Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Irony or Extreme Tragedy; Dealing with Terminology
Let me start by saying that it is late and this article may not make sense when I read it again tomorrow, so if its confusing I'll try to clarify it later. I am listening to a sermon from a church in Rocklin, CA. The sermon title is The Sovereignty of God. During the course of the sermon the pastor made a point to emphasis the greatness of the gospel is our freedom to chose to love God. What times we live in where we throw around words like sovereignty and supremacy while abandoning their true meaning. I must admit I at first found it ironic that someone would use this title and say the opposite of what sovereignty is, but up further reflection I see it as one of the greatest tragedies occurring in the church today. To me this brings up the issue of terminology. It reminded me of talking with a Mormon. The wording sounds so right, but the meaning behind it is so different. This begs the question, how do we win (say it better, how do we convey truth over false teaching), when terms and language have become so ambiguous? In other words, If I say to someone "God is sovereign", they may whole heartily agree. However what does sovereign mean? How do we clarify these issues, how do we deal with them when being used in church. After all it is hard to criticize a sermon titled the Sovereignty of God. Should we rethink the terms we use? Should we create new terms or should we take detailed steps to clarify current terminology? I don't have all the answers, but I feel it must be addressed or we will suffer greatly as Christians. Soon other words will begin to lose their meaning and we will fly into a world of chaos. It appears to me that many pastors and churches are using terms that make them seem rock solid, words that in past even were only used by the most biblical and Godly scholars (words such as supremacy, sovereignty, etc). I must admit when I hear or see these words being used in churches my initial reaction is excitement at solid doctrine being taught. Sadly these words are not conveying the Christ magnifying truth they were designed to. So my final question is; when sovereign means something less/other than sovereign, is that an irony or an extreme tragedy?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Irony and Trajedy. I think this is a very important question because it permeates so many issues that we face on a daily basis. How can you or I say to a mother whose child has died, "God is Sovereign" and leave it at that? The irony lies in the fact, i think, that in the name up upholding right doctrine, we have forgotten that its really the idea behind what we are saying that is important. For instance, last semester I had a class on "Spiritual Formations". Now, this could have meant a thousand different things. It could have meant that we were learning about yoga and burning insence. It could have meant that we were learning how to formulate a prayer chain in our local churches. It really was about discipleship and it took me a couple of months to realize the obvious, specifically that the terms we use are only useful insofar that we know how to use them. One stupid analogy that pops into my head is a picture of a sword. Lets say I bought a sword from one of these magazines that some guys at work had the other day. One sword was actually called "King Solomon's Sword". (Now, judging by what I find in the Bible about what occupied Solomon's time, I don't want to even think about his "sword"...)Back to what I was saying, if I had one of these things and had no clue how to use it, I would probably look like the Black Knight with this majestic sword that I can't use. I think this actually happens when we throw out these heavy, effective words that we are really clueless about. Words are important- but only as they hing on their actual meaning.
Post a Comment