 |
| Antoine Lavoisier Father of Modern Chemistry 1788 |
"...Ideas are preserved and communicated by means of words, it necessarily follows that we cannot improve the language of any science without at the same time improving the science itself" Antoine Lavoisier
Big concept here - if we improve the language of a science, improvement in that science automatically follows.
Inversely, it must follow that if we weaken the language of a science, that science will weaken accordingly.
Most of us have observed that there are many basic Christian terms that are considered "too difficult" for average believers. The language of Christianity and Christian theology in our time has in many ways has become forgotten, trampled and imprecise.
Ambiguity is rampant
Rather than improving our Christian vocabulary, and prizing precision, scholars and teachers everywhere are deconstructing it. Our theology is suffering and the words of our faith like, Justification, Atonement, Redemption, Adoption, etc. are rarely treated with care by those who should treasure them. Some are even purposefully redefined to the point of heresy.
Let us strive to speak simply, sincerely and passionately of divine matters, with an aim for clarity and helpfulness. Let us work hard to understand, treasure and teach the rich bounties God has accomplished and revealed in words like propitiation and expiation.
Grace and Peace,
Joshua
| Reform Your Life And Doctrine, Meet With God In The Text |
2 comments:
Amen. Reading is one thing that definitely improves our vocab. But another helpful activity is writing, for in writing one can review, edit, and approve the final use of words. Love your blog. Teaching the ladies at DCJ is helpful, too, for I find myself paraphrasing in as many ways as possible to give them the depth of the words we are reading. That causes me to dig for the words of the paraphrase and then bring them back to the original word to impress it upon their minds. Keep me in your prayers for tonight's class, that God will open hearts and give understanding.
Yea, I do agree what you are trying to say. As teacher my self in a Bible college I sometime find it difficult to agree with my colleague or with certain theologian. Most of us we try to go beyond the word meaning. We want to paraphrase it by our own limited knowledge and get mess with the reader/hearer. So we need to be careful whenever we deal with certain ambiguous theological word. We need to keep Jesus Christ in our heart or in brain and then we need to theologize it. But many a time we put ourselves first for our own popularity (trying to show up the new meaning or ideas) and because of that we are losing our faith in certain theological word, which contains a beautiful word and meaning about God. Jesus Christ should be at the center of our Heart in everything we do.
Shalom
Post a Comment