How many times does the word “believe” or one derived from it show up in the Bible?
The word or one with believe inside it, appears 249 times in the Bible. You would be astonished at how few times it really shows up in the Old Testament though. I have published this elsewhere on another site of mine under another name, but I am putting the same disclaimer here: I researched this information using the search function on my Kindle Fire inside the King James Bible. The results may be different from other areas or concordances but the numbers that I have here came from this search alone.
In Exodus, it shows up six times. That is all of the times that the word believe or believeth is present in the book of Exodus, the chronicle of Israel’s journey out of Egypt and on the way to becoming a nation.
In the book of Numbers, it only shows up one time and that is in chapter 14. Why does belief or believe not show up any more than this? God is the only One who knows that answer.
In the book of Deuteronomy, the word only shows up one time in chapter one. Strange isn’t it? A fundamental word that goes along with and that the Christian faith hinges on seems to be absent from the very books that were written at a time when belief should have been easy because of the miracles being done by God for the people of Israel.
In the Christian Bible, the next time that it shows up is in the book of 2 Kings in chapter seventeen and it is only present that one time.
The next time is in 2 Chronicles in and it shows up twice in chapter twenty. Then once more in chapter thirty-two.
After that, it shows up three times in the book of Job, once in chapter nine and twice in chapter thirty-nine.
It also shows up in Proverbs in chapter 26 once, and it isn’t referring to belief in God even then.
Then it makes an appearance twice in Isaiah in chapter seven and in chapter forty-three.
In the Old Testament, the word only shows up twice more after this. Once each in Jeremiah chapter 12 and once in Habakkuk chapter 1.
So, altogether in the Old Testament believe or a word derived from it shows up a total of 20 times. Even during the time of their liberation from Egypt when God was doing so many miracles and wonders, belief or believe never came up much and out of the thirty-eight or thirty-nine books in the Old Testament, depending upon which Bible you have, the word “believe” only shows up twenty times, why?
The New Testament seems to have most of the occurrences of this word. Why? Because belief was and is necessary, along with faith, in the One that we should believe in, Jesus.
In Matthew alone believe shows up nine times!
In Mark it shows up 18 times, almost as many as in the entire Old Testament!
In Luke, believe shows up nine times, but in the book of John alone it shows up 94 times! Now, this sounds like a lot and in some results that I have searched through it showed up only forty-three times.
That is because some searches on the Internet Bible boards only show exactly the word “believe”, while the search that I did shows it and the word of believeth as well because I was searching through the King James Bible.
The point that I am making is that John’s gospel and the books written by him all focus on our belief in Jesus and in Who He was and Who He is. Yes, the demons of Satan and Satan himself believe in Jesus but they don’t have the same belief as we do. They will not bow to Him nor will they serve Him because they have chosen to be against Him and against God. So, how many times have we charted the word “believe” so far? At this point, only 150 times between the Old and New Testaments up to the book of John. So, there are about ninety-nine more occurrences of the word believe or believeth in the New Testament.
Why so much emphasis on belief? Believing in Jesus does save your soul! It is the first step toward a life of service to Him and in your sanctified life with Him. Belief doesn’t and cannot come to someone without God’s grace touching your soul, your heart and bringing you to a point of realization that you truly NEED Jesus as your Savior! Believing that Jesus accomplished everything needed for you to be saved doesn’t come to you from works and it doesn’t come to you when you decide to do so because you don’t decide to become saved. God is the One Who calls you to be saved through your belief in Jesus as your Savior.
Being a Christian is a process that begins with belief in Jesus and in His message for our lives and taking that message into your heart, striving to become more like Jesus daily. What does that mean? Asking forgiveness for your sins by confessing what you have done and accepting God’s forgiveness because of your decision to accept Jesus as your Savior is just the beginning of your walk with Him. Searching through the scriptures for references to Jesus is a wonderful exercise that will increase your faith in the truthfulness of God’s Word, but it will also humble you because you will find that God has loved us, not just Israel, for an eternity. He has known each person and how they will choose to live their lives since before the world began. Your life after accepting Jesus as your Savior doesn’t require you to work out your salvation. But…you will want to learn more of God’s Word because you will want to know your Heavenly Father and reading His Word is the best way to learn how He speaks from it and to us.
That is why belief in Who the Trinity of the Godhead is important to your salvation, because all three Persons of the Trinity are involved in your salvation every day. Belief in Jesus is the first step, accepting Him as your Savior is the second step, confession of your sins is another step along the road of becoming a Christian. God sent Jesus to do the work of reconciling mankind to Himself by being the perfect sacrifice for all of our sins, which He did. Then, the Holy Spirit, which is another part of the Trinity, comes into your life when you are saved and teaches you while you search for more of His Truth. So, the entire Person of the Trinity is involved in your becoming a fruitful Christian, not just Jesus.
Please forward this to anyone that you know that needs to come to Jesus. It is important because God thinks that they are important and that you are important. We all have a part to play in God’s plan, some may have a small part and some may have a bigger part. Just as the different parts of our body do their jobs, we as Christians need to do our job regardless of the role that we play in God’s plan and His Kingdom.
Give God the Glory that He deserves, because I cannot continue doing this alone. I am not alone of course, I have Him and His Spirit to guide me and you do too. The words that I have put here don’t come from my mind alone, but from His. I am just a messenger, but don’t disregard the message.
The Living Message of Christ 
I love your commentary and teaching. I am your student from now.
Grateful for your research. I have text this article to several people. Keep up the good fight and spread the knowledge as will I. Be blessed.
Amen I love this message
Amen Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Amen
Some searches in an electronic Bible will find more or less the number which I found, but I think I found a representative number using my Kindle Fire. I am glad that you liked the write-up.
