I have been on a journey of discovery and proceesing the language we use to describe the kingdom. Sometimes we utilize words that are loaded that eliminate people from the dialogue. For example the word 'holy' disengages many people from talking about God. So I want to over the next while throw out some words and get you to put your definition to it. These words are either life giving or disengaging. Please tell me which it is for you and what it means... to you... or give a quote that best decribes the word for you...
These words in their positive are often universal
1st Word
Meaning
tell me your thoughts
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6 comments:
Your wondering what meaning means to me? Is there meaning in the word meaning? Meaning only means what it means to the user, every person on the planet will have a different definition of the word meaning. In saying something has meaning/purpose sparks questions in the mind of the listeners. Bottom line... I think your focus is way off... too much on the technicality of words and dialog, too much analysis of things... encouraging one to analyze EVERYTHING takes away from faith. You will never analyze a strategy to perfection! There is no "order" to the way things happen. God's order doesn't make sense to us and if we try, we fail. Its an attitude, a heart, the words coming out of my mouth have far less "meaning" than we think.
Interesting... does not what we say have some meaning... otherwise we would have the 'tower of babel' all over again. There is significance [meaning] to the words we use. If I were to walk around and tell everyone I saw that they were an 'asshole' What do you think the effect be? Should we not be understanding of what kindgom language we should speak.
Faith is important but faith withoug meaning[significance] is dead.
if my faith is not meaningful to the world around me then it means nothing.
I think it takes a lot of cowardice to hop on this blog and post a comment like that as "anonymous".
Now don't get me wrong, what I just wrote should have no meaning to you what so ever.
I think every person is looking for purpose or meaning, but I think what Mark is getting at is that we have these fancy words around that people don't understand and we just expect them to catch on. Maybe "Joe" is looking for meaning, but he doesn't see it that way. Maybe he just wants something to do, maybe he's good at cleaning toilets or making newsletters. Let him do it. Don't preach at him or yell at him to change his life. Is that not helping him find meaning?
Meaning to me... helping people find what they are either angered/upset by or passionate about (those two can actually line up quite well - angered by hunger, poverty etc.)
Then again, that is ORDER and since Jesus did use the 12, or wait for the Last Supper, or God did use the term 6 days to create the earth and Noah did have ORDERS in building the arc, we may just be over analyzing this whole thing a bit too much. But then again maybe not. Some order may be exactly what we need to show we're not some lunatics making our butt talk for our mouth.
Calvin and I were reading this...and think that maybe 'anonymous' doesn't really understand the question?!?
We both agree with what Mark Hawkins is saying...as far as, we use words because of their 'meanings' like redemption or sanctification and who the BLEEP knows what those things mean anymore...but my friend down the block, does know what it 'means' when she needs help and I help her or is hungry and we feed her...
Calvin's thought is also that there is an 'order' to things..we just don't know that order!
I guess I'd like to through out a couple of thoughts on this too. One, a piece of theology and, two, a philosophy of meaning.
1. There is order... and I am not even going to mention the ordering of the cosmos or the ancient metaphor of the serpent (see Gen. 3) as chaos. What I would like to mention is the order of salvation.
a. Justification > as in confessing sin and believing in Jesus.
b. Sanctification > as in becoming more like Jesus.
c. Glorification > as in when we meet Jesus face-to-face in heaven.
This is obviously off-topic to the original post and probably too formulaic for many people. But it is simple, points to an ordered God, and, wehn I'm through, I'll leave my name. :)
2. As far as the meaning of meaning is concerned we need to understand it at a much deeper level then simple etymology. A definition is one thing but a practice is another. It is the classic difference between the truth of a philospher which is often complex and analyzed and the truth of the practioner who simply asks, "What works?"
I think that in order to understand meaning there must be a couple of things in place. There must be:
a. Movement towards a cause greater then oneself,
b. Reflection and speculation of the movement, and
c. Some sort of effect caused by such movement.
I was going to blindfold myself and type in tongues but I thought that the numbering, lettering, and ordering would help clarify what I was thinking. I hope everyone gets it.
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