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Hebrews 11:1-3 vs. “By Faith”

Keith & Kristyn Getty · checked 2026-08-02

What we checked

PassageHebrews 11:1-3 chapter ↗
Translation shownBSB (Berean Standard Bible)
Presents itself asinspired-by
Categorynot a quote
AlbumAwaken the Dawn · 2009
Words addressed tonot addressed to God (sung about Him)
Teaching or experienceteaching (states truths)

Graded against the standard

Quotation criteria not graded: this song never presents its words as scripture

Applies to every song the Name held holy · God shown holy · true of God · the standard

✓Reverent treatment

✓ What's good

  • Opens all five verses with the chapter's own repeated formula, so the form of Hebrews 11, not just its stories, is the engine of the song
  • Runs the roll call in the chapter's order: creation first, as in verse 3, then patriarchs, then prophets
  • Keeps the roll call's least-sung detail, the patriarchs travelling toward a city God builds (verses 10 and 16)
  • Extends the list to the church and the singer exactly where the letter itself does, at the "us" of verses 39-40 and the race of 12:1
  • Speaks about God and for the congregation throughout; nothing is put in God's mouth

⚠ Cautions

  • No reference is cited anywhere, so the song never sends a singer to the chapter whose shape it borrows
  • The mountain-moving power in the final verse is Matthew 17:20, not Hebrews 11; the seam between the chapter and the addition is inaudible in song
  • The chorus splices phrases from Romans 9, Hebrews 12 and 2 Corinthians 5 into one vow. Each is real; none is from the passage the verses walk
  • Hebrews 11 commends people who died still waiting (verses 13 and 39). The final verse's accent on present power is the one place the song's tone runs ahead of the chapter's

Verse Proof

Hebrews 11:1-3

The text in BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

“Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see. This is why the ancients were commended. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

The writer of Hebrews, unnamed, is urging Jewish Christians under pressure not to drift back from Christ, and chapter 10 has just told them they need endurance. Chapter 11 supplies the evidence: verse 1 defines faith by what it does, verse 2 says the ancients were commended for it, and verse 3 gives the first entry, creation understood by faith. From there the chapter becomes a roll call built on one repeated opener. In the BSB, eighteen verses of the chapter begin with the words "By faith," verse 3 first, each adding a name and an act, from Abel through the patriarchs to the Exodus and Jericho, until verse 32 gives up listing and the closing verses say these were all commended yet did not receive what was promised, God having planned something better "together with us."

What the song says, described not quoted

Five verses, and every one opens with the same two words the chapter's entries open with. The first is creation formed at God's word, seen in the design of what He made and in the lives of the faithful. The second is the patriarchs travelling on a promise toward a city God Himself builds. The third is the prophets foreseeing the Messiah's saving work. The fourth is the early church sent out to carry the gospel to the nations. The fifth is the singers now, walking in the power of the risen Christ, with mountains moving for those who call on His name. The chorus is a plural vow: to stand as children of the promise, to keep eyes fixed on Him as the soul's reward until the race is finished, and to walk by faith and not by sight. God is never addressed directly; the whole song speaks about Him and for the congregation.

What the song borrows from Hebrews 11 is not a sentence but the chapter's engine. Hebrews 11 argues by repetition: the same two-word opener, eighteen times in the BSB, each time followed by a person and a deed. The song takes the opener itself and runs the roll call in the chapter's order, creation, patriarchs, prophets. Its last two verses then step past verse 32, where the chapter's list stops, and add the church's mission and the present singer. That extension is not in the roll call, but it stands where the letter itself puts "us": verses 39-40 say the ancients would not be made perfect apart from us, and 12:1 turns the list into a race for the reader. The chorus is stitched from elsewhere: children of the promise is Romans 9:8's phrase, the race and the fixed eyes are Hebrews 12:1-2, and walking by faith rather than sight is 2 Corinthians 5:7. The mountain-moving in the final verse is Gospels language, Matthew 17:20, not anything in Hebrews.

