story of the Great Blondin
The Great Blondin narrative is a common example used by Bible teachers to explain what it means to have faith. Blondin was a tightrope walker whose most famous feat was pulling a wheelbarrow while walking across the roaring Niagara Falls on a wire. When he asked the onlookers if they thought he could pull off his wheelbarrow trick before starting, they all yelled “Yes.” Nobody said anything when he asked them after the stunt if they would want to sit in the wheelbarrow while he pushed it along the tightrope.
Not only believing with our head
Faith is more than just intellectual belief. It also entails having our will and our hearts in the right places. When we have faith in God, we firmly trust that He will fulfill His promises, and we are prepared to take complete action in response. In the Old Testament, Abraham behaved just in this way. God told Abraham in Genesis 12 that he would have a child who would grow up to be a powerful nation (see Genesis 12:2,7; also 13:6). However, Abraham was still childless by the time of Genesis 15 (Genesis 15:2-3). God addressed Abraham, saying,
“If you can count the stars, count them as you look up toward heaven.” Then he added, “Thus will your progeny be.” And Abraham [the father] trusted in the LORD, and he considered it to be righteousness (Genesis 15:5–6).
So God again promised Abraham that he would have many, many descendants (Genesis 15:5). And what was Abraham’s response? He believed the word of God, that is, he trusted what God had said – he trusted that he would indeed have a multitude of descendants (even though he was at least 75 years old (Genesis 12:4) and his wife was at least 65 years old too (see Genesis 17:17))! This is the nature of biblical faith/trust: we trust what God has said absolutely and we act on it, living it out, even though it might appear nonsense to non-Christians around us; just as it was for Abraham to believe God would give him a child, or for Noah to build the ark because God had said He would send a flood (Gen 6:13-14). The author of Hebrews agrees with this, he says faith is “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrew 11:1).
True faith
Trust in God is an English idea of true faith. We firmly believe that God has given us eternal life via Christ, and that nothing in all of creation—not even death or life, angels or demons, the present or the future, powers, height or depth—will be able to take away from us the love of God found in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38–39).
