This post has been sitting in the ‘drafts’ for a while, but tonight I actually saw a video shared on Facebook that makes the point much more strongly than I was orgininally able to.
A portion of a sermon by Martyn Lloyd-Jones (on Ephesians 6:15, ‘feet shod’) got the ball rolling on this line of thought:
Have you a definite position? Are you prepared to stand in it, and say, ‘I will never yield, I will never move from this?’ The moment you begin to compromise on this Word of God you will soon be slipping and sliding both in doctrine and in practice. Some people are constantly contradicting themselves; they praise the Protestant and the Nonconformist Fathers in the first half of their address or article; then criticize them in the second half. That is not ‘standing’; that is sliding. They do not know where they are, and no-one else knows.
As the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:19, the Gospel of Christ is not yea and nay at one and the same time. That is true of politics, of ecclesiasticism, of ‘the world’; but it is not true of Christ.
I recently listened to a Mars Hill Audio anthology on the subject of ‘words.’ An author, who was being interviewed, made the point that she theorizes the common American usage of the term ‘like’ as a conversation filler has more to it than meets the eye (or ear in this case). Like is a term of equivocation. It is the language, obviously, of ‘likening.’
Jesus uses such language when he likens the kingdom of God to certain stories or things. The kingdom of God is like a man in search of costly pearls, etc. But Jesus used the term ‘like’ in order to convey ideas and concepts in concrete terms. He actually wants us to know what the kingdom is like in terms that we can understand and relate to.
I am afraid it is not so with many modern Americans. Perhaps the word simply slips out as an unconscious filler in the midst of brain lags. Perhaps not. Perhaps we have been trained, unlike Jesus, to never say things concretely, but to equivocate and make our language as ambiguous as possible so as not to offend or contradict anyone else. Rather than standing in their speech they are sliding.
Here’s a clip from Def Poetry Jam that says it more clearly than I have been able to. I don’t know who the man is yet, but I appreciate his articulation of the idea:
