Christian Terminology

The purpose of this topic is to prevent confusion. When I became a believer, I was extremely confused by all the terms. Hopefully, this will help some.

Some of these terms have a negative or annoying association to some people and I understand why. There is a lot of abuse, hypocricy, and weirdness surrounding the Christian experience.

Synonyms for Becoming a Believer

The following may be some terms and phrases you may have heard in relation to "becoming a believer or a Christian". All of these are technically correct and are various ways of saying the same thing. However, again, many of these terms carry a lot of baggage. For example, you may associate some of them with:

• a political group you don't like
• a racist group or person
• non-intellectualism
• corny "old time" religion
• manipulative meetings, groups, or people

It is unfortunate that you and I both associate something negative with these terms. If I didn't have some of the same associations, I wouldn't have so easily been able to list them out.

My approach is to try and realize why I have that association and simply stick to the Biblical text and look at it with fresh eyes.

Here are some of the terms and phrases associated with becoming a believer:

• Receiving Christ
• Accepting Christ as your personal Savior
• Praying to "Receive Christ"
• Asking Jesus into your heart
• Believing the gospel, the good news
• Becoming a believer
• Becoming a child of God
• Calling upon the Lord
• Confessing with your mouth
• Getting "saved"
• Being born again