The Faith of the Word of God part 3

A Summary Study Guide

 Shingi Mudyirwa

‘Faith is the present continuous state of spoken persuasion.’

— the governing thesis of the teaching

This is a condensed companion to the guide on The Faith of the Word of God, Part 3. It distils the teaching’s thesis, its method, its biblical architecture, and — because the longer guide is a critical study and not merely an exposition — the principal scholarly questions the teaching raises. Scripture is cited briefly in the KJV; the aim is a map the advanced student can hold in view while listening to the teaching.

1. Introduction and Overview

The teaching opens the series with a single practical question: how does the believer overcome — how does one triumph over “the attacks of this season”? Its answer is that the decisive instrument of triumph is faith, and that faith, rightly understood, is the spoken word of God. The governing definition, repeated as a refrain, is that faith is “the present continuous state of spoken persuasion.”

The whole structure rests on a single axiom drawn from Hebrews 11:3: the worlds were framed by the word of God. If reality was spoken into order, then change in any circumstance likewise comes through faith — faith treated not as vague sentiment but as a definite, learnable, repeatable principle.

“The worlds were framed by the word of God … things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”  — Hebrews 11:3 (KJV)

2. Methodology and Hermeneutics

Three interpretive commitments drive the argument:

• The two-or-three-witnesses canon. Following Deuteronomy 19:15, the doctrine of the spoken word is established by a triad of testimonies — Paul, Jesus, and Moses — rather than a single proof-text.
• Original-language philology. Meaning is fixed by appeal to the Greek and Hebrew — rhēma, pistis, homologeō, Hebrew amar — to recover what the inspired wording precisely says.
• A pneumatic epistemology. Drawing on 1 Corinthians 2 and Ephesians 1, the teaching holds that spiritual things are spiritually discerned: this knowledge comes by the Spirit’s unveiling, not by natural research.

3. The Conceptual Core: Belief and Faith

At the centre is a distinction between an inward state and an outward act. Belief (pisteuō) is seated in the heart — a persuasion, a “thinking to be true” — necessary, but inactive until it is voiced. Faith (pistis) is that belief enacted through confession (homologeō), the operation of the mouth: on this reading, faith begins when the mouth opens. The rhēma — the specific spoken word — is what frames and reframes a world. Romans 10:9–10 supplies the anatomy: belief in the heart, confession with the mouth.

4. The Three Witnesses — and the One Set Aside

The biblical architecture is built from three corroborating voices, with a fourth deliberately held in reserve.

A personal account threads through the demonstrations: a prolonged toothache, the teacher reports, was permanently resolved only when general prayer gave way to a specific, undoubting command grounded in Mark 11:23 — “Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea.”

5. Critical Scholarly Engagement

What makes the full guide a study rather than a sermon transcript is that it submits the teaching to scholarship. Four questions deserve the advanced student’s attention:

1. The genitive in Mark 11:22. Is it “have faith in God” (objective) or “the faith of God” (a God-kind of faith)? Most translations favour the former; the teaching’s reading is defensible but contested, and it is the argument’s load-bearing move.
2. λέγω vs. εἶπον. Is the distinction between these verbs of ‘saying’ a genuine lexical difference, or are they suppletive forms of one verb — a caution pressed by Barr and Carson against over-reading word choice?
3. The James question. Must James be subordinated as a lone witness, or harmonised with Paul — faith and works read as two moments of one living reality?
4. The rhēma / logos distinction. Is a rigid technical split between ‘spoken’ and ‘written’ word lexically sustainable? In actual usage the two terms overlap heavily.

On its own premises the argument is internally coherent; most of the weight rests on the genitive reading of Mark 11:22. Naming these debates is not to settle them but to let the student hold conviction and scrutiny together.

6. Pastoral and Practical Reflections

Practically, the teaching frames confession as cognitive renewal — the “renewing of the mind” of Romans 12:2 — in which sustained, undoubting declaration reprograms the heart from doubt to belief. Three cautions keep the practice healthy: it should not require denying physical or medical reality; it should preserve the sovereignty and freedom of God rather than reduce faith to a mechanical formula; and it should guard against self-condemnation when an answer is delayed.

7. Conclusion

The full guide does two things at once: it systematises the teaching faithfully — axiom, witnesses, lexicon, method — and it equips the student to test it. The thesis stands restated: faith is the spoken word of God, the present continuous state of spoken persuasion. The advanced reader is left able both to expound the teaching and to interrogate it — which is precisely what doctoral-level study requires.

Glossary of Key Terms

The Faith of the Word of God part 2

A Summary Study Guide

Shingi Mudyirwa

“Faith is the present continuous state of spoken persuasion.”

