Trust vs. Entrust

A couple of weeks ago … at “the cabin” at oh-dark-hundred hour on Thursday mornings … one of the men in our rotation of leading discussions asked a simple question, “Is there a difference between trusting and entrusting?” It was a great question; one that I thought I could answer right away. However, sixty minutes later, after a vibrant discussion among the men while we sat around the glowing woodstove sipping on hot coffee I was not so sure that I knew the answer anymore. “Is there a difference between trusting and entrusting?” The launching point was John 2:24-25: “But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.”

Here is Jesus—the embodiment of trust/fidelity—in a moment of great popularity mixed with the seeds of great opposition in the religious leaders in Jerusalem making a decision NOT to entrust Himself to “them.” Who comprises the group called, “them”? From the paragraph, “them” is a varied assortment of those who saw Jesus overturn the moneychangers’ tables (vs. 15), those who heard the religious leaders ask for a “sign…as [a token of the] authority for doing these things” (vs. 18), those who heard Jesus reply, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (vs. 19), those who heard the religious leaders balk at the audacity of Jesus to challenge them in public (vs. 20), and those who “believed in His name” (vs. 23). But Jesus decides not to entrust His full identity as the Messiah to “them” at this time. He trusts the Father in all things and in all ways, but He does not “entrust Himself to them” (vs. 24). So the question remains—is there a difference between trusting and entrusting?

I thought that it would be a matter of vocabulary—perhaps Jesus is just using a different word. Nope. Upon further study I noticed that there is nothing unique about the word—pisteuo: “to believe, to trust, to have faith.” If it was a separate word altogether then the difference between trusting and entrusting would have been easier to differentiate, I suppose. Rats! So, I dug a little deeper … but digging took me unavoidably to grammar. Rrrrats!

Deep in the recesses of my [repressed] memories of grammar lessons I remember that there are such things as transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. Transitive verbs convey an action upon someone or something else (a.k.a. direct object … answers “who/what”?). For instance, “He threw the ball,” or “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition” (Monty Python). Intransitive verbs convey an action (often, but not always, internal to the subject’s thought or feelings or intentions) but cannot rightly take a direct object. For instance, “The butter melted,” or “In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight” (The Tokens ©1952). And, just for the sake of confusion, there are some verbs that can be transitive OR intransitive depending on the way they are used in the sentence. Yes, you guessed it—trust is one of those pesky words that can go either way! For instance, “He trusts” works well alone; but the verb trust also works with a direct object, “He trusts them.”

Need a break? Can you withstand one more grammatical twist? Sometimes there is a second object of the action in the same sentence (a.k.a. the indirect object … answers the question “to whom/to what?”). Consider the verse at hand. “He was not entrusting (transitive verb) Himself (direct object) to them (functioning as indirect object in this sentence … technically it is a prepositional phrase, but let’s not go down another rabbit trail!).”

So, where are we in our “simple” question? Is there a difference between trusting and entrusting? Yes. Internally, Jesus is—and we should be—trusting. It is a characteristic of the Savior. Externally, Jesus is—and we should be—wise. It is a life-skill of the Savior to have a practical wisdom. There are times when He entrusts precious things or ideas to others based on the knowledge He has of His audience … but there are times when He decides not to entrust precious things or ideas because he “knew what was in man” (vs. 25) (compare “do not throw your pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6). This has led some commentators to speculate that Jesus was unsure about His Messianic identity—but what is really going on is that He is careful in telling His identity to others. He seems to prefer to let them work it out without His direct revelation—“blessed are you Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal [My identity] to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:18). Finally then, can we draw an application from dry grammar? You bet! We trust God and, when wise, we trust others. But there are times to keep precious things away from unsafe recipients. And further still, we “entrust our very souls to our faithful Creator in doing what is right” (1 Peter 4:19). With God we can and should trust and entrust everything.