AVOIDING THE IDOLATRY OF LANGUAGE Our sufficiency is of God, Who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit, for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. 2 Corinthians 3:5-6 Does God communicate with language or does He communicate despite our language? Does human language carry the actual communication of God, or does it, at its best, merely point us to seek a deeper realm where God speaks to us without using language? Could it be that human language, the very thing we use to describe our interactions with God, ends up being the very thing that hinders us from better communicating with Him? Saint Augustine said that even the person who says the most about God is still but dumb. His point was that human language is woefully inadequate to impart the knowledge of God. And yet we often hold language as the highest expression of God, when in fact it is one of the lowest. The more I hear God, the less I hear language. God speaks primarily by tone. That tone is love, not language. Language can describe it. Language can polish it. Language can explain aspects of it. Language can even enhance it on occasion. BUT language by itself cannot contain or deliver the essence of Gods love. In a word, language cant ARTICULATE the Kingdom of God. Isnt this the very reason Jesus never ARTICULATED what Gods Kingdom WAS, only what it was LIKE? He knew human language could not convey Gods Kingdom, so He used parables of comparison rather than language of definition. If the Tower of Babel proved anything, it was that human languages divide men and diminish mans knowledge of God. Many years ago I wondered why didnt Jesus just take pen to paper and write the New Testament in His own hand so that nobody could question whether there were any mistakes or misstatements. The Lord then showed me that IF Jesus had handwritten the New Testament, then we would worship the language He used rather than the Spirit He manifested. In fact, this is what people do today with the Ten Commandments. They worship the letter of the Law rather than the Spirit of the Word. They wrongly define God by language commands rather than by indescribable inner ignitions of Gods love. Law lovers can argue points of theology ALL DAY LONG without EVER experiencing the presence of Gods unspeakable love. God is above, beyond, deeper, wider, farther, better and stronger than ANY language. The Lord is slumming when he uses language. When we REALLY get hold of this, we will loosen our grip on words and start using them the blessed way. Tennis pros often instruct students to loosen their grip on their rackets so they can better swing with fluidity and power. It is counter-intuitive to think a looser grip can increase power, but it is a proven fact that clutching the racket too tightly can inhibit the proper arc and rotation of the swing. Similarly, clutching language too tightly keeps our Spiritual movement stiff and stilted. When I first started studying the Bible, I put a DEATH GRIP on it. I endlessly quoted verses verbatim. Every sentence I uttered or wrote, I had to back it up with a specific scripture. I couldnt tell someone I loved them without citing a verse reference. I was in such bondage. I eventually saw that for every literal concept I tightly gripped from Scripture, I would be challenged by another DEATH GRIPPER with his own literal verse in hand which seemed to contradict the verse I was gripping. I began to realize that a strictly literal DEATH GRIP reading of the Bible triggers a Tower of Babel dynamic which scatters all DEATH GRIPPERS into separate Spiritual NATIONS. These combative and competitive NATIONS all have conflicting doctrines about God. They become denomi-NATIONS, in other words. The end result is worldwide disunity and dissension among professing Christians. We cannot hear each other BECAUSE we speak ONLY the denomi-NATIONAL language we choose to learn. Only when we each have an inner Pentecost can the BABEL EFFECT be reversed and true Spiritual unity occur. Wasnt that one of the major points of the gift of tongues at Pentecost, to break our addiction to our idolatry of language? Wasnt God telling us to loosen up on the literal by leaving the dead letter behind in the Old Covenant bin where it belongs? This is what happened to me. The Lord started coaching me to loosen my grip on human language. He showed me I had developed a language addiction which was retarding my spiritual growth. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit did an intervention to help cure me. They showed me to focus more on the tones of God rather than the languages of men. Tone in physical science is defined as the quality, character and strength of a particular sound. In language, tone refers to the use of pitch to convey meaning to distinguish, convey, contrast, or otherwise express the proper use of the words being spoken. All languages use pitch to express emotional and other nonverbal information. In fact, tonal languages, like Chinese, express meaning more by HOW something is said than in WHAT is said. Or, more precisely, the tone of the speaker determines the meaning of the words. Meanings of words change based on the tones used by the speaker. English is not tonal, so this is a difficult concept for us to grasp. I know we all recognize that our parents had certain tones toward us as youngsters, tones that we needed to be sensitive to regardless of what they were literally telling us. My dads tones told me far more than his words. As a lawyer, I have learned that most Judges have tones which tell me far more than their literal words. Lawyers unable to recognize judges tones often trip courtroom land mines. My point in all this is that the concept of tone is crucial to understanding Scripture. By tone here, I mean the quality, character and strength of the Holy Spirits inner voice within us conveying the true meaning of Scripture. Literal meaning is toneless and often misleads us into wrathful interpretations. BUT as we listen to Gods tone, we become convinced of better things. Do you see? The Holy Spirits perfect tone sings within us to lead us into all truth. We are no longer slaves to language. The Spirit sings all meaning to us through the quality, character and strength of Gods goodness. I can read something literally when the Spirit sings to me that it expresses Gods true character. I will not read literally when the Spirit sounds a different meaning to me. GODS TONE ALONE DEFINES ALL SCRIPTURE. Beloved, lets loosen our grip on human language. Wasnt that the purpose of the gift of tongues at Pentecost--- to show that heavenly language unites and blesses? God was telling all men to loosen their grip on their own natural understanding, to stop idolizing language, to stop worshipping the letter, and to stop loving the literal. Instead, there is a non-verbal land of milk and honey waiting for us. This land flows with unspoken unctions, transcendent tingles, virtuous vibes, inner illuminations, incomprehensible utterances, and groanings beyond words. When I now think of God, words no longer initially come to mind. Rather, a tone, a vibe, a sensation, a knowing fills my heart with divine recognition. When Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice, perhaps He meant, My sheep hear my tone. His tone never kills, destroys or steals. The tone of a stranger we will not follow. Jesus tone only blesses, loves and gives life (John 10:10). Remember, the letter kills but the Spirit gives life. Language can be Satans greatest weapon when we allow human language to mediate our knowledge of God RATHER than allowing Gods presence to mediate our knowledge of language. I can honestly say since I have loosened my grip on language, I have become much better at using it. I feel free to use language as a complementary tool to help polish, clarify and amplify the tone of the Lord as sounded by the Holy Ghost within me. But no longer am I addicted to serving the literal language of man. Start sensitizing yourself to the Lords tone and soon, very soon, language will never torment you again. Then, YOUR tone will explode with goodness as you start harmonizing with the Holy Ghost!
Posted on: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 13:15:19 +0000