An Essential Biblical Vocabulary

How many Christ followers could adequately explain the following words and theological concepts?

• Incarnation


• Grace


• Salvation


• Redemption


• Righteousness


• Faith


• Repentance


• Atonement


• Justification


• Condemnation


• Sin


• Love


• Obedience

Every generation is only one generation away from Biblical illiteracy, heresy and lifestyles that do not please God. I fear that the church is not doing enough to educate its people in the basic doctrines of the Christian faith - and minus the foundation of those doctrines, we may end up with a semblance of Christianity without the core of Christianity.

There is a therapeutic gospel at large in our world today. But it is often therapy wrapped in Biblical teaching without the very foundation of the gospel robbing people of the core foundational truths of what the Scriptures teach.

Is it possible to develop a Christian world view or a truly Christian lifestyle without a good understanding of theology, the study of God which is wrapped up in the grand doctrines of Scripture? Many seem to think the answer is yes - if one judges by the content of the teaching and preaching that one encounters in the church today. Paul obviously disagreed as the book of Romans and his other epistles demonstrate.

In fact, the relevance we pursue in our exposition of the Scriptures is rooted in and derived from the very doctrines that we often ignore in our attempt to make our message relevant!

Consider doing an informal survey of the words from Romans above and see what you discover! We might start with church leaders and see what we discover! If you get good results I applaud you. If you don't...