— the governing thesis of the teaching

This is a condensed companion to the guide on The Faith of the Word of God, Part 2. It distils the teaching’s thesis, its method, its biblical architecture, and — because the longer guide is a critical study and not merely an exposition — the principal scholarly questions the teaching raises. Scripture is cited briefly in the KJV; the aim is a map the advanced student can hold in view while listening to the teaching.

1.  Introduction and Thesis Overview

Part 2 of the Triumph series presses a single practical question: how does the believer overcome? Its answer is that the decisive instrument of triumph is faith, and that faith, rightly understood, is the spoken word of God. The governing definition, repeated as a refrain, is that faith is “the present continuous state of spoken persuasion.”

Shingi first establishes the stakes. Faith is foundational (Hebrews 6:1–2) and indispensable (Hebrews 11:6: “without faith it is impossible to please God”). The gospel itself contains, reveals, and imparts both faith and righteousness: hearing the gospel transmits faith into the human spirit, and the right application of faith’s principle delivers righteousness — producing the miracle of the new birth. Faith is therefore treated not as vague sentiment but as a definite, learnable, repeatable principle.

Thesis. Faith is belief released through the mouth — a sustained, ongoing (present-continuous) state of spoken persuasion. Hence faith “speaks,” works “in the mouth,” and “comes by hearing.”

2.  Methodology and Hermeneutics

Three interpretive commitments drive the argument:

• The two-or-three-witnesses canon. Following Deuteronomy 19:15 (and 2 Corinthians 13:1), the definition of faith is established by a triad of testimonies — Paul, Moses, and (in the sequel) Jesus — rather than a single proof-text.
• Original-language philology. Meaning is fixed by appeal to the Greek: pistis (faith), pisteuō (believe), legō (speak), and rhēma (the spoken word) over against logos.
• A pneumatic epistemology. “Spiritual grammar” and “spiritual intelligence” (pneumatikē sophia / synesis / epignōsis; Colossians 1:9; 1 Corinthians 2:10–16; 1 John 2:20) are Spirit-given faculties: the inspired wording “jumps” from the page to the Spirit-sensitised reader, who recovers the definition the text encodes.

Underwriting all of this is the apostolic source. Paul did not receive his gospel from men but “by the apokalypsis of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11–12) — Christ appeared and taught him directly. His formulation in Romans 10 therefore carries dominical authority and demands maximal precision, since the salvation of souls hangs on its accuracy.

3.  The Conceptual Core: Belief and Faith

At the centre is a distinction between an inward state and an outward act, drawn from Romans 10:9–10. Belief (pisteuō) is seated in the heart — a persuasion, a “thinking to be true” — necessary, but latent until it is voiced. Faith (pistis) is that belief enacted through confession: on this reading, faith begins when the mouth opens. The rhēma — the specific spoken word — is what frames and reframes a world.

Three exegetical pillars support the definition: “the righteousness which is of faith speaketh” (Romans 10:6 — “faith speaks”); “the word is… in thy mouth” (Romans 10:8 — rhēma, the spoken word); and “with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9–10). “Faith cometh by hearing” (Romans 10:17) supplies the present-continuous, sustained aspect. “Heart” here denotes spirit and soul together.

“With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”  — Romans 10:10 (KJV)

4.  The Three Witnesses — and the One Set Aside

The biblical architecture is built from corroborating voices, with the third deliberately held in reserve for Part 3 and a fourth set aside.

The Genesis 1 witness is the boldest stroke: it grounds human faith in God’s own faith. The Spirit broods over the deep and nothing changes — until “God said, Let there be light.” Creation responds to the spoken word, which is precisely what the teaching claims faith does in the believer’s life. On the James question, the teaching answers that Romans 10 names the operative action specifically — confession with the mouth — so the “work” faith requires is the work of speaking, not physical deeds (“not five star jumps”).

5.  Critical Scholarly Engagement

What makes the full guide a study rather than a sermon transcript is that it submits the teaching to scholarship. Four questions deserve the advanced student’s attention:

• The subject of Romans 10:6. The clause’s grammatical subject is “the righteousness of faith,” and “speaks” (legei) is the conventional citation formula. “Faith speaks” is a theological extraction — powerful, but layered onto the syntax rather than read straight off it.
• The range of pisteuō. Can “believe” be confined to interior “thinking to be true”? James 2:19 (“the demons believe and tremble”) shows assent alone is not saving, so the narrowing of belief to mental cognition is contestable.
• The rhēma / logos A rigid split between ‘spoken’ and ‘written’ word is exegetically suggestive but lexically soft; in usage the terms overlap heavily (James 1:21 uses logos for the word that saves the soul).
• The genitive of “the faith of God.” The Genesis-1 corroboration leans on reading Mark 11:22 as “have the faith of God” (subjective genitive) rather than “faith in God” (objective). The genitive is genuinely ambiguous, and this is the argument’s load-bearing move.

