Doubt vs Unbelief: How to Know Which One You’re Dealing With Mark 9:17-24
Two doors- one with light for Faith. The other dark for unbelief. “Doubt vs Unbelief: How to Know Which One You’re Dealing With,” with the Light on Life Podcast logo.
Doubt and unbelief are not the same thing. We often use those words as though they are interchangeable, but the Bible paints two different pictures. A person can believe God and then allow what he sees, what he feels, or what he hears from others to pull him away from what he believed. That’s doubt. Unbelief goes further—it refuses to believe. One wavers over the Word; the other rejects it. And knowing which one you’re dealing with matters because you cannot deal with doubt and unbelief as though they are the same problem. Faith stands. Doubt wavers. Unbelief rejects. So grab your Bible and let’s dive into Doubt vs Unbelief: How to Know Which One You’re Dealing With, all on this week’s Light on Life.
Listen to the Audio
This Week: Faith Stands. Doubt Wavers. Unbelief Rejects. Identify where you are wavering or refusing to believe, reposition your thinking back on God’s Word, and take God at His Word until your heart becomes settled on what He said.
#S13-041
Never Miss an Episode
Join believers who are growing in God’s Word every week. Subscribe to the Light on Life Podcast on your favorite platform:
Use this if your podcast app supports adding shows by RSS feed.
Accept the Challenge
Confront It. Believe God. Stand.
This week, get brutally honest with yourself and God’s Word. Is there an area where you believe God but have allowed the ‘what ifs’ to get you wavering? Reposition your thinking back on the Word. Don’t hedge your bets. Make your stand.
But maybe there is something God said that you just flat don’t believe. Don’t call that doubt. Confront your unbelief. Get in the Word. Take God at His Word. Hear what God said until faith comes.
Remember: Faith Stands. Doubt Wavers. Unbelief Rejects.
Scripture:
Mark 16:14 (NASB 2020) — Later He appeared to the eleven disciples themselves as they were reclining at the table; and He reprimanded them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen Him after He had risen from the dead.
Join the Conversation
Each week's podcast also contains a question designed to encourage testimony. Testimony is vital to a believers life. We overcome by it (Rev. 12:11).
This week's question:
Join This Conversation
Question:
Where have you seen the difference between doubt and unbelief in your own walk with God? Have you ever believed what God said and then found yourself wavering because of what you saw, felt, or heard?
Share:
What helped you reposition your thinking back on God’s Word and make your stand? Your experience may help someone else recognize what they are dealing with.
Remember:
We grow stronger together when we encourage one another to hear what God said, believe what God said, and take our stand on His Word.
About Emery and Sharon
For nearly five decades, Emery has devoted his life to helping people grow in Christ through the power of the Word and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Together with his wife, Sharon — his partner in life and ministry for 44 years — he equipped believers to live Spirit-filled, practical lives of faith.
At the heart of the mission is this: helping believers apply God's words so faith becomes active and unstoppable.
If this episode helped you, would you share it with a friend and leave a quick review?
Podcast Notes:
Well again, welcome.
Let’s pray.
Father God thank you for your word. Help us to day to see and understand the effects of unbelief. We want you to find faith in the earth when Jesus comes. Help us to align our lives in faith believing you always. Thank you for this in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
What We Have Learned About Doubt
Mark 11:23 (KJV) — 23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
Mark 11:23 (New Charismatic New Testament) — 23 I am telling you the truth, whoever says to this mountain, “Lift yourselves off the ground and throw yourself into the sea’ and does not talk himself out of it in his heart, but believes that what he is speaking is happening for him, it will happen.
In the last several podcasts, we have spent considerable time looking at doubt.
Jesus said in Mark 11:23 that the person who speaks to the mountain must believe in his heart and not doubt.
We saw doubt in Peter.
Peter had faith—he walked on water.
But when he shifted his focus from Jesus and His Word to the wind and the waves, he began to doubt.
So Peter’s problem wasn’t that he never believed.
He believed—and then he doubted.
