Over the past few years as I’ve grown more in my faith I’ve made it a goal to be able to articulate that faith. In 1 Peter 3, Peter tells us to be, “…prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience…”. While this is a great verse for apologetics ministries and witnessing opportunities, I think it is a vital part of our personal walk as well.

In this book, Peter is dealing with a common theme of the persecution of the Church. When you’re standing in front of the people that decide whether you go free or go to the coliseum, you need to know exactly what you believe and why you believe it.

In my effort to make a defense, I’ve also stumbled across some rather not so common words like justification, sanctification, monergism, palagean, superlapsarianism, and so on. These words define some very important concepts in a theological understanding. However I constantly get a sense of disdain from other believers when it comes to the use of such words — “I don’t need to know about that stuff, the Gospel is simple and I just love Jesus” etc.

I have to wonder, does the same approach apply to vocation as it does to faith? I’m a web developer. I read a lot to stay knowledgable on the latest technologies, applications, and practices. To even be able to discuss the topic intelligently requires the use of words like instantiation, class, method, component, cascading style sheet, etc. While it has it’s place in the market, could I really call myself a professional web developer if after a year at most, I was still just using the WYSIWYG view of Microsoft FrontPage? (”How do I drag in a pull-down-thingy again?”)

Back in Christian circles, the use of such words is often frowned upon because it makes one sound religious, and non-religious people can’t relate to that — Christianese. The distinction between using such words and Christianese is that these words are precise and accurate in their definition while Christianese is vague and ambiguous — what does “ask Jesus into your heart” really mean anyway?

Sure, the word “propitiation” will probably never be heard on Entertainment Tonight but like automotive repair, information technology, and quantum physics, God is a big subject and He has called us to know and love Him. Let’s do that the best we can — even if it requires words that are above a third grade reading level.