Anonymous Asks (416)

“What’s the difference between faith and belief?”

As far as the Bible is concerned, there is absolutely no difference between these two concepts. The same Greek word (pistis and members of its family) is translated both “faith” and “believe”. You may be surprised to find that the word “faith” does not appear in most English translations of John’s gospel. Yet he writes, “To all who did receive [the Word], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

That is unquestionably saving faith John is talking about, and he’s using the word “believed”. As far as salvation is concerned in scripture, the two words mean the same thing.

That doesn’t mean Christians should bring up the issue when presenting the gospel to people unfamiliar with it. In modern English usage, “faith” has a specifically religious connotation that is not necessarily present with “belief”. Both terms are useful in witnessing, but one may be more useful than the other, depending on your audience.

The average person has been culturally programmed to think the two ideas are different: that faith is blind and dogmatic and that belief is logical, reasonable or even scientific. Neither is necessarily the case, but for some people the word “faith” may be misleading unless you qualify it with further explanation, and spending too much time on technical distinctions may take you away from where you want to go, which is Christ.

Unless unbelievers or brand new Christians bring it up, I try to steer clear of using “faith” with them to avoid confusion. I prefer to talk about trusting Christ to make me right with God or believing that God raised Jesus from the dead. Both are scripturally legitimate ideas and less confusing than telling somebody they need to “have faith”.

The most important thing in communicating is not to get caught up in word tags, but to make sure both you and your audience are using the same tags to describe the same content.