Linguistic Gap Analysis

Where Filipino has no equivalent

• Justification (forensic declaration): Filipino has pagpapawalang-sala (“being declared without guilt”), which captures the forensic sense reasonably well, but the concept of a legal verdict wholly apart from ritual participation still needs active teaching support given the surrounding sacramental-security instinct.
• Imputed righteousness: katuwirang ibinilang is a constructed phrase describing a status credited apart from one’s own action or ritual performance — the point most likely to need repeated reinforcement.
• Covenant: tipan exists and is reasonably well understood through its use in Bagong Tipan (New Testament), but still benefits from context establishing the relational, God-initiated nature of the bond described in Romans.

Where Filipino has a “true friend that means something different” (the dominant risk pattern here)

As in Indonesian, though for different underlying reasons, several of Filipino’s highest-risk terms are not false friends but correct words that also name a specific devotional practice:

• Mga banal: correctly used for “saints,” but names canonized Catholic saints with feast days and intercessory devotion in everyday usage.
• Pamamagitan: correctly used for “intercession,” but names the specific practice of praying through Mary or a saint in everyday usage.
• Kaligtasan: correctly used for “salvation,” but can default to a sacramentally-secured sense in everyday religious use.

Where Filipino already has strong, low-risk equivalents

• Pananampalataya (faith) functions well for trust in Christ, with comparatively low ambiguity risk.
• Kasalanan (sin) functions well as moral transgression, with reasonably compatible core meaning to the biblical concept.
• Diyos (God) and Jesus/Kristo function well with settled, non-ambiguous doctrinal content shared across Catholic and Protestant usage.