...except after "C"

I try not to jump on every blogwagon that comes along but I've been drawn into this one and I wanted to gather some of my own thoughts together. What better place to do that than on the blog? So here are my two cents:

• Words matter. Paul tells Timothy to "Follow (lit. echo) the pattern (lit. prototype) of the sound (lit. healthy) words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 1:13). Paul got pretty specific in his use of individual words and phrases, literally telling the young pastor in several instances - "this is a good way to say it; say it this way". If you believe that every word of Scripture was literally breathed out by God, then you will do well to pay attention to words.

  The beginning of wisdom is calling things by their right name.
  - Chinese Proverb

• Truth matters. (Proverbs 4:24; 6:12; 8:13)
• Grace matters. (Proverbs 16:21; 22:11)
• Wisdom matters. (Proverbs 16:23)
  
  
• People listen. Especially kids. I've never been so aware of the words that come out of my mouth as I have been since we've had two little human parrots around the house. It's amazing to me how quickly they pick up on a word or a phrase that I use and add it to their own vocabulary. We've had to come up with many different code words to talk about topics we don't necessarily want our children to pick up on (e.g. "media storage device", "shiny round thing", or "data-encoded entertainment" to avoid saying "DVD" or "movie"). We now have to refrain from words like idiot and stupid if we don't want our kids to go around calling each other that. We talk about bottoms instead of butts, call things stinky instead of crappy, and engage in all manner of euphemism to keep our children's minds and lips pure.

At any rate, these are just some musings about the furor in some areas of the Godblogosphere, particularly around Mark Driscoll's use of "colorful" language, and more specifically in his recent book Confessions of a Reformission Rev. Rather than link to any specific post, I'll just let my readers explore on their own to see what the buzz is about. (Hint, if you want to know who I'm reading, check out my Friday Top Ten Shout-Out from April 28.) However, I will tell you that I absolutely love the following quote from the book:

"As I studied the Bible, I found more warrant for a church led by unicorns than by majority vote" (p. 103).

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