On its own premises the argument is internally coherent; most of the weight rests on the lexical extractions and the genitive reading. Naming these debates is not to settle them but to let the student hold conviction and scrutiny together.

6.  Pastoral and Practical Reflections

Practically, the teaching binds its definition to victory (1 John 5:4: “this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith”; John 16:33). It also frames faith as a state generated in advance: in the hospital-ministry illustration, the minister declares the word continuously in private, so that by the bedside the spoken persuasion has already done its work — silence there is the residue of faith already spoken, not its absence.

This sits within a threefold plan of salvation that distributes responsibility: God regenerates the spirit (His sovereign work); Christ will glorify the body at His appearing; and the believer, Spirit-aided, saves the soul by the renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2; James 1:21). Sustained, undoubting confession is part of that renewal — reprogramming the heart from doubt to belief.

Three cautions keep the practice healthy: it should not require denying physical or medical reality; it should preserve the sovereignty and freedom of God rather than reduce faith to a mechanical formula; and it should guard against self-condemnation when an answer is delayed.

7.  Conclusion

The full guide does two things at once: it systematises the teaching faithfully — axiom, witnesses, lexicon, method — and it equips the student to test it. The thesis stands restated: faith is the spoken word of God, the present-continuous state of spoken persuasion. Part 3, the witness of Jesus, is anticipated as the completion of the three-witness structure. The advanced reader is left able both to expound the teaching and to interrogate it — which is precisely what doctoral-level study requires.

Glossary of Key Terms

The Faith of the Word of God part 1

A Summary Study Guide

 Shingi Mudyirwa

Before faith can be defined, it must be made receivable —

for the deep things of God are spiritually discerned.

— the governing insight of Part One

This is a condensed companion to the guide on The Faith of the Word of God, Part One. It distils the teaching’s thesis, its method, and its biblical architecture, and — because the longer guide is a critical study and not merely an exposition — the principal scholarly questions the teaching raises. Scripture is cited briefly in the KJV. The aim is a map the advanced student can hold in view while working through the full guide. One feature of Part One must be kept in mind throughout: by the preacher’s own design it does not yet define faith — it lays the foundation on which Part Two will define it.

1. Introduction and Thesis Overview

The teaching belongs to the Triumph series, whose governing text is 1 John 5:4: faith is “the victory that overcomes the world.” From this the preacher reasons that if triumph is the goal and faith is its instrument, the believer must possess an exact knowledge of what faith is.

Yet Part One withholds the definition. Its real subject is the prior question: by what faculty are such truths known at all? The answer — and the thesis of the whole — is that the things of God are apprehended not by natural reasoning but by a Spirit-given capacity the preacher calls spiritual intelligence. Read this way, the apparent digression on “spiritual intelligence” is in fact the centre of gravity, and the recurring Greek vocabulary is its load-bearing structure.

This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.   — 1 John 5:4 (KJV)

2. Methodology and Hermeneutics

Three interpretive commitments drive the teaching, and the full guide adds a fourth, critical, layer.

• “What the word says.” Scripture, not the consensus of teachers, is the final court of appeal. The preacher recounts being redirected by the Spirit from the library of faith teachers back to the biblical text — a healthy sola Scriptura and ad fontes
• Original-language philology. Meaning is fixed by appeal to the Greek — logos, rhēma, pneumatikos, sunesis, sophia, epignōsis, anakrinō — to recover what the inspired wording precisely says.
• A pneumatic epistemology. Drawing on 1 Corinthians 2 and the apostolic prayers, the teaching holds that spiritual things are spiritually discerned: this knowledge comes by the Spirit’s unveiling, not by natural research.
• Critical accountability (the guide’s addition). Each claim is tested through four lenses — rhetorical, exegetical, lexical, and systematic — holding charity and scrutiny together.

3. The Mystery of the Word

The recapitulation advances a high, orthodox doctrine of the Word built on the Johannine prologue: the Word is God (John 1:1), is spirit, life and light, created all things, and became flesh (John 1:14). Its showpiece is Luke 4:16–22, where the incarnate Word reads the written word in the synagogue — a single moment in which the preacher discerns a fourfold manifestation of the one Word.