Then last time, we went to James and looked at the waverer.
James describes this person as being like a raging wave of the sea—driven and tossed by the wind.
He goes back and forth.
Did God hear me?
Did I believe right?
What if nothing changes?
What if this doesn’t work?
James calls him double-minded—two-souled, indecisive, uncertain, and unstable.
He has not stayed settled on the Word of God.
So we have established something important: a person can believe and then doubt.
Peter did.
The waverer in James was a believer.
But here is the question we have not answered.
Is doubt the same thing as unbelief?
Faith Stands. Doubt Wavers. Unbelief Rejects.
Many use the words doubt and unbelief interchangeably.
But do they mean the same thing?
Is a person who doubts an unbeliever?
Or is there a difference between the two?
That’s what we are going after today.
And there is a passage in Matthew’s gospel that puts us right in the middle of this question.
So, let’s turn to Matthew 17:14–20.
What Is Little Faith?
Matthew 17:14–20 (KJV) — 14 And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, 15 Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. 16 And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. 17 Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. 18 And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. 19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? 20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Now the KJV does us a bit of a disservice here with Jesus words ‘because of your unbelief.’
Unbelief is not the correct translation.
The NASB has it this way.
Matthew 17:19–20 (NASB 2020) — 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” 20 And He said to them, “Because of your meager faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”
Even the New King James version translates it as little faith.
The word in the Greek is oligopistia—it’s built from oligos, which is little, and pistis, which is faith.
So the word means the state of having little or inadequate faith—‘to not have enough faith, to have limited faith.’[1. Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 377.]
Boiled down?—The term denotes a deficiency in faith that you can quantify.
So the disciples come to Jesus with a question: “Why could we not cast it out?”
And Jesus answers that question with because of your “oligopistia”—your little faith.
Jesus didn’t say that they had no faith.
The disciples had faith enough to step out but not enough to deliver the boy.
So now let’s look at the word for unbelief.
What Is Unbelief?
Mark 9:17–24 (KJV) — 17 And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; 18 And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not. 19 He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me. 20 And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. 21 And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child. 22 And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us. 23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. 24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
At its core, the word unbelief [apistia] speaks of not believing in the good news about Jesus Christ and not becoming a follower.[2. Ibid, 378.]
It is the trait of not trusting in God.
So we are talking an absence of faith, not a diminished quantity of faith.
Translation?—unbelief is zero faith.
Faith Stands. Doubt Wavers. Unbelief Rejects.
Now look some more at the father’s statement: “Lord I believe help my unbelief.”
We already understand what unbelief is but, what about the word believe?
Well of course, believe is the opposite of not believe and you can see it in the base word [pisteuō] the verb form of pistis or faith.
So the father says to Jesus out of his anguish, “I have faith, but I have no faith, help me.”
In the New Testament sense, this is not how faith increases.
Romans 10:17 (NASB 2020) — 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
The man asks Jesus to help him with where he is in life.
But faith doesn’t come by asking for it—it comes by the Word of God.
If you try to pray for faith, you are by-passing the way God designed for faith to come.
But you may say, “Yeah, but the man got help from Jesus—his boy was healed.”
Just know that our Jesus is full of compassion—he knew that man needed help.
Now one thing in the man’s favor was he did reach out for help by coming to Jesus’ disciples.
This man was unlike the unbelief displayed by Jesus own family members.
Isn’t it that way many times.
Let’s take a look.
The Link between Unbelief and Offense
Mark 6:2 (NASB 2020) — 2 And when the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue; and the many listeners were astonished, saying, “Where did this man learn these things, and what is this wisdom that has been given to Him, and such miracles as these performed by His hands?
There are many who believe that Jesus went back to Nazareth, to his hometown—His own people, to get some rest.
But the urge to accomplish His Father’s will compelled him to put off rest and accept an invitation to speak in the synagogue.
So much for a quiet weekend.
His family attended church with Him that day.
In verse three, Mark identifies six of Jesus’ siblings who came to hear their brother teach the Word of God.
