Belief isn’t the same thing as a belief.

A belief is a concept.

It also happens to be a concept that we may trust is true.

Belief is an act.

Perhaps it is that act of trusting in the truth of a concept we refer to as a belief. But it doesn’t have to be. There’s a lot of stuff we believe that we’d never dare call a belief.

We don’t only confuse these two concepts, we use them interchangeably.

In part, for many people of faith the very thing we name as a belief is at least as important as the believing itself, if not more important.

Much of what drives disputes between Christian groups is not simply that we have different sets of beliefs. Many Christians place a set of beliefs above believing while others reverse that arrangement.

This distinction, and the interplay between a belief and believing is interesting.

But also, it is utterly absent from the way Jesus talks about belief. In the gospels, there is almost no reference to belief as a set of concepts to which we assent. It is all about believing.

It is even more wild when you read through the early chapters (primarily 3-5) of the book we call Mark. Jesus keeps pushing the envelope for what his followers expect him to be and terrifying them with more power than he is supposed to have. Based on the beliefs (concepts) they were raised with, the Messiah is supposed to be a certain way.

And Jesus busts the mold.

He does this while teaching them to believe, even in spite of their beliefs. The beliefs they came with, brought them to Jesus. But they are now limiting their understanding of him.

As a modern reader, these stories of Jesus naturally fit within our modern expectations. Particularly the expectations we have for Jesus and for belief (as a concept itself). But they also disrupt those expectations because they still challenge the sets of beliefs we ascribe, even after two thousand years. We are still locked into narrow expectations established by foundational beliefs.

Confining belief to the concepts we claim as important is comforting. So is limiting our social exposure to complex concepts which might make us rethink what we believe. But it’s telling that we’re constantly invited to notice great acts of belief. And all of them seem to come from people who don’t have fixed or traditional sets of belief.

We’re invited to focus on believing. Not because we have to believe. Making that necessary is just a concept we often adhere to. But because acts of belief aren’t dependent on getting the concept right. It’s about reaching out anyway.

That’s the part that matters most.