Avoiding the God Talk
Even before the pandemic, the stress levels in our country soared to record highs. Since COVID-19, it seems we need new indicators to measure the off-the-chart angst, rancor, and overall unsettledness weighing on so many. More than ever, people need plain and unadorned speech—compassion without pretension and assurance rather than arguments.
“Welcome to the Program; how are you feeling?” I asked the caller to my radio program for family caregivers.
“I’m blessed!” The caller answered me sweetly, and then her voice dramatically changed. ”But I’ve had it with my Mama!”
The caller detailed challenges caring for her mother and the ensuing resentment and frustration. We chatted for a while on the air, and I remember it as a good call, but I couldn’t forget her opening, “I’m blessed, but….”
Many Christians, unfortunately, often lapse into “God-talk,” and their vocabulary sounds more like a seminarian who exclusively uses the King James Bible. That caller represented one of those fluent in “God-talk,” and her call prompted me to direct future callers away from the “Christian-ese.” Whatever people struggle with, moving to a healthier place always involves having a real conversation without the affectations.
Another negative side effect of the God-talk is an unfortunate lack of awareness of how off-putting it is for those “outside the bubble.” It is hard to say whether the vernacular is a deliberate effort to sound more spiritual, but it often seems intentional. Yet, is that necessary?
More than 100 physicians have treated my wife since her car accident in 1983, and we’ve always appreciated when doctors avoided condescension or talking over our heads. The most meaningful exchanges were when they spoke normally – even about complex and distressing things.
How is it different when talking about matters of the heart and faith?
I knew a young pastor who was affable, relaxed, and easy to converse with – until he stepped behind a pulpit. When he preached, he used this sonorous tone that affected his speech and distracted from his message. He left that church soon after, and I haven’t heard him preach in years, but I hope he sanded off the affectation. When a pastor talks like Jeff Foxworthy in person and Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones from the pulpit, people notice – and not in a good way.
Somewhere along the way, it seems many Christians started feeling that talking to someone about their faith (whether over coffee or from a pulpit) meant assuming an air of spirituality. Yet that kind of speech is dropped when talking about a favorite meal, movie, or event. When witnessing, do we sound scripted? When ministering to someone in distress, must we echo a Christian greeting card?
Worse still, do we adopt a religious tone to make gossiping more acceptable?
Growing up in the south, we had it down cold when speaking detrimentally about anyone. We could always soften the insult or gossip with one of the most familiar phrases in southern lingo, “…bless his heart.” Regardless of the accusation or slight, “bless his heart” makes anything more palatable.
“He kills puppies …bless his heart.”
As ridiculous as that sounds, how is it different from the God-talk assumed when wanting others to think better of us – or less of someone else?
Even before the pandemic, the stress levels in our country soared to record highs. Since COVID-19, it seems we need new indicators to measure the off-the-chart angst, rancor, and overall unsettledness weighing on so many. More than ever, people need plain and unadorned speech—compassion without pretension and assurance rather than arguments.
In college many years ago, I met a couple who went to the mission field as Bible translators. Their work inspires me, and the model they use seems to represent a path for all of us. “Embrace people and understand their ways, culture, and history. Share the Gospel in a way that makes sense to them – and one day, when fluent in their language, translate the Scriptures.”
Embrace, understand, share, translate. Those four steps – in that order – represent a practical path for communicating to people in whatever circumstances. Embracing requires no “God talk” or affectation, but it does require humility. More than just observing, understanding also means appreciating the circumstances of others. Sharing and translating allow us to communicate for the benefit of others rather than elevating ourselves.
When looking at the life of Christ, that’s what He did (and does) for us – and the model hardly needs embellishing.
“…just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).
Peter Rosenberger hosts the nationally syndicated radio program, Hope for the Caregiver.
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“He Descended into Hell”
Written by J. Fowler White |
Wednesday, June 22, 2022
In God’s reckoning, when He laid our iniquities on His incarnate Son, He effectively relocated hell onto Christ Himself such that from Gethsemane to the grave His humiliation for sinners reached its nadir in both soul and body.It’s an understatement to say that the last phrase of Article 4 of the Apostles’ Creed—He descended into hell—has generated a lot of controversy. Because its appearance in the Creed came later than its other articles and because its meaning is open to question, some advocate for removing it from the Creed’s publication or, at the very least, for excluding it from the Creed’s public recitation. Those opinions deserve our attention, but they are not conclusive. For our purposes here we’ll take our point of departure from J. A. MacCulloch’s work, The Harrowing of Hell (1930). He provides a fair and reasonable basis for the article’s acceptance for the church’s continued consideration and recitation as follows: “Although the confessional use of the Descent doctrine was only sporadic and occasional before the eighth century, on the other hand the doctrine itself was mentioned repeatedly by the Fathers and in the religious literature of the early centuries.” So it remains appropriate for us to look more closely at the interpretation of the Creed’s words He descended into hell.
