Notice the difference between the Lord Jesus speaking to Nicodemus and the woman at the well. He didn’t presume on the woman’s Bible knowledge. Instead He used an illustration from her life—the well of water. He could have used the smitten Rock, but didn’t. Yet with Nicodemus He does refer to a Bible story—the serpent on the pole. There He could ask, “Aren’t you a teacher in Israel? Don’t you know these things?”
Anyone sitting at a truck stop beside a big rig driver and asking, “Are you washed in the blood?” or “Are you in the shadow of the Great Rock?” cannot expect to be rewarded with a knowing smile. Both phrases are sound biblical ideas, but they are no longer used in the marketplace where ideas are exchanged. I heard an elder instruct “the unlearned” before the Lord’s Supper to “pass the elements by.” Which elements would they be? Helium? Plutonium? Perhaps “bread and wine” might have been clearer to those not familiar with such terms.
Some words and phrases are understood by our hearers in a different way than we might expect. We know this is true of “church” (and many try to rectify this by replacing it with “assembly,” a suitable switch for the local church, but a word which also should be defined). We also are skittish of “pastor” because it is often used of those who rule at the top of a pyramid of “laymen” rather than modeling the biblical concept of shepherds serving among the flock.
But today such confusion may also exist when we use what we consider to be very basic words like God (to a Hindu, one of thousands of peculiar deities) or justification (to a Mormon, a spiritual elevator through which the “faithful” arrive at heaven’s penthouse).
When a friend in Belfast asked a group of inner city children if any of them knew anything about Jesus, only one boy tentatively raised his hand. When acknowledged by the teacher, he asked, “Why did his mommy give him a swear word for a name?” That was it—the group’s collective knowledge of the Son of God. Welcome to the new Dark Ages.
Or consider the man who came when invited to a Bible talk near Glasgow, Scotland. When the speaker raised the issue of Adam in the Garden and original sin, the man became belligerent and stormed out. Turns out his name was Adam! “That man invited me here,” he objected, “to blame the whole thing on me! And I don’t even have a garden!”
An evangelist told me how he took a young believer for some door-to-door work to show him the ropes. While pouring out a steady stream at one door, he was, to his consternation, interrupted by his understudy. “May I ask the man something?” When grudgingly granted permission by the senior evangelist, he asked the puzzled listener, “Do you know who Jesus is?” The man slowly nodded No. Can you presume a knowledge of Joshua? Not even Jesus.
There are also terms that, with certain audiences, will work as well as a matador’s cape in the eyes of an agitated bull. Gospel “crusades” bring back unhappy memories to both Muslims and Jews. Many terms also seem to make those not yet saved into our war spoils: we Christian soldiers “win” souls with the help of prayer “warriors.” And I wonder what words like “Evangelism Explosion” bring to their minds. Who actually explodes? Sounds like Iraqi news reports.
Our Lord refused to use certain words—good words—that could be misconstrued. For example, rather than calling Himself “Messiah” because the Jews’ concept of a temporal warrior was wrong, He used “Son of Man” (see Jn. 12:34 for its understood equivalence). So let us learn from the Master—keep it simple and understandable. Because not everyone speaks Brethren.