Perhaps we have all been frustrated by a persnickety grammarian or pronunciation nag in our lives—the kind of person who leaps on every misplaced modifier in our speech or authoritatively demands that his pronunciation of a word is far superior to how your regional accent forms the sound. Or, maybe we have been guilty of it ourselves from time to time. While this sort of priggish nitpicking is frustrating and counterproductive, we would be wrong to conclude that there are no rules or guidelines for how we should communicate with others. The ability to disclose our thoughts to others is a gift of God and informed by His creation of the world and incarnation in the person of Jesus. As a result, Christians should be serious about speaking well and conveying their thoughts with excellence, whether they are discoursing from a pulpit or lectern or sharing a quiet conversation with a loved one.
Creation
When God created the universe, He embedded His ordered thought into His masterpiece. The writer of Hebrews, John, and Paul give united witness that all things were created “through” the Logos (Christ), Who is the perfect communication of the Father (Heb. 1:2–3a; Jn. 1:1–3, 10, 18; Rom. 1:18–20; Col. 1:15–17). This truth means that all things in the universe find their meaning and fulfillment in relation to God.
Language, the ability to communicate, is no different. As theologian Bradley Green argues, the structure of language, grammar, “both reflects an underlying vision and understanding of reality, and can shape one’s vision and understanding.”[1] Good grammar adheres to the order of the universe (the Logos), and, when it is widely practiced, it forms and empowers the value commitments that structure brings to the body politic (society). Of course, our culture militates against any such order or meaning to life or the community. For this reason, Green has rightly explained that “in an era of skepticism about the possibility of meaning, we should therefore expect to see poor sentences. We should expect, in a post-Christian culture, to see poor grammar, poor composition. And this is of course exactly what we see.”[2]
However, the decline in proper grammar is connected to a deeper problem: a loss in the ability to think well or to think accurately about the world. Thinking well is incredibly hard for all people, but our culture’s rejection of the meaning of words makes this task vastly more difficult. Post-modernists argue that language is nothing more than a game in which words gain meaning in relation to other words, disconnected from the world and the author. In the end, for postmodernists, language is nothing more than a system of power used to marginalize and oppress. This approach to understanding language and words has gained the throne in our culture, demonstrated in widespread political correctness, Critical Race Theory, and the complete rejection of original authorial intent.
In the face of this onslaught, it is easy to be cowed into submission—to throw up our hands and surrender to the ever-present political demands that accompany such arguments. But we must not give in. We believe that words have meaning connected to a knowable creation, which finds its ultimate meaning in God. Words signify real things, and those things are more important than the sign (the word). “That is, words are used for a reason—to bring concepts and things to mind.”[3] Words cannot teach us anything if we do not already know the objects they signify. “A word or sign can only make sense to us after we know the thing signified.”[4]
Were a friend to strike up a conversation with you about trees, your knowledge of real trees would be called upon. And since your knowledge of real trees is derived from God’s common grace of general revelation where the order of the Logos was embedded, your conversation partner would be actually pointing you toward the Logos. As you dwelt upon the Logos revealed in trees, Christ would be enlightening your mind as He disclosed the truth of the symbolic word that your friend had spoken. Thus, when we speak truly, and only then, we are pointing people to the truth of the Logos that is embedded in His creation.
Incarnation
The incarnation of the Logos also has important implication for our understanding of language. “And the Word became flesh,” John writes (Jn. 1:14, NASB). As He dwelt among us, Jesus “explained” the Father to us (Jn. 1:18). The writer of Hebrews puts it this way: “He [Jesus] is the radiance of His [the Father’s] glory and the exact representation of His nature” (Heb. 1:3). As the Logos, Jesus is an act of communication. More, He is the perfect communication of the Father.
We should also note that Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God—He is exquisitely beautiful. He is generous, bringing all things into being. He bestows wisdom by bringing light to men. He is full of grace and truth. He is sacrificially loving. This is no careless Word. When God chooses to speak to us, He communicates very carefully.
As followers of Christ, we are expected to imitate His careful communication. Through obedience to the Father, the Word revealed (“explained,” Jn. 1:18) the Father to us and calls us to follow His example with our words. In Matthew 12:36, Jesus warns, “But I tell you that for every careless word that people speak, they will give an account of it on the day of judgment.” This passage may be one of the most terrifying in Scripture, especially for those whose vocation demands public speaking.
