Speaking your Audience's Language

Speaking your Audience's Language: - When you seek to communicate the message of Jesus Christ to those outside the faith, do you ever feel like you’re not getting through? There can be many reasons for this, including their own resistance, spiritual blindness, spiritual warfare, ego, personal pain, and anger with God, disappointment with God or Christians, etc. But a major reason might be that you just aren’t speaking their language.

Different languages: - People speak different verbal languages. They also speak different psychological, emotional and intellectual languages.

The Gift: - We are offering the people of our world a gift that is infinitely more valuable than anything in life, the gift of peace with God and eternal life. But too often, we don’t speak their emotional and intellectual languages. I don’t know about you, but at the end I don’t want to look back with regret on the people who didn’t appreciate Christ because I didn’t make the message clear.

I want to speak their language so clearly that they see how attractive Our Jesus is, so they run to Him to receive Him and for anything is possible with Him. These are my advice, In communicating with non-believers, seek to avoid Christian terminology.

Consider this example: “The Bible says all you sinner need to repent and trust in the finished work of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who, through his propitiatory sacrifice on Cross of Calvary, made atonement for you so you could be justified, redeemed, sanctified and gloriously saved!”

That is all true, but will the unbeliever understand it? How about this instead? “The bible explains that humans have emptiness, an inner void, a longing to love and be loved. Jesus Christ said he came to fill that void, to offer hope and genuine purpose. He died a physical and spiritual death to pay the penalty we/humans owed for our/their flaws and imperfections. Then he returned to life to offer us/people the opportunity to plug into God both now and forever.” Depending on the situation, you may wish to use either the more direct second-person or first person-plural (“you” or “we”) or the more indirect third-person plural (“humans”, “people”, “they”, etc.). You can make the Gospel very clear. Just use language that relates to your listeners and their situation.

Suggesting alternates: - Consider a few additional suggestions for connecting with your audience. Aim to contextualise your words and examples for your listeners or readers, and to paint memorable ‘word pictures’. Jesus took worldly examples from the surrounding society and culture to fill out the content of abstract concepts. For instance, the Prodigal Son story illustrates repentance. The Lost Sheep story conveys God’s heart for someone whose life is a mess. Redemptive parallels from familiar stories that resonate with your audience can be vital. Popular culture is one very valuable source for such material.

For evangelism in a non-Western or non-Christian culture, careful use of language is equally important, because the words may carry entirely different implications from those that Western Christians intend. Many non-Western societies are also shame cultures and view modes of behaviour in dramatically different ways than Westerners do, so different cultures view things different.

Another audience that your “Worldly-friendly” language may help is those who are familiar – even over-familiar – with Christian terminology. Some may let Christian jargon simply wash over them without attaching much meaning to the words, having been somewhat immunized to their truth. For others, ‘Christianize’ may trigger memories of negative or hurtful past church experiences. In both cases, jargon-free language can add freshness and clarity that helps minimize these potential communication barriers.

I believe some the suggestions can better use to connect with the non-believers you seek to reach and we should always ask God to give you wisdom to apply these suggestions as appropriate for your situation. Trust Him to give you words and thoughts that will help people understand God’s truth. Remember, you are not seeking to compromise God’s message, but simply aiming to communicate it using language and concepts your audience can understand, relate to, and digest.

Philemon 1:6 (Amplified Bible)
6[And I pray] that the participation in and sharing of your faith may produce and promote full recognition and appreciation and understanding and precise knowledge of every good [thing] that is ours in [our identification with] Christ Jesus [and unto His glory].

Possible Prayer
Going forward, I want to change the direction of my communication with the unbelievers. I pray that I would love YOU with all my heart and all my soul and all my strength. Give me the words and thoughts that will help people understand Your Truth. Help me to love others and to demonstrate my love through concrete actions. In Jesus Name, Amen!!