Ken, would you say that the word "trust" is a better English translation of the Greek which has been translated as "believe?" Take Mark 16:16 for example.
Trust is indeed part of
pisteuo -- but only part.
Entrust is a better interpretation of this element of
pisteuo. Trust is inherent in the sense of
commit that we use all the time when we think of or refer to
committing someone to the care and judgement of another -- to a hospital or nursing home, for example.
Pisteuo is a verb of action and firm decision, not a verb of relatively passive acceptance.
When word that gold had been discovered at Sutter's mill in California reached the east in 1848, many there
believed that the news was true. Others
trusted the truth of the news enough to support those who
committed themselves to the truth of it by going around The Horn, crossing the isthmus of Panama, or traveling overland to dig for gold.
Pisteuo, especially as Jesus uses it, refers to
total, unrivaled, active, behavioral commitment -- not to any lesser degree of merely mental or intellectual acceptance.
In Mark 16:16, baptism (Greek
baptismos -- literally being plunged into water, figuratively being plunged into the Holy Spirit) is a first manifestation of this total, unrivaled, active, behavioral commitment. It strongly implies surrender to the water (literally) and by extension (figuratively) to God though the Holy Spirit. (This is quite a study in itself, which requires at least a chapter, like "Plunged and Soaking" in my book
In Step with the Master, to clarify the term and its concept for modern readers. Those who heard Jesus and His disciples use the Greek words
baptizo,
baptisma, and
baptismos didn't need the explanations that we need today. They
already knew what these theretofore secular words meant.)