The christology is squarely within Nicene orthodoxy and Johannine scholarship. The fourfold schema is best read as a rich homiletical meditation rather than a strict ontological identity among the Word’s several modes (see §5).

4. The Priority of Faith

So far as Part One develops it, the doctrine of faith rests on four pillars: faith is the victory (1 John 5:4); faith is foundational — an elementary principle of the doctrine of Christ (Heb 6:1); faith is indispensable — “without faith it is impossible to please him” (Heb 11:6); and faith is twinned with righteousness as one of the two master-themes of the gospel, since the righteousness of God is revealed “from faith to faith” (Rom 1:16–17).

The exegetical backbone is sound. The contested element is the framing of the project as the recovery of the single, “absolute” definition of faith yielding “100% results,” which inherits a distinctive premise of the Word of Faith tradition (Kenyon, Hagin) and must be reconciled with the New Testament’s own counter-data (see §5).

5. The Core: Spiritual Intelligence

The heart of Part One is its pneumatic epistemology. Spiritual realities, the preacher argues, require a Spirit-enabled faculty — an “anointed mind” grounded in 1 Corinthians 2:16 (“we have the mind of Christ”). The supporting texts are well chosen, and the central intuition is affirmed by major Pauline scholarship (Fee, Thiselton): the psychikos (natural) person cannot receive the things of the Spirit, which are “spiritually discerned.”

The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God … for they are spiritually discerned.   — 1 Corinthians 2:14 (KJV)

From 1 Corinthians 2:14–3:3 the teaching derives three kinds of person, a reading genuinely present in the text:

Two further strands complete the core. Revelation knowledge (Gal 1:11–12) distinguishes truth received by the Spirit’s unveiling from truth acquired by human means. And the prayers of the spirit — praying the apostolic intercessions (Eph 1; 3; Col 1:9; Phil 1) back over one’s own life — supply the epistemology with an actual practice, and are among the most readily commendable elements of Part One.

6. Critical Scholarly Engagement

What makes the full guide a study rather than a transcript is that it submits the teaching to scholarship. Five questions deserve the advanced student’s attention:

• The logos / rhēma distinction. The verse-level observation at Heb 11:3 (rhēma = spoken word) is defensible; but a rigid, universal split between “spoken” and “written” word is not sustainable, since the terms overlap heavily in use (Carson, Exegetical Fallacies).
• The “100% results” model of faith. It must be reconciled with the very chapter the teaching prizes — the faithful of Heb 11:35–38 who were not delivered — and with Paul’s unhealed thorn (2 Cor 12:7–9), lest faith become a technique that makes God’s action contingent on human performance.
• The capital-S argument at 1 Cor 2:10. Reading “the Spirit searcheth all things” as the human spirit cannot rest on English capitalization, which the Greek autographs do not have; the underlying intuition (the regenerate spirit as a locus of knowing, Rom 8:16) is sounder than the argument given for it.
• Discernment and empirical claims. When “spiritual discernment” pronounces on checkable matters of fact, it needs the New Testament’s own safeguards — prophecy weighed (1 Cor 14:29), spirits tested (1 John 4:1), the Bereans’ checking (Acts 17:11) — lest it become unfalsifiable.
• Tripartite anthropology. If a three-part division of spirit/soul/body is assumed, it should be argued rather than presupposed, given the strength of holistic readings of Paul.

On its own premises the teaching is internally coherent; its weaker moments are over-specifications of a true thesis rather than departures from it. Naming these debates is not to settle them but to let the student hold conviction and scrutiny together.

7. Pastoral and Practical Reflections

Practically, the teaching offers a genuine formation: the disciplined praying of Paul’s own prayers for wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, and a timely call to discernment in an age of engineered deception. Three cautions keep the practice healthy: spiritual knowing should be tested by the Spirit-inspired text it honours, not set above it; it should be weighed in community rather than held as private certainty; and, on questions of fact, it should be checked against ordinary evidence. So disciplined, “what the word says” becomes a method, not a slogan — and a guard against spiritual elitism.

8. Conclusion

Part One is, by design, the antechamber. It argues that faith cannot be rightly defined until the hearer can receive a spiritual definition spiritually. The full guide does two things at once: it systematises the teaching faithfully — the mystery of the Word, the priority of faith, the epistemology of the Spirit — and it equips the student to test it. The reader is thereby made ready to receive Part Two critically: to ask whether its promised definition of faith honours the full range of pistis, integrates the suffering faithful as well as the triumphant, and rests on the Greek text rather than on English typography. To study Part One well is to be ready to test Part Two faithfully — which is precisely what doctoral-level study requires.

Glossary of Key Terms