It’s all Christianese to me
by Emma Strelan
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If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker is a foreigner to me (1 Corinthians 14:11).
I once went to a cinema in France to watch a movie. Having studied French throughout high school, I had enough of a grasp to follow a French film, provided there were subtitles. It turned out that there weren’t any subtitles in either French or English and consequently, I did not get a lot out of the movie. I still found it a very beautiful film with lots of feeling, but I couldn’t tell you any of the nuances of the characters or what they had been saying to each other.
I want us to take a minute today to really meditate on the sanctification that our Lord has provided through the blood of the lamb. Remember that we’re no longer Gentiles because of the wounds of our Messiah. And we raise a hallelujah to our redeemer when we consider that we don’t live by the flesh, but we’re all a part of Christ’s body and are made pure as temples for the Holy Spirit.
If you didn’t blink an eye reading that paragraph, congratulations – you speak fluent ‘Christianese’!
At the outset, today’s passage doesn’t seem very applicable to most of our churches. Paul is addressing a specific issue within the Corinthian church. Namely, that of disorder caused by what appeared to be an uncontrollable use of the spiritual gift of tongues. I don’t see or hear many pastors stressing about congregation members disrupting worship services with foreign and/or heavenly languages. Speaking in tongues was just an issue for the early church, right?
But perhaps Paul had a wider message about the accessibility of worship. Perhaps, if he was writing 1 Lutherans 14, he would address our way of speaking in Christianese – words that sound weird, crazy and nonsensical to an outsider but, to regular Christians, come with rich meaning.
It is great that our faith comes with rich and deep ways to express its various aspects. But if outsiders are coming into the church and our faith is not shared in an accessible way, is it really any different from publicly speaking in unknown tongues?
Unless we could somehow subtitle our real-life conversations, we should stop and notice how we speak around others and examine whether it edifies, improves understanding, and provides order. And what’s more, having the ability to explain the words we use helps us to speak with greater meaning and richness anyway.
Lord God, the Word-made-flesh itself, thank you for the gift of languages. Thank you that we can express our faith through our words and convey deep and rich meaning in what we say. Help us be aware of the words we speak and use them to edify and enrich the lives of those around us. Amen.
Emma lives in Adelaide and is studying a Master of Divinity at Tabor College. She also works as a freelance videographer, filming weddings, events and factual videos. She’s currently trying to work out how these two passions can fit together. Emma has a heart for youth camping ministry and for effectively communicating Christian concepts to the younger generations. Despite being in her early 20s, she’s a self-confessed grandma who loves reading, gardening, embroidery, cardigans and drinking tea.
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