For reasons I have not spent much time exploring, these words have become nearly synonymous in American Christianity. My thesis: these words, while perhaps related in some ways, should be carefully distinguished.
When Scripture uses the word "believe" we often assume that it means we must accept something, as if "believe" is an imperative verb everytime it is used. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life" (Jn. 3:16). Many of us assume that "everyone who believes," means the same thing as, "everyone who accepts." But, I wonder, does "believe" really mean "accept?"
As far as I can tell, the Scriptures do not say that the two are the same. In fact, I can't find a single place in all of Scripture where it says you must "accept" anything in order to be saved. When asked what he must do to be saved, the jailor who was holding St. Paul and his partner-in-crime, Silas, was told by Paul and Silas, "Believe on The Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household" (Acts 16:31).
"Believe," over and over again this is the word that is used. In other parts of Scripture, "believe and be baptised," is what indicates salvation. But that word "believe" still figures prominently.
When I was in college, I was absolutely convinced that "believing" was my work, my job, me doing the accepting. It is what God required of me for salvation. And then my boat was rocked by a Lutheran professor with enough guts to proclaim to me something different: "it's not about you, Chris." He hammered away at me, over and over and over, that believing is not my work, not my requirment. Believing is a gift.
English translations of Greek words found in the Scriptures are often varied in order to make a sentence flow more smoothly. English is a clunky, barbaric language in this way. But the point I want to make in saying this is that the Greek word for "believe" and "faith" is the same: pistis. Faith and belief are synonyms, but "accept" is not.
So we have Paul's letter to the Romans which says, "The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe...they are now justified by his grace as a gift." (Romans 3:22). Or more clearly in Ephesians, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God--not the result of works, so that no one may boast, " (2:8-9). We are saved through faith, through belief, through pistis. And this is a gift, not something we do.
Requiring that we accept the gift turns the grace of God into simply another "work," another law to follow, one more thing to do. This grace is "not the result of works," but the sheer gift of God. This is, perhaps, where Lutheran theology rubs most against American Christianity. Lutheran theology hammers this point all the way home. American Christianity has come to understand faith and belief as something we do, the way we accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior. But faith and belief, at least in Scripture, are emphasized as a gift, not the result of works.
So, how can we be sure that we are saved if we have nothing to do with it? God is not a liar. God tells the truth and when God says something will happen, it will. God makes promises and always comes through. Take a look at Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and even Jesus. God comes through in spite of human sinfulness. When God says something, it is.
When God says, you are forigven, you are my child, you belong in my kingdom, you are saved, it means you simply are. It's like waking up in a strange and foreign land without any idea about how we got there. It just happens. And it's all about God, it's all God's doing, so that none of us can boast about it for ourselves. None of us can say, "Well, I've accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior and you haven't, so therefore I am saved and you are not."
Faith (believing) is not something we do, but a gift from God.
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