Such vocations are dangerous. James warns us, “Do not become teachers in large numbers, my brothers, since you know that we who are teachers will incur a stricter judgment” (Jas 3:1). Clearly, this passage is directed toward leaders in the church, but it has broader implications for Christians who serve as instructors and leaders outside the church. Such callings demand the use of the tongue, which is crafty and dangerous. Further, for those who are instructors or preachers, our words have added power due to the nature of our position of influence, making it that much more dangerous when our tongues set fires. In light of these facts, we must think deeply about what we say and how we say it.
Application
Language is powerful, as we see in the creation story. God spoke the universe into existence. Though we do not have that kind of power, as subcreators our speech extends our “sway over the world.”[5] Every action we take and work we pursue first begins in thoughts that coalesce in our minds and are communicated through words.[6] Thus we carry out the cultural mandate when we stand before an audience to speak, write a paper, or share a joke with a friend.
For this reason, our words must be true. The Greek philosopher Socrates argued that when language becomes separated from truth, it has become degraded to a tool of power. For those in a place of influence, this prospect is “an abuse of language and [the] power” we wield over those who trust us and look to us for leadership.[7] The temptation to manipulate others through false words is perennial. When we give in to such enticements, we no longer treat our audience as humans but as means to fulfilling our own desires.
Our true communication must also demonstrate clarity and order. If we fail to communicate well, the truth will not be as fully revealed, and it will lead to the corruption of the community and the self. Good grammar is required for us to speak with clarity. As we conform our language to the order of the Logos, our ideas will become sharper and we will convey them with more success.
Whether we speak publicly or privately, our words should be appropriate to the occasion and the subject matter. We must avoid the temptation either to debase our speech with popular slang to seem accessible or to fill our speech with unnecessarily large, arcane words that puff up our pride. Both errors derive from an overly acute sense of self that overshadows the real things we are supposed to be talking about. This balance can be difficult because, in our broken estate, we are prone to think of ourselves at all times.
Yet this stewardship is very important. Aristotle wrote that people are “suspicious” of an artificial speaker, as they are toward “those who are hatching a plot.”[8] If our speech feels forced and unnatural because we use inappropriate words that do not align with our character and community, our audiences will become skeptical of our intentions.
As we pursue appropriate and natural speech, our words will also become more beautiful. As Abraham Kuyper explains, beauty is the glory of God shining through the created order.[9] As we point people to the beauty of God’s creation, we should submit our communication to that same structure. When we use beautiful speech, we reveal our love and respect for the subject matter at hand and the person to whom we are talking.
Lastly, our words should be lovingly demanding. There are no easy answers. If inappropriate words draw attention to ourselves, true words will point to the world beyond the self and even beyond those with whom we are speaking. The late British philosopher, Roger Scruton, was convinced that the truth of reality affected change in those who were willing to take notice. As we hold to the truth, we can call upon our listeners to “Look at this, listen to this, study this—for here is something more important than you.” As we do this, we will encourage them to allow the “world to dawn” on them through the illumination of the Logos.[10] This work is hard; people may rankle at such a challenge at first. But stick with it. We are called to point people to the truth.
Conclusion
In our church’s children’s choir when I was boy, we occasionally sang a short song about living carefully. Each verse of the ditty focused on a different body part, calling upon the audience to govern themselves well. In one verse, we sang, “O be careful, little tongue, what you say. For the Father up above is looking down in love. So, be careful, little tongue, what you say.” Admittedly, this particular song is not theologically rich. But it did hit upon an important truth: Our words are important to God. However, He is not only interested in what we say but also in how we say it. Therefore, let us think carefully about the power of our speech so that we might use it to share the truth in love with excellence.
[1] Bradley G. Green, The Gospel and the Mind: Recovering and Shaping the Intellectual Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 108.
[2] Ibid., 113.
[3] Ibid., 138.
[4] Ibid., 139.
[5] Thomas Gillespie in Green, 106.
[6] Green, 136.
[7] Ibid., 109.
[8] Aristotle, Art of Rhetoric, trans. Robert C. Bartlett (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021), 160.
[9] See Abraham Kuyper, Wisdom and Wonder, trans. Nelson D. Kloosterman, ed. Jordan J. Ballor and Stephen J. Grabill (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian’s Library, 2011).
[10] Roger Scruton, “Faking It,” in Confessions of a Heretic by Roger Scruton with an introduction by Douglas Murray (Kendal, UK: Notting Hill, 2021), 13.
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