The commandment, "Thou shalt not take the name of your Lord God in vain" has always seemed one of the lesser of the Ten Commandments, to me. God wanted proper respect for his name, sure, but didn't he also elevate us to the level of co-heirs with him in his kingdom?
A few class periods ago, my worldview professor explored God's use of language.
God created the world by speaking it all into existence.
Jesus used language to perform his miracles. He spoke to the storm while the disciples cowered in fear. "Be still!" he said and the storm ceased.
Jesus, on another occasion, verbally cursed a fig plant and it withered and died.
God revels himself to us today by the Bible--the Word of God.
Somehow, there is this power contained within language itself. Although we use a language which is as broken as ourselves, there is a remnant of power within it.
Paul writes that "because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Rom. 10:9)
"I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move." (Matt 17:20)
Adam's calling in the garden was to classify and name the animals.
I don't know what the implications for this ideas is yet. I don't know how it will change my writing or how it will affect my everyday speech. But it does explain why God is so concerned with the use of him name.
Two airplane pilots are waiting to land their plane at an airport:
Copilot: Look how the ice is just hanging on his, ah, back, back there, see that?
There is no response from the Captain. He tries again.
Copilot: See all those icicles on the back there and everything?
Captain: Yeah...
Copilot: Boy, this is a, this is a losing battle here on trying to de-ice these things....
A minute or two passes and then he speaks again.
Copilot: Let's check these tops again since we've been here awhile.
Captain: I think we get to go here in a minute.
But they didn't go in a minute. The ice was too thick and the plane crashed.
In this true-life situation, cited in a McGraw-Hill Communication text book, both pilots were trained and competent, however an urgent problem was ignored because the copilot watered down his message to his superior. This is an extreme example of a persistent problem in our culture.
When we speak, we beat around the bush; we add doubt to our words with statements such as ‘I guess’ and ‘maybe’; and we fill our listener’s ears with “ums”, ‘likes” and “uhs”. We hesitate and don’t commit to what we say, and we ask our listeners to do the same. We don’t speak with conviction.
I cited above the extreme example of the copilot in the introduction, but the everyday harms of speaking without conviction surround us.
The listener has to make more effort listening to make up for a wishy-washy speaker. The listener needs to decide whether the message is important. And sometimes, the listener needs to figure out what the speaker is trying to communicate. If the listener doesn’t put more effort into receiving the communication, the message will be lost.
If the speaker does not speak with conviction, they hurt themselves and their message. Speaking with doubt will leave their ideas open to be challenged or dismissed. If every phrase is pithy and passionate, the speaker will be listened to and respected.
There is a question in Journalism; to what extent can you edit the quotes of your interviewees? Oftentimes, you have to edit regardless. If you were to write down exactly what an interviewee said, even the most learned, cultured person sounds like this: "well, uh, we've taken steps in that area, and, and well for example, we have a, have made a committee to oversee that step in the project. Does that make sense?"
A good journalist will edit the clip down to: "We have taken steps in that area; for example, we have made a committee to oversee that step in the project." Now the gentleman sounds like he deserves to wear his suit to work. By why couldn’t he speak like that in the first place?
The way the culture speaks today hinders. Speak with conviction. Rise above the noise.
