I love languages, phonetics, linguistics, and everything that pertains to all of it! I find it so incredibly fascinating!
My friend Jessalyn and I lead a Bible study for young girls here at the school, and tonight's topic was all about the things that should characterize a Godly woman's speech: gentleness, kindness, humility....even down to the importance of tone and volume. As we were talking about it, I got a little carried away with something that just plainly excites me. I told them, "Have you ever stopped to think about how crazy communication is?? I can move my tongue, lips, and mouth and add noise to it, and suddenly, you know exactly what is going on inside of my head."
I loved seeing the looks on their faces.....it was obviously something they'd never considered before. I continued by saying, "Then lets say I go to another country with an interpreter. I move my lips and make sounds to let the interpreter know what is going on in my mind.....he makes different sounds....and suddenly, someone who doesn't know MY language also knows exactly what is in my mind and what thoughts I want to communicate."
I saw the understanding come into their eyes as they began to see the insane beauty of spoken language, something we all take extremely for granted on a minute by minute basis.
THEN I brought up the awesomeness of written language. Have you ever thought about it? You can look at a page and see a variety of shapes and markings. You can know what's going on in my mind. You can know what went on in your great grandmother's mind. You can know what went on in Abraham Lincoln's mind. You know what went on in Aristotle's mind. I looked at the girls and said "God has given us the Bible. He has given us the gift of language! We can look at the shapes and markings in the Book in front of us and....." The light bulb came on...they began raising their hands and exclaiming, "now we can know what is going on in God's mind!!"
How cool is that?!!? Talk about insane love! He created us, loved us, sent His sweet and precious Son for us, and then wrote His thoughts down for us so we can know Him better!
P.S. That big, powerful God knows you by name! Think of all He's done for me and you! All the way down to creating our minds with the ability to communicate with one another, and with Him! Need I say it again? That is insane love!!!!
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5 comments:
Nice Blog and a very good entry Grace. I used to teach kids before losing hearing, it is great to see eyes light up when they 'Get it'. My wife says I do the same now every once in awhile when I 'understnd' LOL.
My mama's name was Grace. My Dad was an old time 'holiness' preacher. He used to say he had more Grace than anyone, then he would laugh that wonderful laugh.
Anyway Have a great day Grace, enjoy this Sunday. God is truly Good!
I am a language lover too! People get tired of me explaining the history of an odd word. I have to try to control the tendency.
Language study is so important as part of Bible study as language is such an evolving thing, making it important to keep up with what the words meant to the people who originally wrote them down.
nellie
I love your thought process and portrayal of your ideas, keep up the good work! :)
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This is a very cool post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It's a good reminder to me too. As you pointed out, in a manner similar to the awesome Revelation of God's heart, our speech reveals what is in our hearts. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." So perhaps the challenge that you put forth to your girls could be summed up as follows: "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt."
Sister, I pray that God continues to use your words- both your teaching and your writing- for His glory!
Great post!
I too have recently marveled at the gift of language, as I am currently learning the Spanish language. Studying Spanish has made me pause in wonder at the gift of and ability to communicate. I thought of Adam and Eve and the fact that could fully communicate with God and with one another and understood everything perfectly! Amazing!
Dea
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