Get the scene now—Jesus and His family in church together.
His disciples made up part of the crowd along with the regular attendees and the ultra curious.
What reaction did they have to Jesus’ message?
The scripture is plain: many of them were astonished.
Now you may think that astonished is good, that is, until you drill down into the word.
The word astonish [ekplēssō] describes this reaction: they were beside themselves, or overwhelmed.
In everyday language, Jesus message made many of the listeners out of their minds mad with shock.
They were so ticked that they said: “Who in the world does this guy think He is?”
You see, the hometown crowd wasn’t having any of what Jesus was teaching.
Now we know that because this phrase, ‘“Where did this man learn these things’ is not a statement of wonder.
Those seven English words are but three words in the Greek.
It reads in the original New Testament, From where — to this one — these things?
No verb. No elaboration. Just three pieces fired off shotgun style in disdain.
This crowd was mad.
It’s obvious that the Word Jesus taught in that Nazareth synagouge did not produce faith.
Faith comes by hearing but it takes a right kind of hearing.
Disdain is not the right kind of hearing to produce faith.
So people in Jesus’ hometown were hearing powerful words of life, but their reaction was offense.
Mark 6:3 (NASB 2020) — 3 Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are His sisters not here with us?” And they took offense at Him.
Mark’s word offense [skandalizō] gives us a picture of people being angry and shocked.
With this word also comes the sense of a falling away from or rejecting faith.
It reminds me of what’s going on in our political world today.
One side speaks and the other side gets brutally upset.
There’s a general leadership principle hidden in all this scenery: people buy into a leader before they buy into what the leader says.
The people of Nazareth did not buy into Jesus.
They refused to believe Him—they dismissed His words with shock, and anger.
The extent of this uproar spread to Jesus’ family as well.
They were mad too.
We know this from verse four.
Mark 6:4 (NASB 2020) — 4 Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not dishonored except in his hometown and among his own relatives, and in his own household.”
Listen to it—it’s quite an inclusive spread: hometown folks, relatives, and Jesus own household.
All of them were upset.
Jesus made few friends in Nazareth this day.
But Jesus was not out to make friends—He was out to make disciples.
You don’t make disciples by sugar-coating the truth.
Now here are the disastrous ramifications of Nazareth’s jilted hearing.
Mark 6:5 (NASB 2020) — 5 And He could not do any miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them.
He could not do any miracles.
The Scripture didn’t say He wouldn’t, it said He couldn’t.
You mean Jesus the Son of God couldn’t?
Emphatically yes.
Wuest translates this verse as:
Mark 6:5 (Wuest) — 5 And He was not able to do there even one work of power, except that He laid His hands on a few sickly ones and healed them[3. Kenneth S. Wuest, The New Testament: An Expanded Translation (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1961), Mk 6:1–6.]
Jesus’ reaction to this?
Mark 6:6 (NASB 2020) — 6 And He was amazed at their unbelief. And He was going around the villages teaching.
There it is—the high impact of unbelief—He could not even do one mighty miracle in His own hometown.
Unbelief shut off the flow of God’s wonder-working power.
This is vital for you to know because there are Jesus followers everywhere who have pockets of unbelief working against them as you will see in a moment.
You should know that if unbelief shut down the power of God in Nazareth in the first century, it will do the same in your hometown in the twenty-first century.
The inability to produce results caused Jesus to be amazed.
And because you are a wordsmith—amazed means extraordinarily disturbed.
Jesus is still extraordinarily disturbed by unbelief.
I don’t know about you but I don’t want to give Jesus a bad day.
I’m sure you feel the same.
Pockets of Unbelief in the Disciples of Jesus
Now let’s talk about this statement: pockets of unbelief in believers.
You know this statement is not supposed to be—believers who don’t believe.
What is that?
Mark 16:14 (KJV) — 14 Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.
Do you see it?—the disciples, who were first-hand witnesses of Jesus’ miracles, His transfiguration, and His power-packed preaching and teaching had unbelief.
