Word Death

Dead Words and Inspired Words 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 I kind of fancy myself as a wordsmith. Now there’s a word that was little used until more recently. The origin of “wordsmith” began as an English word in the late 1800s, 1873 actually, when it first appeared. It was used to describe a person who works with words, much like a locksmith works with locks. Words are important. Words have meaning and that meaning is transmitted to provide communication. When words no longer hold to their meaning, then communication is hampered and misunderstandings arise. Words can incite anger or invoke passion. They can bring people together or tear them apart. Words can uphold the truth or nurture a lie. We use words to encompass history, to describe the natural universe, and to form realistic visions of things outside our empirical world. Words have a dramatic effect on what we know, how we interact with people, and the decisions we ultimately make. Words can influence us, inspire us, or just as easily bring us to tears. Words change our relationships, our demeanor, our entire system of beliefs, our businesses and even our country’s direction by our voting on who will be in office based upon their words. There are a number of words that we may have used a generation or so ago that are no longer in use, such as hornswoggle, meaning to scam or con. There’s a lot of hornswoggling going on these days. Another one is to twattle. Do you know what that means? To twattle is to chatter mindlessly or gossip. A word I use sometimes is facetious, which means flippant, as in someone giving a facetious remark. Politicians can be facetious, saying one thing with tongue in cheek, saying yes, but meaning no. If you watch Judge Judy, you have heard her use another word that only she uses anymore. She’ll describe a mild altercation between parties as a kerfuffle, which is someone making a commotion or fuss, especially one caused by conflicting views. Words sometimes just fall out of use; they die. English professor Anne Curzan knows that words in English don’t last forever. Writing in The Washington Post, she says that “word death” is a natural part of a living language such as English. “Ellen,” for example, used to mean courage, and now it is simply a woman’s name. Word death is part of the life cycle of any language. But some words will never die, especially, the words that are connected to Jesus, inspired by God, and useful to us as Christians. The apostle Paul begins his second letter to Timothy by giving thanks for the young man’s faith, which came to Timothy from his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. Paul reminds his younger colleague that 2 “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7). These words changed my life. In my teen years I was shy, especially around girls, and backward. What would one expect from a hayseed from Hornbrook! I had good friends who invited me to their church and young adults’ group; and in a Bible study, we came across this verse. It hit me square between my eyes. How could I be so meek and backward and scared if God was in my life? God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but a spirit of power, confidence and loving. So here we are today. Then, Paul stresses the importance of “the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.” He says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” Sacred writings have eternal importance, because they are connected to Jesus Christ. In addition, they are inspired by God; “God-breathed,” which comes from the Greek word theo-pneustos. Theo means God; pneu (as in pneumonia) means air, such as in a pneumatic tool which is powered by compressed air. Scripture is God-air, or God-breathed, authored and empowered by no one less than God Himself. These writings are useful to us since they train us in righteousness and equip us for every good work. Yes, some individual words will die along the way. It’s natural. In the King James Version of the Bible, some verses are hard to understand, such as when Jesus said in Matthew 19:14, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” What did suffer mean? Did children have to experience and endure hardship, preventing them from the company of Jesus? Just the opposite. Jesus was saying, “Let the children come to Me, do not hinder them…” Individual words or their definitions will die, but the message of Scripture continues to give us life. So, how exactly does this work? First, sacred Scripture is connected to Jesus. No individual words of the Bible are as important as Jesus, the One who is the Word of God in human form. The Gospel of John tells us that in “the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people. … And the Word became flesh and lived among us” (1:1, 3-4, 14). When the Word became flesh in the person of Jesus, we were suddenly able to 3 see God face to face. God’s message became clear to us because Jesus perfectly illustrated the sacred writings of Scripture. Jesus became, for us, “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), showing us the grace and truth of God. By putting our faith in Jesus, we are given a path to salvation. He is, for us, the Word of God that never dies. But that’s not all that Scripture does for us. The Bible is also inspired by God, meaning that the Holy Spirit fills Scripture with life. God breathes life into the words of the Bible, into us as individuals, and into the Christian community. In the novel City of Peace, a Methodist pastor is struggling to finish a sermon on forgiveness and healing. At a coffee shop, he runs into a Baptist friend named Tawnya Jones. “Do you have your Bible with you, Pastor?” Tawnya asked. Pastor Harley shook his head. “Well, then, give me your phone.” She quickly pulled up an internet Bible and typed in Romans 8. Harley said, “You know your Bible, Ms. Jones.” “Comes from being in church every Sunday,” she said. “Here it is,” she reads, ‘But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.’” “So Jesus rescues us from sin,” said Harley, thinking aloud. “And then the Spirit lives in us. The Spirit heals the wounds.” “That’s how I understand it,” Tawnya agreed, handing Pastor Harley’s phone back to him. “I have felt the Spirit,” said Harley. “It has calmed me and guided me.” “Amen to that,” Tawnya said. “I also believe that the Spirit pulls us together,” said Harley, “all of us, and makes us the Body of Christ in the world.” God breathes life into Scripture through the Spirit, and breathes life into us as well. The Spirit heals us, calms us, guides us, and pulls us together as the Body of Christ. These God-breathed words will never die. Scripture trains us and equips us for good work. The words of the Old and New Testaments teach us what it means to be in right relationship with God and with each other; that is the core meaning of righteousness. “You shall love the Lord your God,” commands Deuteronomy (6:5). You shall “love your neighbor as yourself,” says Leviticus (19:18). These two verses were combined by Jesus into the great commandment, which is central to our training as disciples. As disciples, Jesus instructs us in Matthew 25:35-36 to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, care for the sick, and visit those in prison. In his second letter to Timothy, Paul gives the 4 guidance, “always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.” The words of the Bible are never just philosophical insights or spiritual reflections. No, they are also instructions for living as disciples and doing good in the world. The challenge is to take these words to heart, whether we are listening to the great commandment of Jesus or the timeless command of Amos to “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream” (5:24). We need to show some real “ellen,” meaning courage, in our intention to organize our lives around these verses. In his words to Timothy, Paul urges the young man to “proclaim the message; be persistent, whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, admonish, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.” Persistence. Encouragement. Patience. All three will be required if we are going to keep these Godbreathed words at the heart of our lives as followers of Christ. Paul knew that members of the Christian community would probably “turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.” He predicted that they would “accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires.” Sound familiar? I fear too many in the UM Church have done this already, conveniencing and convincing themselves with their own understanding of the Word rather than take the Word at its face and obvious value. Paul feared that they would turn away from Scripture and find a message that was easier for them to hear and accept. In the face of this danger, Paul urged Timothy to proclaim the message persistently, to encourage his fellow Christians, and to show the utmost patience in teaching. Timothy did this, and so can we. We do this every time we turn to Jesus, the One who has “the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). We do this when we share a God-breathed message of forgiveness, peace, healing or hope. We do this when we organize our lives around the words of the Bible, showing the courage it takes “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8). That’s the way to prevent Scriptural word death but rather to spread the Word from God that will never die.