Acceptance VS Belief

Sometimes people will get all riled up over something that they see as a big deal. Some of these things are truly important, others are things they misunderstand. One such important issue that many modern Theologians will talk about it the fact that the phrase "accept Jesus" is not mentioned in the Bible. "Why do we use it then?" they ask.

It's a good question. Why do we use terms like this that aren't found in the Bible? Well, some terms we don't see in the Bible are because they are words we made up to explain an idea. Words like Theology and Trinity are not in the Bible because we created those words to explain truths we see in the Bible that did not have just one word for them before that. Both of those two words are not specifically used in the Bible but the concepts thereof are referenced throughout.

But what about a word as simple as accept? That surely is not used because of a different reason right? Yes. The reason accept is a more common term in Theology than believe in some circles has to do with the language that we used to use in Theology. Much Theology was developed during and right after the Reformation. And what language did many of the Reformers read and write? German, it was one of the dominate languages of high thought. Even many who did not speak it as their mother tongue used it for Theology and Philosophy. And in German 'accept' is written 'annehmen' and it literally means "to take on or to put on, to accept." Alternately in German 'believe' is written 'glauben' and it literally means "to agree to or understand." So as you can see, in German to accept means to apply to life and believe means more along the lines of  merely understanding a concept. Therefore, in German the word annehmen was used to show we needed to apply what we believe, whereas glauben was used to show what we know from an intellectual point of view.

So what does this mean? Well, the reason we started using the word accept is because in the language that was used in the time much of this Theology was put to paper, words meant things differently than we understand them now. In German "accept" (annehmen) is to apply, but in English "accept" means much less. In our modern English we would be more inclined to use the word "believe" for its implications. 

Conclusion

So in the end, when we both mean is the same when we say we need to "accept" or "believe". We need to apply to our hearts the principles that we see in Scripture. We cannot just "know about" Jesus, that does not work for people in English or in German. (or any other language) The Devil knows and trembles. If we do not apply it, whether you use the term believe or annehmen does not matter, as long as you do indeed apply it to your life.