DO YOU SPEAK CHRISTIAN?

I was talking to a bank employee the other day and she kept referring to the "G. O. It was G. O. this and G. O. that. I asked her what she meant by the "G. O." and she told me that meant "The General Office." It was then that our conversation started making sense.

Every organization has its own shorthand, it's own code words those in the group use in their everyday interoffice communication.

DO YOU SPEAK CHRISTIAN?

We have our Christian code words; For example, we might say, "Mosaic Law." We know what that means but do you think everybody does? In days gone by, believers referred to "hitting the sawdust trail," "laying before the Lord," and "the mourner's bench." More up to date code words, are "stewardship Sunday," "born again," "discipleship," and, unfortunately, "grace."

The military uses code words to keep their operations secret from the enemy: the invasion of Europe in WWII had its own code, "Operation Overlord" (a reference to D-Day) which only those in the know knew.

The Secret Service has code names for those it protects. On November 22, 1963, the code name for President Kennedy was "Lancer," his wife was, "Lace." VP Lyndon Johnson was "Volunteer," his wife was "Victoria," and "Crown" was the White House mansion. There were and are reasons for code words and they don't all deal with national security.

A BENEFIT OF CODE WORDS, BUT . . .

Code words save us time. They're like shorthand. If a Bible teacher didn't use our Christian code, we'd be listening to him for hours one end as he explained every term.

But one thing code words don't do is communicate with outsiders. This hit home with me one day when I was in an interminable deacons' meeting. I made a reference to the fact that salvation was free, a person doesn't have to try to give up sins to be saved. I pointed out that trying to give up sin was a work. One of the men in the august group got so riled up, that he shot back, "You make works sound like a dirty word! Giving up sin is a work?" he asked incredulously. He was getting angrier by the second.

Looking back on that eye-opening meeting, it occurred to me that even "work"/"works" can be code words because many don't understand what we mean by "work." The madder-than-a-wet-hen-man didn't.

So, maybe what we need to do when telling someone, "salvation is apart from works," is define it. Just what is a "work?" What makes a work a work, biblically speaking? Some might answer, "Well, you know, that is . . . .  well, everybody knows a work  . . . is . . . well, it's, you know, a work." But, as any good English teacher will tell you, you aren't defining a word by using the word you're trying to define. That's a no-no.

WHAT MAKES A WORK A WORK?

So, just what is "work," that is, what does something have to be to be classified a work?

A work, to be a work, has three characteristics, according to Dr.David R. Anderson:

1. It must be observable.
2. It must be performed by a human being.
3. It must be accomplished by physical means.

This is why Paul said that circumcision was a work. Therefore, if circumcision is a work, so is confession with the mouth; so is baptism; so is trying to give up sin or even actually giving up a sin. Confessing sin to a priest or to any offended party would be a work. With this simple definition, anyone can, biblically, know and understand if something is a work. Now we can see whether or not someone is subtly (or not so subtly) importing works (that which is observable, performed by a human being, done by physical means) into grace and adjudge him (or her) as a false teacher.

We need code words among ourselves, but in evangelism, we need to be finely tuned to recognize that the unbeliever has no idea what we're talking about, but is only politely nodding. We're talking about the "grace of Christ," and he thinks we're talking about the attractiveness of Christ.

In using code words with the non-Christian, we're talking past each other. And that means "evangelism" (a code word itself) has not occurred.