This is a guest post by Josh Howard. He works with Central Indian Christian Mission. I met him in grad school and he has a fire for the gospel. I was so impressed one day when he told me how they share the gospel with Hindu people I have wanted him to share this story for years with us! So here you go.

Christianese.

It gets us into trouble—especially in India.

“Let’s eat the body and blood of Jesus.”

“Jesus saves!”

“Hallelujah!”

What?

Have you ever thought about what this sounds like to people who aren’t familiar with the Christian culture?

Hallelu….what?

Body and Blood?

So are we cannibals?

You see, when we are talking to people outside of the Christian faith, we need to change our language.

We need to use vocabulary that they would understand.

Here’s what this looks like for us in India:

We live in a country that is over 80% Hindu.

They believe in things like karma and reincarnation. To the Hindu, we don’t just have one life, but thousands of lives. If you do good in this life, you will “level up” in the next life. If you do bad, you will be demoted.

A lot of pressure, huh?

Karma is the Hindu word for our deeds. Each person has good karma and bad karma. If you help someone…that’s good karma. If you hurt someone…that’s bad karma. They don’t have a concept of sin…it’s all about karma.

So when Christians come around and say, “Jesus died for our sins…” that means nothing for a Hindu. They think, “What does that even mean? Why would someone need to die for my sins? What is sin?”

Instead of causing confusion, what if we just changed our language.

What if a gospel presentation to a Hindu looked like this: 

Jesus knows that we all have good and bad karma. He also knows that all of us have way more bad karma than good karma. Because of this, he decided to come to earth as a man. He lived a life with NO bad karma. Can you believe that? He never did anything wrong. He was the only person ever to do that. He also knew that we would never be able to have enough good karma to make up for our bad. Because he loves us, he decided to make a great exchange with us. A trade.

Because bad karma must be punished, he was punished in our place. He basically says this— “I will be punished for your bad karma. I will take all of your bad karma away. And in exchange, I will give you all of my good karma. If you put your trust in me, I will make sure that when God looks at you, he only sees my perfect karma. And it costs nothing! I just ask for you to trust in me and me alone.”

To a Hindu, this is amazing news. In the Hindu faith, there is no way to erase bad karma. You can only try to do better and add more good karma to your life to try to outweigh the bad. The fact that Jesus offers to take it all away and tip the scale for you is absolutely amazing!

But that’s not all…

Hindu’s also believe in reincarnation. They believe you must be born again millions of times before you can actually become one with God. Based upon the Bible, is this idea true? Of course not. But to the Hindu, this is spiritual fact. Instead of arguing with them, what if we presented another piece of Great News?

Like this:

Jesus not only takes away all of your bad karma and gives you his good karma, but he also breaks the cycle of rebirth.

Since he has given you perfect karma, this can be your last life! Jesus basically says this— “When you die, you get to come straight to heaven with me. There is no need to worry about what family you may be born into in your next life. You are in MY family now. Because of what I’ve done for you, you are born again—right now! You are in the same body, but you have a whole new soul—A soul that is filled with my good karma. There is no need to fear death anymore. There will not be another life. I will take you to heaven forever!

Again, to a Hindu…that’s amazing news!!

Reincarnation is scary for many people. Will they come back in a horrible situation? Will they be born with a major disability because of bad karma? Will they be incredibly poor? Will they be considered untouchable?

This takes away those fears.

This is the Good News for a Hindu.

Let’s unlearn our Christianese language that we’ve created. No matter what area of the world we go to and no matter what type of people we are talking to, let’s make sure that we are putting the gospel in language that they would understand.

In the words of the Apostle Paul, let’s become all things to all men. Let’s speak with words that they will understand.

No matter where you are and who you are talking to, the gospel should be Good News! Not stupid news…not confusing news…not horrible news…but Good News!

Some may reject, some may get angry…but here’s the deal—Just make sure that you are communicating in a way that they will understand and leave the results to God.

You throw the seeds and allow God to make them grow. You preach the Word and allow God to transform hearts.

In other words, you do your job and allow God to do His.