Free and Easy

As a Christian community, I reckon we need to be a little freer with biblical language.

That is, not feel like we need to quote verbatim every time we say something from the Bible.

A case in point is when, either in a prayer or a prepared talk, when someone uses part of one of Paul’s letters as an example. It often goes something like this:

Dear Lord, please continue to work in us by your Spirit, just as Paul prayed: ‘that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you can determine what really matters and can be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that |comes| through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.’

(cf. Philippians 1:9-11, HCSB)

That’s really very clunky. The pronouns are all mixed up, and it doesn’t sound right. What I hear is you transitioning very awkwardly from praying to reading the Bible out loud, and trying to pass the latter off as the former. Try something like this instead:

Dear Lord, please continue to work in us by your Spirit, so that our love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that we can determine what really matters…

Basically, relax about the exact words of Scripture. I’m not saying that we should be OK with quoting out of context, or able to twist the words to suit our situation. Rather, I say this because the New Testament writers were pretty similarly relaxed. They quote the Old Testament scriptures all the time, but they weren’t so worried about getting the exact words that they created ungrammatical sentences. They took the quote, understood its meaning and intent, and (sometimes) changed things around so that it worked in the sentence. An example:

But the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.”

Gen 12:7, HCSB.

… but He promised to give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him…

Acts 7:5, HCSB

Or, for the nerds:

Τῷ σπέρματί σου δώσω τὴν γῆν ταύτην.

Gen 12:7, LXX (Rahlfs)

καὶ ἐπηγγείλατο δοῦναι αὐτῷ εἰς κατάσχεσιν αὐτὴν καὶ τῷ σπέρματι αὐτοῦ μετ᾿ αὐτόν,

Acts 7:5, GNT (NA-27)

The original verb form didn’t fit in the context of the sentence in Acts, so Luke changed it. The original meaning is clearly there, the intent is the same, but it works in its new context.

This might be something that we can learn from our charismatic brothers & sisters: learn to speak Scripture. My experience of those from a Charismatic/Pentecostal Christian background is that their language is drenched in Scripture, all the time. They clearly love the Bible, love God’s word, read it, and it’s gone and changed the way they express themselves (for the better!).

Get familiar with the language of the Bible, and use it to encourage, strengthen, and call people out on what’s going on in their lives.

But relax about it.