Quote:
Originally Posted by votivesoul
Thank you for the additional examples, Brother.
What do you believe is the cause for how we use these words (and not others) in our everyday speech as believers?
And how does that answer impact the overall discussion being held in this thread?
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King James, when giving instructions to the translators, ordered that "ecclesiastical words be retained" (such as bishop, church, baptize, etc). His motivation seemed to be to accommodate the "high churchmen" in England as well as to not be seen as siding with Separatists, Dissenters, and other similar "primitive Christianity" types of groups. In any event, those terms have since become an integral part of English.
While many of them allow for, or even suggest to the average English speaker, certain connotations not in view by the original writers, I think this is not an insurmountable obstacle. For example, the word "baptize" as an ecclesiastical term can refer to immersion, infusion, or aspersion, or even some other initiatory rite. Whereas the Greek term baptidzo means literally to dunk or submerge, and such is the correct Biblical meaning of baptize. It doesn't take much at all in the way of educating new converts - or pre-converts hearing evangelistic preaching and teaching - the correct meanings of "theological terms".
One might worry about the masses of Biblically illiterate people out there who erroneously think for example that sprinkling is a form of Christian baptism, but in reality that's irrelevant because such persons are outside your or my teaching. In other words, I can't do anything about a person's ignorance when I'm not in contact with that person to provide correction. And that's true of all of us. We only really need to be concerned with the people we are in some kind of contact with.
I use Biblical terms and intend them in Biblical ways. If I know or suspect a hearer (or reader) is likely to misunderstand and take the word in an erroneous sense I will try to make clear what I mean. Unfortunately a lot of people are stubborn, and even after ample explanation will continue to use Bible terms in erroneous ways contrary to all reason. In those cases I may use technically correct terms but which rule out their erroneous interpretation (like tenth instead of tithe, or congregation or assembly instead of church). Or I may just conclude they are beyond correction by me and so I'll just move on.
I am however wary of modern attempts by some to "make theology more relevant to today" by abandoning certain Bible terms for others, when it seems they are in fact watering things down. For example, abandoning fornication in favour of "immorality" or whoremonger in favour of "promiscuous man" seems to me to be obscuring rather than clarifying. Words carry content beyond mere dictionary definition. Words carry their ideas with a certain
force if you will, some more forceful than others. I don't think we should abandon such terms altogether. Like all Biblical terms they should be explained to those who may not know or be familiar with their meaning. This educating doesn't take long at all - how much effort is needed to explain church is a people in fellowship with one another in Christ and not a building or a corporation? See? It literally takes less than a moment.
Whoever controls language controls thought. We should never surrender the field, not one inch. Give NO PLACE to the devil, etc etc.
As for this thread, we can see that some use terms correctly, and some incorrectly. And some simply refuse to be educated, for whatever reason. At which point education and reasoning are not the right tools for the job.
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