· Not a quote: The song never says it is quoting and cites no reference. It reproduces Hebrews 11's repeated opener at the head of all five verses. It walks the chapter's roll call in order. It extends the list to the church and the singer at the point where the letter's own closing verses turn to "us."

▸ Official upload. Now listen with the proof in mind.

The smallest quotation in this song is two words long, and it carries the shape of a whole chapter.

Why it matters

Hebrews 11 does not argue faith the way an essay would. It defines faith in one verse and then proves the definition by listing, and the listing is carried by a formula: the same opener, again and again, each time with a name attached. That form is the argument. Faith, the chapter says, is known by what it did. A song that borrows the opener inherits the argument even where every other word is its own, which is why this song teaches the chapter's logic without quoting a sentence of it. Two words are the smallest quotation that can carry a whole chapter's shape.

Is it safe to dwell on?

Sung on repeat, this song moves between God and the singer.

What repetition plants here is a list with your name at the end of it. Verse after verse, the same opener drops the singer into a lineage: the people who trusted before you, then the church, then you, all filed under the same two words. That is close to what Hebrews 11 wants done with it, since the chapter's own closing move is to say the ancients are not complete without us. The dwelling tag is mixed because the words are mostly about the faithful rather than about God directly, which is also true of the chapter itself; both keep pointing past the people to the promise they trusted. The chorus is the part that loops hardest, and it is a vow. Singing a vow weekly is a serious thing: it rehearses endurance before endurance is needed, with the eyes fixed where Hebrews 12:2 fixes them. That is a healthy loop, provided you remember the chapter commends the ones who kept the vow and still died waiting.

Helpful comparison

This site has noted a song borrowing a passage's rhetorical method before: Behold Our God keeps Isaiah 40's unanswerable questions as questions. This is the other great case, and a purer one. There the borrowed form was a technique; here it is the chapter's actual skeleton. Take the repeated opener away from Hebrews 11 and the chapter falls apart into anecdotes; take it away from the song and the same thing happens. The interesting judgment call is the last two verses. Hebrews 11's roll call ends with the prophets and martyrs, so a verse about the church's mission and a verse about us are additions. But verses 39-40 end the chapter by saying the list is unfinished on purpose, that the ancients reach perfection only together with us, and 12:1 hands the baton to the reader. The song's extension is therefore not a liberty taken with the chapter. It is the chapter's own ending, sung forward.

Sources

Corrections

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Where the text survives the song

Not a ranking, and not a swap. If what you came for is the passage sung whole, these proofs found it kept: word-for-word verified, or paraphrase that says so and names its source.

✓ VERIFIED “Proverbs 4” Streetlights Proverbs 4:20-27 Play it freely. This is Proverbs 4 itself, read word for word in a named translation. “Guard your heart” arrives with the commands about the mouth, the eyes and the feet still attached.

✓ The whole chapter, in order, so “guard your heart” arrives with the commands about the mouth, the eyes and the feet, instead of standing alone as advice

⚠ “Word-for-word” here describes the reading, not the translation theory. Streetlights uses it for what is read. Tyndale uses the same phrase for a different thing

 ✓ VERIFIED “Psalm 11 (English Standard Version)” The Corner Room (Adam Wright) Psalm 11:1-7 Sing it straight through. It is all seven verses of Psalm 11, in order, in a version the track title names. A reviewer says one verse comes back as a refrain, and it is the psalm's own verse.

✓ All seven verses, in order. We set the printed sung text beside an ESV and compared it word by word: 131 words, all matching, nothing added and nothing dropped

⚠ The printed text under the video lists each line once. It is not a map of the song. A review of the album says verse 4 comes back as a refrain

 ✓ VERIFIED “Walk In Him (Colossians 2:6-7)” Seeds Kids Worship (Seeds Family Worship) Colossians 2:6-7 Sing it, and teach it. The whole sentence arrives, in order, in the version Seeds names. Read verse 8 afterward, so a child knows what the walking is set against.

✓ Every word the chord chart prints as lyric is a word of Colossians 2:6-7, in the passage's order, and no word of the passage is left out.

✓ no cautions: this is the standard

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