This past weekend I sat down and read the entire book of John in one setting. It was amazing to read it from start to finish, the way it was meant to be heard/read in the first century. Among many discoveries, one thing that stood out to me was the recurrence of many key words, such as life, truth, love, light, etc.It got me to thinking: Do I really know what any of these key words mean?
I think that we use these words very carelessly today in Christendom. Public prayers, for example, are filled with them. "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your grace and your peace and your love... life, hope, faith, truth, joy, goodness... Amen." And then we utter "amen" in agreement without even realizing what they just said. What does that even mean? This is nothing short of the Christianize gibberish I griped about in this post a few weeks ago.
It's almost like our theology surrounding all of these words involves stuffing them all into a blender, pureeing them, and then pouring it back out for consumption.
As I continue to study John's Gospel, I'm looking forward to discovering what all these words mean. They had intrinsic theological significance to the author and recipients back then, and I think they have significance to the faith community now.
1 comment:
You are right! It's symptomatic of the present age, I tell you. Words have lost their meaning, and we toss them about until we hardly know what we're saying anymore! It's a shame we flippantly use words like "saved," especially when they surround the core of Christian theology.
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