INTRODUCTION
Biblical Christianity begins with coming into a spiritual relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Then it is about spiritually growing and maturing. This is done vertically in fellowship with the Living God and horizontally in fellowship with the community of believers. In order for that to happen a person needs to understand important words. These words and their meaning are not found in the popular culture like prime time TV or secular radio.
Unfortunately there is a huge communication gap between a person that grew up in the church world and a person that is new to Christianity. Yet everyday millions of unbelievers and immature believers tune into Christian radio and TV shows. They pick up a Gideon Bible in a motel room, hospital room, or prison cell. They hear a Christian song at a church or concert.
Even within the church world the understanding of the language can block or improve a persons ability to know God and make Him known. Thankfully study Bibles have footnotes and short articles that bring light to the key words. Often without these the reader is either in the dark or may have a wrong understanding.
In a very real way what is used is a technical vocabulary. To further illustrate this point consider that there are many disciplines that also use a technical vocabulary to accurately communicate. You could go to the bookstore of a large university and just open up the text books in the following fields or put the terms into a search engine. Here are just a few examples: calculus, chemistry, music, computer programming and medicine. Other examples include apologetics, theology and biblical archeology.
The error we often commit is to assume that everyone understands all the words that we do related to the Bible, doctrine and theology. That is like going to a foreign country as a tourist and expecting to completely understand the menu at any restaurant.
The Bible uses words that are not familiar to most people today. Some of these are related to the ways that people lived during the Old and New Testament days. (like vineyard, steward, ) Some are terms that have important theological significance (like justification, trinity, tribulation) Others are words that we use today but the biblical meaning is not obvious and people have gotten confused or misled. (like salvation, love, faith)
Unfortunately there is a huge communication gap between a person that grew up in the church world and a person that is new to Christianity. Yet everyday millions of unbelievers and immature believers tune into Christian radio and TV shows. They pick up a Gideon Bible in a motel room, hospital room, or prison cell. They hear a Christian song at a church or concert.
Even within the church world the understanding of the language can block or improve a persons ability to know God and make Him known. Thankfully study Bibles have footnotes and short articles that bring light to the key words. Often without these the reader is either in the dark or may have a wrong understanding.
In a very real way what is used is a technical vocabulary. To further illustrate this point consider that there are many disciplines that also use a technical vocabulary to accurately communicate. You could go to the bookstore of a large university and just open up the text books in the following fields or put the terms into a search engine. Here are just a few examples: calculus, chemistry, music, computer programming and medicine. Other examples include apologetics, theology and biblical archeology.
The error we often commit is to assume that everyone understands all the words that we do related to the Bible, doctrine and theology. That is like going to a foreign country as a tourist and expecting to completely understand the menu at any restaurant.
The Bible uses words that are not familiar to most people today. Some of these are related to the ways that people lived during the Old and New Testament days. (like vineyard, steward, ) Some are terms that have important theological significance (like justification, trinity, tribulation) Others are words that we use today but the biblical meaning is not obvious and people have gotten confused or misled. (like salvation, love, faith)
posted by John | 6:38 PM
