Pisteuo: Believe It or Not?

Word of the Week

January 24, 2026

Pisteuō: Believe It or Not?

 

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

John 3:16 NASB

 

What does it take to get to heaven?

Ancient Egyptians believed that you went through a judgment called “the weighing of the dead.”  The deceased person’s heart was placed on one side of a scale and the Feather of the goddess Ma’at was placed on the other side. If your heart balanced with the feather, you got to go into the afterlife.  If your sins weighed too much, a monster gobbled up your heart and that was the last anyone ever heard of you.

More contemporary ideas feature an interview with Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates where you try to persuade him that you were a pretty good person, worthy of admittance.

Fortunately, Jesus offered a different entrance pass, one that doesn’t require perfect performance.  As the well-known John 3:16 puts it, “whoever believes in him will have eternal life.”

The whole Gospel of John was written to make that point.  The apostle said, “These have been 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” (John 20:31).

If believing is the key to heaven, I am very interested in knowing what that involves.  And one way to understand more precisely is to consider the Greek word for “believe.”

In English, “believe” might mean, “I believe it’s going to rain this afternoon [but I’m not sure].

It could mean, “I heard his testimony in court, and I’m convinced he is telling the truth.”

Or it could mean, “I trust you completely and I can rely on your character, no matter what.”

All those ideas are possible in Greek as well, so let’s take a closer look.

The Greek word for “believe” is pisteuō [piss-TYOO-oh], one of the central items in the New Testament vocabulary.  It appears nearly 250 times – way too many to examine in a brief article!  However, we can narrow our search by noting that it was a favorite word of the apostle John.  In fact, it occurs 99 times in the Gospel of John!

In older, classical Greek, pisteuō tended to be something intellectual.  A philosopher would say that he agreed with something that Plato or Aristotle had written.  For them, belief was part of a mental game where they were attempting to construct the most convincing explanations of life.

When you come to the Old Testament, however, pisteuō was linked with behavior.  If you believed what God said, you would obey it (see Deuteronomy 9:23).

In the New Testament, particularly in the Gospel of John, the word blossomed into something deeper.

1. It could mean that you believed a statement was accurate (as in classical Greek).

When Jesus healed a man born blind, the religious leaders investigated, and

“The Jews then did not believe it about him, that he had been blind and had received sight” (John 9:18).

This level of faith is like deciding that the weather forecaster is correct in predicting snow for tomorrow.  You agree with that statement, but not necessarily anything else he says.

2. It could mean that you trust a person because you consider them reliable.

At the Feast of Tabernacles, Christ’s preaching sparked a sharp controversy.  Though the authorities threatened to arrest Him, many onlookers found His claims credible.

“But many of the crowd believed in Him; and they were saying, ‘When the Christ comes, He will not perform more signs than those which this man has done, will He? (John 7:31).

3. It could mean that you believe in someone so strongly that you would entrust yourself to them.

Early in His ministry, Jesus was surrounded by enthusiastic crowds who believed in Him [meaning #2] but the narrative goes on to say “Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself [pisteuō] to them, because he knew all people” (John 2:23-24).

 

What does the word mean when Jesus calls us to believe in Him?

Naturally, it means that we believe what He says about Himself.  We acknowledge that He is telling the truth.

But believing what He says is more than just a mental exercise, because He says things that would be outrageous in the mouth of anyone else.  “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).  “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst” (John 6:35). “I am the resurrection and the life . . . everyone who lives and believes in me will never die (John 11:25-26).

If His claims are true, we only have one way to know that we will end up in heaven – not by balancing a feather or bargaining with St. Peter, but by trusting what Jesus has done to open the doors for us.

 

 

Study Hint:

This has been only a first glance at “believe” in the Gospel of John.  You could write a book!  But there’s more.  Here’s an exercise you can try:  read the book of Acts and notice every place where it describes what a person does to become a follower of Jesus.

Here are the passages I found – 2:21, 38, 44; 3:19; 4:4; 5:14; 6:7; 8:12, 14, 37; 11:1, 17, 18, 21; 13:39; 14:1, 2; 15:7, 9, 19; 16:14, 31, 34; 17:12, 34; 18:8, 27; 19:2, 4; 28:24

And here are the results I got:

Believe (21 times)

Repent (5 times)

Call on

Be baptized

Return

Become obedient

Receive the word

Turn to

Open heart

Belief is the basic requirement, but there are other things that naturally go with genuine belief.

 

Coming Up

What is the key word for the book of Acts?  Inescapably we are drawn to “witness.”  Next week we will reprise a study of the Greek word for “witness.”

 

©Ezra Project 2026