Define Your Terms

Define your terms, they said. It will be fun, they said. Whenever I heard the expression "Define your terms" I felt like I was supposed to be preparing to speak in court and to catch someone in a trap by making them say something that means something to them and that means something totally different for me. In fact, that is quite the opposite of what it actually means, though. I have heard it in the context of apologetics and theology conversations that I have had with friends, peers, and co-workers over the past few weeks. 

It is important when having a discussion with others to remember that what they are saying might make you want to argue back, but oftentimes you mean the same thing but you are just not on the same page with communicating the terms and your definitions for them. At the same time, you could be assuming that you agree with someone for a long time and then later come to understand what they were thinking of when it comes to defining their terms. 

Here is a good example of this in action: Imagine you are sitting at a bar. (Yes, I know I am a Christian blog page. Trust me, this is just a location- it has nothing to do with the rest of the story except for it is the most realistic setting for something like this to happen.) One man joins the bar, and as he is waiting he strikes up a conversation with the person sitting to the left of him. They begin talking about how they love this time of year due to the weather, and how it was perfect for their job. Then, they went into more detail about their job, and both talked about what it would look like to "take the perfect shot" for their job. What they both did not understand was that the man that just comes into the bar was a sniper, and the man who was already sitting down was a photographer. Very different types of "shots", huh? 

This other one is more realistic, as I have recently experienced it myself. It is challenging when I (a born-again Christian) was having a conversation with a devout Muslim. He was talking about how both of our religions believe in Jesus, we just believe different things about him (Jesus). I guess that is a fair claim; however, not acknowledging that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is almost the same thing as not believing that He walked on this earth. Just claiming that Jesus was a good profit does not mean that we are talking about the same person. Jesus means and is so much more to me than just a "good person that once was here on earth". The same goes for the god of the Islamic religion. They call their god Allah, while ours goes by so many titles, but Allah (even though it is a rough translation) is not one of them. Our God, again, is a personal God. He is three-in-one with the Son (aka Jesus) and the Holy Spirit. He is a  God who is just enough to follow through with the rules He put in place, but loving enough to make a way to allow us to still become right with Him. For Muslims, Allah is a God who is a judge over the earth, and His main role in their lives is to remind them of what they should be doing in their lives and make sure that they follow the commands listed in the Qu'ran. The definitions are quite different, even though from an outsider's perspective, we could be talking about the same person. 

I could go into so many examples of words that need to be properly defined to have a healthy conversation with anyone, even inside the church. There are some denominations that seem to differ from others because of a part of the Bible that they interpret differently. However, the definitions used for these areas vary depending on who you ask. 

This just reminds me that "Satan comes as an Angel of Light " (2 Peter 2:1-3). These 'small issues' that cause internal conflict that is simply just from a different definition or understanding of a passage is a tool that Satan will use to his advantage to separate those who are children of God. We need to be wary and cautious when we have discussions and debates with others, because of even small issues like this. It, sadly, has broken so many relationships with all kinds of people.