I have noticed that Christians use some words that everyone seems to understand but many have trouble giving a definition to if you ask them. This column will cover four such words. At seminary we called words like these (which Christians use a lot but non-Christians are clueless about) "Christian-eze." These four are incarnation, trinity, mercy, and grace.

Incarnation. The idea that God became a human. This is not to be confused with reincarnation, the Hindu/Buddhist idea that a person is born, lives, and dies many, many times. I have a parable which illustrates this word. Imagine a farmer going out to his barn in the middle of winter. As he gets close to the barn, he sees a small flock of birds on the ground outside his barn. He stops and observes them for awhile, and realizes that they are close to freezing to death. He opens the doors of the barn, thinking that if they would go into the barn they will be safe; but they don’t go. He gets behind them and tries to shoo them in, but all they do is scatter. He keeps trying to get them into the barn, but they flee in different directions. In his frustration he thinks, "If I could just become a bird, then I could tell them it is safe inside the barn." And that is the incarnation. God gave his message to people over and over, people like Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses. But his message kept getting skewed, or people didn’t really listen. Finally, God said, "I am going to go down there myself and tell them how to get to the safe place and show them how to live." And so he did when God came to earth as Jesus: this is the incarnation.

Trinity. One God in three persons. Or, as I tell my students, one God and three roles that he plays. This is an idea that is hard for non-Christians, and even some Christians, to accept. To explain this, I use an example: me (or you can use you). Think of me, I tell my students, I am one person, but I am someone’s son, someone’s husband, and someone’s father. I am one person but I have three roles. Now, I know that this is "dumbing" the idea down, make it overly simple, but to people who aren’t Christians this does help explain the idea. As a matter of fact, I remember telling one of my classes this illustration, and afterwards a student came up and said, "I am glad that you explained that. I am Muslim and I was raised to believe that Christians worshipped three gods. Now I know what Christians really believe." Another time a student told me that her family included some people who said they were Christian but did not believe in the Trinity. (You may wonder how this can be so. Well, the word "trinity" is not in the New Testament, and so some Christians, therefore, do not believe in it. They believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but do not see them as part of the same God.) She thanked me for this illustration and said that she would tell it to her family members.

Mercy and Grace. I heard these simple definitions at seminary, and thought they were so cool that I would teach them to all my classes, and I do. If you think about it, these words are difficult for most people to define. Before I tell the definitions, though, think of how you would define these words. They are words that are used a lot in churches, but I find that not many people can say what they mean. I hear things like, "Well, I know what they mean, I just can’t put it into words." So here we go. Mercy: not getting what you deserve. Grace: getting what you do not deserve. Isn’t that great?

Questions/comments contact Mark at drnickens@triad.rr.com.

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