Thursday, October 09, 2003

More nuggets from Greek class.
The new testament is written in Koine Greek. There was another Greek - that of the classics, institutions of higher learning, Academia. But God chose to write his book in the common Greek (Koine means common) - the language of trade, family letters, diaries, shopping lists. He wanted it to be in a language that is generally understood!

In our old church, for about 6 weeks in homegroup we were practicing talking about our story - how to tell someone about what God had done in our lives, and to do so in terms that someone unchurched could understand.
"I was 6 when I was first saved"
"I was born again in high school"
"I went forward at 24"
"I asked Jesus in my heart when..."
All of these and more were in there simply for describing that moment in time when we first said "yes". It was really an eye opener how much "churchy" language we were using without even realizing it.
And then you have those who denounce Christianese but use five 25 cent words every sentence:
"We are an organic, non-dualistic, community of faith embracing monastic values and comfortable with dichotomy, and didactically combobulating the marginality of kumquats" or something like that - which makes about as much sense to the unchurched as the Christianese does.
It is so easy to slip either into churchy language, or overintellectualize everything. One of my teachers in highschool told me that unless you can explain it in lanuage that a twelve year old can understand you don't really know what you are talking about as well as you think you do.

Having lived within the church subculture for the last 20 years of life, I need to unlearn some bad habits as far as telling the story in the common tongue of my culture is concerned.

posted by Birgit
0 comments at 9:34 AM