We should avoid the confusion of using our “Christian” or uncommon words in conversation. While great for writing and learning doctrine, we should not assume people even know the major stories of the Bible, let alone understand some of theology’s unique vocabulary. According to ChristianBook.com, the King James Version (KJV) reads at a 12th grade level, the New American Standard Bible (NASB) at an 11th grade level, and the New International Version (NIV) at the 7th-8th grade level. People can understand the Bible, and the Holy Spirit illumines the Scripture (I’m using Christianese there. I should have said, “the Holy Spirit helps people to understand the spiritual things in the Bible), but we should not make the process more difficult for someone by using words they may not have heard before. The apostle Paul wanted to proclaim Jesus as clearly as possible (1 Corinthians 14:19, Colossians 4:4).

Some words that may need to be defined, or alternate words used are:

• covenant – a promise
• glory of God – God’s perfection and power
• gospel – good news
• grace – unearned favor
• justified – declared righteous (see definition of righteous below)
• perish – to die
• redeem – to buy back (usually out of slavery or similar to buying something back that you sold to a pawn shop)
• resurrection – coming back from the dead (not as a zombie or or creature, but as a living human being)
• righteousness – acting correctly, as God desires
• sacrifice – payment of substitution (usually of life for life) given freely
• atoning sacrafice, propitiation – the satisfaction given
• sins, iniquities, transgressions – the bad things that we do
• wage – what is earned

Are there any other words or phrases than need to be on this list?

©2002-2012 Paul Tillman