Acronyms. Gotta love ’em! LOL! Whether it’s government agencies or texting lingo, they’ve become an integral part of everyday life, at least for most of us. Like them or hate them, they are part of our information overload culture.
But acronyms are context-dependent. Unless you know the context they’re used in, you won’t understand what they mean. One field of study or industry may use similar acronyms but with way different meanings.
I knew a group of believers in the Philippines with a ministry that goes by CIA—Christians In Action. Of course, when most people see these initials, the US Central Intelligence Agency comes to mind.
BTW (by the way), that reminds me of a great line from the movie Red October. When an agent from the CIA was asked by the commander of a nuclear submarine who sent him, here’s what the commander said, “Central Intelligence Agency… Now, there’s a contradiction in terms.”
Acronyms
Terminology and phrases used repetitively often get shortened into acronyms. Acronyms are useful as shortcut ways of saying things. Sometimes it’s shorthand for a name. At other times, it’s an abbreviated term or expression.
When I did some work in the chemical dependency field, we wrote reports for intake and assessment interviews. We recorded comments about a client’s social history (Hx) and our recommended treatment (Tx).
These abbreviations are common within social services and helping professions. But outside of those fields, they may mean something else or nothing at all.
Using acronyms is a helpful way to save time and energy. But if you’re not familiar with the context they’re used in, they can cause confusion.
Christian lingo
Herein lies one of my pet peeves—the use of Christianese. It is a generic catch-all phrase for Christian lingo and terms. I also call it Bible-talk or Bible-babble, especially when people answer questions with Bible verses and assume the person understands.
For the uninitiated (non-believers or new Christian believers) Christianese is unintelligible talk. It doesn’t make sense because there’s no frame of reference to understand these terms and phrases.
As with most things I learn, I stumbled into a way of dealing with the overuse and abuse of Christianese. I didn’t discover it through research and study, but in a desperate attempt to help my students in our Bible school understand the Bible and theological terms.
Solving a dilemma
In 1995, I established a Bible school in the Philippines with a curriculum based on the Inductive Bible Study (IBS) approach to studying the Bible. Inductive Bible Study is a very Western, linear study process. It requires some critical thinking skills.
Working with students for whom English was a second language (ESL), I needed to find a way to help them learn beyond the typical transfer of knowledge by rote learning. Rote learning—copying and repeating—is a common form of education in much of the world.
Rote learning is useful for learning a lot of information at one time. But it is not useful for learning conceptual and theoretical truth, such as biblical doctrine and theology. It caused me to rethink how to teach, which prompted some questions.
How could I get them to understand well-known Bible verses beyond a surface familiarity? How I could I help them think more deeply about doctrine and theology, like what it means to be born again or what redemption is?
IYOW—a Useful Acronym and Tool
I developed the expression In Your Own Words, which I reduced to the acronym—IYOW. I asked the students to define words and express Bible verses in their own words. It proved to be a challenging yet fruitful process.
Several years ago, we had a group of Americans come over on a short-term mission (STM). They went out with our first-year students for an outreach mission in another area.
As part of our curriculum, the students had a class on personal evangelism along with the outreach (OR). This class required them to redefine common Christian terms related to personal evangelism.
I was glad to see how well the students did but confounded by how the Americans struggled with the assignment. They had a hard time transferring what they thought they knew into words of their own.
They seemed to be bound by unspoken rules as if it wasn’t proper to decode these terms into simple words. I think they may have thought it sacrilegious to put Scripture into their own words. It is proper and useful. Even necessary.
Seeing their struggle, I realized I had stumbled upon a useful tool for teaching the truth. Not only for my students, but for those who think they know the truth. Upon our return to the US after many years overseas, I began to see how valuable it is for believers.
When we put a truth or a scripture verse in our own words, it requires us to process that truth or biblical statement. That is, we need to think more deeply about it.
I learned how important this is as a young believer while teaching children. I couldn’t take what I read in a commentary or Bible dictionary and repeat it to young children. I needed to use simple words and relate spiritual truth in more concrete terms and illustrations. Anyone who teaches young children has to learn this.
In the first year or so of my wife and me reintegrating into our native culture, I began to notice many American believers lacked understanding of foundational Christian truths or how to explain the gospel. This eventually led me to write my first book (Mystery of the Gospel).
I just taught a class on Inductive Bible study to our men’s study group and introduced this acronym (IYOW). I explained its value and usefulness when sharing the gospel with others or explaining biblical truths. Because we live in a post-Christian world, many Christian messages fail to resonate with non-believers.
When I taught students basic homiletics and expositional teaching, I stressed the importance of being able to explain biblical truth so a child would understand. This is more important than ever when engaging nonbelievers with the gospel.
I want to end this with a challenge to all who read this.
Take a common biblical term (i.e.: salvation, communion, etc.), or Christian expression (i.e.: altar call, accept Christ, etc.), or a well-known Bible verse (like John 3:16) and put it into your own words (IYOW). You may find it more challenging than you expect!
As a matter of course, I try to decode certain terms even when used in Christian circles, even within churches. I’ve found it to be helpful and insightful to challenge people to do the same.
Most believers use Christianese expressions, which is not wrong in and of itself, but when we use them we need to explain them and make sure those who hear us understand what we say.
What are some Christian expressions or biblical terms you’d like to understand better?
Here’s what I told my students (and my children). Look it up in a dictionary, then put it into your own words (IYOW). The more you try this and practice it, the more your understanding of God’s Word will increase.
[See the links below for more insight and a few laughs about Christianese.]
Christianese links—
Here’s another— “Do You Speak Christianese?” Bible Quiz
And another— Wise Fools: Top 10 Christianese Words/Phrases
Here’s a quick reference for some Christianese Terms— Verbal Map–Christianese (this is from the Addenda in my book, Mystery of the Gospel, Unraveling God’s Story of Redemption)