These same disciples who were empowered to lay hands on the sick and cast out devils themselves AND had results were reprimanded for their unbelief and hardness of heart.
The word picture is graphic: a hard-hearted soul is one who has an unyielding frame of mind.
You could say stubborn—you could say obstinate and you wouldn’t do the word an injustice.
Hardness of heart is inflexibility.
It’s an internal motivation that resists.
We’re talking hard-heartedness not cold-heartedness, that is, an active rejection of Jesus’ testimony.
This refusal—this stubborn wilful rejection of the Resurrection did not happen overnight.
Jesus told His disciples on three occasions about His upcoming death and resurrection.
Here’s the first time.
Mark 8:29–32 (KJV) — 29 And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ. 30 And he charged them that they should tell no man of him. 31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.
Now the second time.
Mark 9:30–32 (KJV) — 30 And they departed thence, and passed through Galilee; and he would not that any man should know it. 31 For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day. 32 But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him.
Note the reaction: ‘they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him.’
Behind our English word understand stands several Greek words.
The one used here [agnoeo] means unable to grasp what something means.
Matthews version of this second go-around adds that the disciples were exceedingly grieved when they heard Jesus.
What does this tell us?
It tells us that the disciples only half-believed the message.
The half they believed was that Jesus would die—that’s why they were exceedingly sorry.
The half they didn’t believe was the resurrection part—because if they did, they wouldn’t have been grieved.
Here’s the third time and I’m going to go to Luke because he adds a little more detail.
Luke 18:31–34 (KJV) — 31 Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. 32 For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: 33 And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again. 34 And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.
Note again the disciples’ reaction: ‘they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.’
They didn’t understand—they were afraid to ask—the saying was hid from them.
Basically?—They had no clue.
So, Jesus gave His disciples this two-part message—die and rise again—three times.
What was their problem with Jesus’ message?
Did they only half-hear it?
I don’t think so.
I think they believed the part they wanted to believe.
The rest remained willingly in a state of incomprehension because they were too chicken to ask for clarification.
Fear and unbelief, you see, are good buddies.
But—Faith Stands. Doubt Wavers. Unbelief Rejects.
Where are you in these things?
Are there areas that you refuse to believe and are afraid to ask?
Do you believe in being filled with the Holy Ghost and speaking in other tongues?
Do you believe in divine healing?
Do you believe it’s God’s will to prosper you?
Do you believe in the Holy Spirit’s guidance?
Do you believe in the power of prayer but wonder why some of your prayers haven’t been answered?
Are you afraid, like the disciples were to even ask why?
The Difference Between Doubt and Unbelief
So let’s sum it up.
What’s the difference between doubt and unbelief?
The doubter has enough faith to reach out to God.
But his faith becomes compromised when the individual wanting to receive from God yields to outside influences to the point that he vacillates.
The outside influences—the physical realm—what he sees—what he feels—input from others compromises his inside conviction.
Then he hedges his bets.
Do you understand what that saying means?
Hedging your bets means making multiple choices so you don’t lose everything if things don’t progress like you think they should.
And with that thought, here is the Illustration of the Day.
Do you want to know what a waverer, who hedges his bets, is like?
A perfect modern-day example of “hedging bets” occurred during the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election, specifically involving Silicon Valley Tech CEOs and Billionaires.[4. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/oct/28/tech-ceos-trump-election]
Leading up to the incredibly tight election, tech leaders like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Google’s Sundar Pichai faced a massive problem.
They didn’t know who would win, but they knew that the wrong move could result in severe government regulations or antitrust lawsuits for their companies. [5. https://www.platformer.news/tech-ceos-trump-election-bezos-zuckerberg]
Instead of choosing a side and risking everything, they heavily hedged their bets:
As polls showed a 50/50 toss-up, tech leaders were concerned about what a second Donald Trump presidency might mean for their businesses.[6. ibid]
To protect themselves, multiple CEOs began making private phone calls to Trump.
Tim Cook called Trump to discuss Apple’s legal troubles in Europe.
