Use the right language.
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. ” – Nelson Mandela
When trying to bridge the world of the Bible and the world of an audience, it’s important to understand both contexts. We want to hear from Scripture an authentic and accurate word; to do so means understanding first what the passage meant and then what it means.
After that, our next task is to communicate truth in a way that makes sense to our audience. To do so requires finding their language — what are they dealing with, reeling from, suspicious about? What’s their language?