Repeat after me

My two year old son, Pete, is learning English. Like many missions opportunities, the language barrier has been a challenge so far, but there are signs of progress. For example, my wife tells me that Pete nearly got run over by man coming around the corner of an aisle at Toys 'R Us yesterday. Once Pete had jumped out of the way and collected himself, he turned to the man and said, "Excuse me, sir." I guess the guy about fell over laughing because he was so surprised to hear this little 28 inch tall human speaking English. His vocabulary is limited, and his pronunciation could use some work, but we're working on it.

Of course, Pete isn't just learning random English words and their meanings. He is learning to speak as his parents speak, to use the words that we use. Sometimes this process is very informal, as he picks things up from our normal, everyday conversations, ¹ whether we mean for him to or not.

At other times, we are very intentional in training him to say certain things in the appropriate situations. When I tell him it is time to head up to bed, his natural response is to groan and protest. But, before he can utter his disapproval of my command, Amanda will often chime in with a "yes, sir." Pete picks up on the cue (sometimes) and repeats his mother's words. These words are not his words, and he may or may not mean them "from his heart," but he does utter them with his own mouth and occasionally these words even influence his behavior.

Over on The Presbyteer's blog, a discussion has broken out in the comments section of a post in which Keith critiques the TNIV, a translation that tampers with the text in order to make it "gender neutral." In the post, Keith writes,

Bible language ought to train our language. Here my philosophy of translation is at sharp odds with the likes of TNIV and NRSV. In a simple case like "what is man", English needs to be discipled by Bible and submit to God's way of talking and thinking…. If we *don't* let English be schooled by Bible, then in this case especially, we damage our ability to think in categories of representative headship, and that strikes at the heart of God's reality.

Keith's point, and it's a good one, is that we should submit our language to God's way of speaking and thinking, not the other way around. If we have a problem with the way something is said in the Bible, whether it is a passage of scripture or a biblical thought that is too difficult for us to understand (or that it simply offends our post-modern American sensibilities), then the problem is with us and we better start repairing our language, not downgrading the words of scripture.

While I was earning my Communication Studies degree at the University of Nebraska, a lot was said about the way our thoughts and our perception of reality are bound by the shared symbol system (i.e. language) we use to communicate with one another. If our language is lacking, in that it does not have the capacity to convey a biblical thought or principle, then our language needs to be upgraded or repaired. Just like Pete, we need to be trained to speak and read so that we can think and speak in biblical terms.

One of the ways we receive this training is through liturgical worship. There's an excellent post :"(HT: The Presbyteer)": over at adversaria in which Al comments on the "public language" of liturgy. He writes,

The language of liturgy is public language, precisely because it does not belong to any one particular individual. It has been handed over to all of us and we are given to participate in it. Such language has a pedagogical purpose. As Candler puts it: ?To enter into this pedagogy is to entrust oneself to a language which is not one?s own, yet which transforms one?s language and orders it to God.? Such language is a gift and not our own possession.

This is in contrast with the spontaneous, "from the heart" language that finds its way into Sunday morning worship in churches today. Today's Christian places a high value on feelings, which is exhibited in his high esteem for spontaneity and passion/emotion in his praying, singing, and teaching. Truth takes a back seat to feeling, and the speaker/singer becomes the center of attention rather than God.

When our worship relies heavily on the words of the Bible, it transcends the self-centeredness and linguistic limitations that we bring to the table. These words are not our own, and it may not be comfortable for us to use them. That's the point. By using words that have been handed down to us through the scriptures and the liturgy, we leave behind our immature toddler-speak. As Al sums it up,

The purpose of chanting psalms and singing hymns is not merely to glorify our language, but to heal it. The language of worship that is given to us by Scriptures and the Christian tradition informed by the Scriptures is one that is quite unnatural to us. It is God?s purpose that, as we use this language, it will become increasingly natural to us. The words, although they are borrowed, are no longer entirely alien to us, for they have converted us to themselves.

In Pete's case, he has repeated, "yes, sir" so many times after us that it was on the tip of his tongue. Words that were forced and unnatural to him before have now been incorporated into his natural vernacular. As we expose ourselves to the language of the scriptures, we will see the same maturation in our own language.