Mark Zuckerberg called him after an assassination attempt and labeled his response an extraordinary display of courage and resolve.
Now, he used a different word for it but what I said is the essence of what he said.
Jeff Bezos went a step further by blocking his newspaper, The Washington Post, from endorsing a candidate entirely, ensuring they didn’t anger either side right before the vote. [7. ibid]
By refusing to firmly commit to one political side and actively opening friendly channels with both parties, these tech leaders successfully hedged.
No matter who walked into the White House, the tech CEOs ensured they wouldn’t “lose everything” because they had already established a direct, positive line of communication with the winner.
Waverers demonstrate this same action—they hedge their faith.
They try to hold to faith and the ‘what if’ at the same time.
Let go of the ‘what if’ and cling to the Word—take a stand.
On the flip side, the unbeliever is like the guy that refused to evacuate when warned of an approaching hurricane.
As Hurricane Ian approached Florida back in 2022, officials ordered people in vulnerable areas to evacuate.
Yet some residents openly rejected the warning because of their previous experiences.
Storms were predicted.
They turned out not as bad as the predication.
But Hurricane Ian was the real deal.
Some of Florida’s residents didn’t believe the report and it cost them.
Unbelief will cost you and so will wavering.
Wavering cost the man in James—he didn’t receive from the Lord.
Unbelief cost some of the people of Nazareth—Jesus could do no mighty work there.
Different conditions.
Same result: neither receives what God so desires to give.
Faith Stands. Doubt Wavers. Unbelief Rejects.
What Are You Going to Do About It?
So where are you?
Are you believing God—or are you wavering?
You know what the Word of God says.
You believed it.
But then the wind started blowing and something changed.
The answer didn’t come when you thought it should.
Somebody said something that got you thinking.
And then the ‘what ifs’ started.
What if it doesn’t happen?
What if God doesn’t come through?
What if I missed it?
That’s the place where you have to stop.
Reposition your thinking back on God’s Word.
His Word is truth and life.
Don’t hedge your bets.
Don’t try to hold onto the Word with one hand and the ‘what if’ with the other.
Make your stand.
But maybe that’s not where you are.
Maybe there is something God said that you just flat don’t believe.
That’s not doubt—that’s a different problem.
Be honest and call it what it is—unbelief.
Confront your unbelief.
Get brutally honest with yourself and God’s Word.
Don’t just sit in a pool of unbelief.
Do something about it.
Get in the Word.
Take God at His Word.
He is not man that He should lie.
Hear what God said until faith comes.
Faith Stands. Doubt Wavers. Unbelief Rejects.
If this podcast helped you, consider sharing it with others.
You’ll find the Companion Study Guide and Teacher’s Guide for this episode on the Episode Resources page at emeryhorvath.com, as well.
Use those resources to go back through the Scriptures we covered today and get these truths down in your heart.
And remember the title of today’s podcast: “Doubt vs Unbelief: How to Know Which One You’re Dealing With.”
And join me next week as we continue looking at the Prayer of Believing that You Receive.
There’s more for us to see—so tune in.
You guys have a great God week, and we will see you next time for another edition of Light on Life.
📚 Study Resources
Go deeper personally or lead this lesson with a group.
🎧 Never Miss an Episode
📩 Get Weekly Study Tools
Join the mailing list for new episodes, guides, and resources every Tuesday at 2:00 AM CST.
Subscribe by Email →🎧 Suggested Episode
If “Doubt vs Unbelief: How to Know Which One You’re Dealing With” encouraged you, don’t miss “What Tools Do You Need to Pray for Others?”—continue building your prayer life by learning the tools you need when standing in faith and praying for the needs of others.
Visit the Episode →References
- Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 377. ↩︎
- Ibid., 378. ↩︎
- Kenneth S. Wuest, The New Testament: An Expanded Translation (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1961), Mk 6:1–6. ↩︎
- The Guardian, “Tech CEOs and the 2024 Election.” ↩︎
- Platformer, “Tech CEOs, Trump, Bezos and Zuckerberg.” ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