GOSPEL_ A SIX YEARS OLD EST

Whom shall he make to understand doctrine? They that are weaned from the milk, and taken from the breasts.  (Is 28:9)

The famed scientist and Nobel laureate, Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying, “If you can’t explain it to a six-year old, you don’t understand it yourself” That statement is probably debatable; There’re many things in real life that you cannot satisfactorily explain to the 6-year old brain. 

Nevertheless, Einstein was on to something with that quote. In fact, he inadvertently demonstrated his points when his youngest child, (who had grown up seeing his father being treated as a superstar celebrity.) asked him what he was famous for. 

Now, it's often joked that everybody knows that Einstein was famous for his “Theory of Relativity” but only few persons can tell you what “Relativity” is all about ! 

Admittedly, even professors of physics find it difficult to explain. Yet, when he was asked this question by a child, Einstein gave a (now famous) analogy of space-time that turned out to be even more explanatory (to us mere mortals at least) than what he wrote in his formal academic thesis.

The fact is, Einstein was only able to do that because he understood the theory (naturally of course, he created it). Nevertheless, there’re many “experts” today (economists, philosophers, theoretical physicists, etc.) who are only good at espousing big, technical jargons and would totally become tongue-tied if they were asked to explain their field to a child. 

This phenomenon is also existent in the church today. We Believers (read "Evangelicals and Charismatic") are notorious for spouting big theological terminologies that only make sense to other Believers (ahem, Evangelicals and Charismatics) like us and to no one else. 

Granted, we’re all familiar with terms like “fellowship”, “communion”, “the blood of Jesus”, “redemption”, “the indwelling Spirit”, “sanctification”, etc. We’ve preached it, we’ve had Sunday school classes about it, we’ve probably even written about it; but the final litmus test of whether we truly understand any Bible concept is this: “Can I explain this to a 6-year-old?”

If the answer is “no”, if we realise we can’t explain a particular doctrinal concept in clear plain words rather than church Christianese; then we probably don’t understand that particular doctrine fully yet. 

PASTOR GREG ELKAN.