You have a very evil view of what it is to be saved, You are a dangerous man. For him who you have made to work away from God saying “I can never live up to this teacher’s words teachings.” Will bare a heaven burden for you to overcome when Judgement day is come.
Paul is very, very clear on the topic. The way to heaven is through Faith Not Deeds. Is deeds were the way to heave, the street of heaven would be empty.
The law of Grace is the only thing you need as your armor to save you and protect you and take you to heaven.
Paul is VERY clear that once save one cannot be unsaved.
Paul said, ” Now that you know that the way to heaven is through Grace and not work, I say to, do not use this as an excuse to sin. FOR IF YOU DO, THOUGH YOU WILL GET TO HEAVE, IT WILL BE AS THROUGH FIRE.”
Paul, says even if you use your knowledge that once saved you can sin and go to heave won’t keep you from heaven. “Faith and Not works” is the difference between Jews and Christians. Faith and forgiveness. Jws don’t have a law of forgiveness.
So, though you may still have some paying to do, you WILL get to heaven if you are saved and yet sin. In fact, if you believe that there is any situation under which you can stop being a sinner, you did not understand the tale of (((The Cock Crowing Three-Times.))
Even the saints who kissed him and held him and loved him continued to sin.
Beware to teach who teaches false teachings, for he will lead you astray.
He who would be a teach beware, for the coals will be heaped high upon the heads of any who teach wrong.
Teacher, if you teach that there is any amount of work or works that you can perform that will clean you from sin and get you to heaven, you are in for a deadly shock.
Faith that you are a sinner, before your salvation and after; Faith that Jesus was the only pure man; Faith that there is no way to heaven save that you believe in Jesus; is your ONLY means of salvation.
No sin will keep you from God, and no amount of works will bring you to Him.
Mr. Cross, did you only read this post? I wrote this six years ago and what I said was just about the number of times the word “believe” was in the Bible. When we are saved, God’s Spirit touches us and convicts us of the need that we have for the Lord. The process that I spoke of is not based on working on your salvation but in regards of each of us becoming more like Jesus. We’re saved from hell on the day that we accept God’s grace through Jesus, but we become more like Him by learning more about His will as we study God’s Word. I’ve learned more about my walk with Him over the years and I realized that I will never know as much as I would like to in this life. Thank you for stopping by. I hope that you will look at some of my other posts and let me know what you think of them.
This guy Cross has no right to judge, and use verses against another brother.. it was very cheep to call out a brother in his teaching about Faith,it is all written and was out of the Holy Word that he spoke on.. we are saved by Grace through faith and not of anything of works. God Honors Faith and Faith Honors God..
Key Word is
‘ Believe ‘
I thank you for defending my message. I try to stick with the Word of God in all of my posts so that it can’t be said that I am advancing my own agenda. I am advancing God’s Word and His agenda.
You don’t seem to offer the ability to edit, so you will just have to live with the worts.
I have edited my post and in the past 8 years of being a pastor, I have learned more about Him than I knew when I wrote this. I pray that my edits have cleared some of what my original post did not say correctly.
The God of the old testament doesn’t care if anyone believes anything about him. He picked his chosen people and revealed himself and the Torah to them as a nation and over a thousands years with his prophets.
Paul comes along and 4 gospels in a short 20 years and undoes all that. And the reason you see believe so much is that the only people concerned about being believed are liars.
Paul didn’t undo anything which was said in the Torah and the Prophets. None of the gospels undid anything which was taught before Jesus came, in fact they affirmed it just as Jesus Himself did. I pray that you can find your Savior in Him.
This guy Cross has no right to judge, and use verses against another brother.. it was very cheep to call out a brother in his teaching about Faith,it is all written and was out of the Holy Word that he spoke on.. we are saved by Grace through faith and not of anything of works. God Honors Faith and Faith Honors God..
Key Word is
‘ Believe ‘
I’m replying to Rural Pastor. I think you did a GREAT job on this. I’m dealing with a few who believe works save, And I found this article. Where we are saved if we simply BELIEVE! I think this is an awesome post. Glad I was led to this site. Hope there is more to this. God Bless you Pastor, & your Family, Michael.
I’m very glad that you can use it. If you find any of my other posts that you can use, feel free to do so. This is my only ministry now, covid-19 killed my little church. God bless you as well.
Hebrews 11,12,and 13
There is a better way
Key to this is
Jesus Christ
Amen
Great words! In my walk, being a young Christian, the uses me. My Apostle told me I have prophetic gifting & to earnestly ask for the best gifts. The Lord called me in my letter years. I’m still growing & understanding the work required. I was reading John & asked the question, “how many times does the word believe appear in John and I landed here. Thank you, I can’t wait to see where He takes. The Holy Spirit is always speaking and I’m doing my best to tune in!✝️
I was a blank slate for the Lord. I hadn’t been to child since childhood as I got older I hit a few searching none stuck I never joined I stayed in the world not realizing a supernatural kingdom existed! Apostle said I have no religious doctrine from past churches, He can pour into you if you let Him. I came as an empty glass. Why am I telling you all this believe led me here, may the continue bless you.
Keep reading His Word, especially John and Romans, both can lead you to a closer walk with Jesus.
I am grateful that i found this article. I can truly say that God led me to this page. I believe in studying the bible, and sometimes just one word brings us to the spiritual understanding of what God is trying to teach and tell us. There are so many people, who read the bible, but they lack the wisdom, knowledge and understanding of the word because they do not understand that just one word can bring the entire verse together and enlighten us: with spiritual wisdom and understanding from above. Proverbs say get wisdom, knowledge and above all get understanding. This is what is lacking in many who are in the church, including some who are leaders, and teachers.
Reblogged this on The Living Message of Christ and commented:
This post has been so popular I want to re-post it today.