Even with repeated mention of the Descent, there remains no consensus on its interpretation. Early on, the received text of the Creed’s Descent clause was typically taken as a simple declaration that Christ, having humbled Himself to be crucified, dead, and buried, had also been consigned to the common ignominious place of the dead, namely, the grave (as distinguished from the place of suffering-beyond-the-grave, namely, hell). As time moved on, however, various other views of the Descent arose. Some believed that after His death Christ’s disembodied soul went to hell in order to complete what was lacking in His suffering on the cross. Others affirmed that His soul went to the place of waiting for disembodied souls (aka limbus patrum) in order to facilitate the transport of the souls of pre-Christ saints to heaven. Still others believed that Christ’s soul went to hell in order to achieve and announce His victory over it.
Strikingly, despite their variety, common to these views is the belief that between His death and His resurrection Christ’s disembodied soul relocated to a place other than and in addition to the heavenly paradise of God to which He referred on the cross (Luke 23:43, 46; cf. Matt 27:50). Furthermore, as we look into the attempts to justify this belief, we realize that basically they involve imposing dubious interpretations of Eph 4:8-10 and 1 Pet 3:18-20 onto the supposed chronology and theology of events related to Christ’s soul between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Suffice it to say here that neither Eph 4:8-10 nor 1 Pet 3:18-20 refers to a relocation of Christ’s soul to hell. To the contrary, the Ephesians text affirms His descent from heaven to earth for His incarnation, while the First Peter passage contemplates His ascension (not His descent), in which was proclaimed His victories over sin, death, and all the fallen angelic host. In short, Scripture provides no witness to the relocation of Christ’s soul after His death to any place other than the paradise of God in heaven. In fact, the Creed itself seems to point the way to a better understanding of its Descent clause. That clue appears when we notice the likeness between the second article and the words dealing with Christ’s suffering. Even as the second article presents distinguishable perspectives on Christ’s person in the two phrases His only Son and our Lord, so the words about His suffering present distinguishable perspectives in the two phrases was crucified, dead, and buried and He descended into hell. We can elaborate briefly by looking first to Scripture and then to the Westminster and Heidelberg catechisms.
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By this We Know the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error
What is truth? Pilate asked this rhetorical question sarcastically. Jesus told him the truth, but since he was not “of the truth” he did not hear it. If you are in Christ then you are of the truth and you have heard our Lord’s voice and are hearing it right now. The Holy Spirit is bearing witness with your spirit right now. You are held firm in His hands. He will lose none the Father gives Him. This is the truth.
5 They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. 1 John 4:5-6 (NASB)
Several years ago when I still worked in an office I had a fellow with whom I worked, when he found out that I was a Christian, demand that I listen to his “reasoning” why “everything is relative.” I told him I would listen to him if he could refute the following statement, “Aren’t you making an ‘absolute statement’ when you say, ‘there are no absolutes’?” He chuckled nervously and left my cubicle. I still pray that God will save him. My brethren, the scourge of relativism is a blight within the visible Church. It causes people to flee from the absolute. When truth is seen as relative then in what or whom can anyone have faith and trust? Do we read the words of our Lord in Sacred Scripture ever saying, “Well, it depends?”
33 Therefore Pilate entered again into the Praetorium, and summoned Jesus and said to Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?” 35 Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You to me; what have You done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.” 37 Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” 38 Pilate *said to Him, “What is truth?”And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and *said to them, “I find no guilt in Him. John 18:33-38 (NASB)
This is, of course, the Apostle John’s version of the trial of our Lord before Pilate. Pilate asks our Lord if He is a king. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world-to bear witness to the truth.” Notice how our Lord ties His Kingship or Lordship to His bearing witness to the truth. The Greek word translated as “bear witness to” is martureō. It means to be a witness or testify.
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Trust and Obey
Peter has described to us the character of God, His work of redemption, and the reality of our suffering, and likewise calls us to the exercise of faith by entrusting ourselves to God and doing what is right. We lean in to the storms of life and press on in our earthly calling toward our heavenly hope in Christ.
Commit their souls to God in doing good (1 Peter 4:19, NKJV)
One of the most well known conclusions in Scripture is found in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all” (Eccl. 12:13). Not only is this the summation of the book, it is encompassing as the chief end of man.
That statement serves as a corrective lens to life for safe passage in our journey through a fallen world, lest we be led astray by our experience. When we behold the righteous faltering and the wicked prospering, when we witness seeming chaos and contradiction, we may draw wrong opinions about God and His dealings with us.
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