Believe on me: WTF?

[Mark Peters]

Yesterday, I saw these words painted on the side of a building in Chicago:

  "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ..."

  "Believe on"? Is there some trend in preposition use that might make sense of this? For years, I've been seeing student writers use "on" in ways that sound godawful to me. Anybody know of any studies about broader use of "on"?

  Mark

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