If you’ve ever had to use an interpreter to translate what you said into another language or if you’ve ever watched a sign language interpreter, you know that the process can be difficult. The interpreter works hard to receive the message in one language and present it accurately in a different language.
Perhaps you’ve never considered yourself an interpreter, but each of us is an interpreter of the message of Christ to those around us who aren’t familiar with it. Two principles all interpreters need to follow can help us as we try to communicate the message of Christ: 1) We need to do all we can to make our communication understandable. This means attempting to understand where the listener is coming from and trying to reach her in the best possible way for her to understand. But we must balance this effort with the second principle: 2) We need to communicate with integrity, listening carefully to the original message and staying true to it.
When we share the gospel with unchurched friends, we may be doing them a disservice by using language with which we’re familiar but which means nothing or something different to someone who didn’t grow up in our church. Think about the terms you use. Some flowery phrases which may communicate beautiful truths to you or your grandmother may mean absolutely nothing to the person who has not grown up sitting in your church’s pews. God intends his Word to communicate; don’t hinder the communication of his Word by using language which could make truth seem incomprehensible to the person who needs your Savior. Practice explaining Christ and salvation. Share verses from a Bible version which uses familiar language. Consider whether someone who’s never been in church or someone from a different church would understand what you’re saying.
We need to balance our communication with the second principle, however: staying true to the message. Some Christians present the holy, righteous God as a watered-down, friendly guy who wants everybody to have fun and feel good and doesn’t care how we’re living our lives. Other Christians emphasize God’s holiness but leave out his compassion and the forgiveness he offers when we repent. Just as people who cannot understand the foreign language depend on the interpreter to interpret honestly, the world around us who doesn’t know our God needs us to communicate the truth of who he really is. Just as any interpreter needs to be listening carefully to the speaker’s words, we need to be learning all we can about God so that the message we communicate to the world around us is accurate.
We’re interpreting every day. Let’s do it well.