By far the worst thing about the expression “coming to faith” is that it leaves Jesus out. The obvious response is, “No it doesn’t—because we all know that ‘coming to faith’ is shorthand for ‘coming to trust Jesus.’” But do we all know this? Won’t at least some of our hearers take our words at face value, assuming that we mean what we say? They won’t do the mental translating we do, because they won’t know that we’ve been speaking in shorthand.

“Come to faith, all you who are weary and burdened, and it will give you rest.”

“Let the little children come to faith, and do not hinder them.”

“Whoever comes to faith will never go hungry.”

Not as good as the original, is it? But somehow or other, “come to faith” seems to have taken over. It’s increasingly used to state the aim of evangelism: “We’re praying than many will come to faith.” And it’s a common way of describing someone’s conversion: “Beth came to faith as a teenager.” But the more I hear it, the more it troubles me—and I think we’d be better off if we stopped saying it. Here are my reasons.

Come to Jesus, not to Faith

You’ve probably worked out my first reason already: coming to faith wasn’t what Jesus called people to do. He wasn’t engaged in a religious campaign to get people to believe. He called everyone to come to him! He was the centre of his gospel of the kingdom. He presented himself as the only source of the life. More than that, he presented himself as more necessary and more precious than everything we have, including our own lives (for e.g. Matt 4:17–22; 5:11; 10:37–39; Jn 6:28–29; 12:23–26; 15:18–21).

Everybody Already Has Faith

Many years ago, King Charles said he wanted to be crowned not as the defender of the [Christian] faith but as the defender of faith.

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