Every trade needs its kit. That means a variety of vocabularies. Carpenters and joiners need words like mortice and tenon. Motor mechanics need words like con-rod and sprocket. What is true of wood-workers and mechanics is also true of the biblical writers. They choose particular words with good reason. And if we fail to use their words, we shall find ourselves using inferior words that are inadequate for the task in hand. We shall be commending an attenuated Gospel.
Take the word ‘conversion’. This, like ‘Christian’, is a word used sparingly in the New Testament. In the Greek it simply means ‘turn’. The NT writers had better words at their disposal. So it is that when, in Philippians 3.12, Paul describes his religious experience, he speaks of himself as having been apprehended by God. God seized him, laid hold of him, arrested him. Paul did not just turn. He was re-directed. It was by God’s grace, God’s initiative, that it happened. It is by his grace that we too may have this continuing experience. And, like repentance, it is indeed a continuing experience.
Another expression we find in the NT is ‘obtained mercy’. Paul says (1 Timothy 1.13) that this was his what happened to him when God’s abundant grace delivered him from a career as an obsessive-compulsive persecutor. Without God’s mercy we are indeed forlorn. ‘Lord, have mercy’ is one of the best prayers we can offer. At best we can acknowledge our helplessness and inadequacy when we begin to speak to God.
And then there is the experience of being called – by God. He initiates the experience. Not that he gives us anything like a telephone call. Most likely a call will come from reading the Scriptures or a book explaining them. Perhaps it will be a conversation with a friend. This is the fundamental call (1 Peter 2.9) from darkness into light that is God’s intention for us all. Again, it starts with God and is within his competence to deliver.
The result is that Paul speaks of himself as a man in Christ (2 Corinthians 12.2). The context of this is visions and revelations from God. We can hardly aspire to the kind of elevated experience that Paul enjoyed (or suffered). He was an extraordinary man, a giant. We are midgets by comparison. But we can see that to come to Christian faith is something more than changing our opinion. And we can see that we, as much as St Paul, need to be careful with our choice of words when it comes to a knowledge of God.
BY HADRIAN’S WALL
This month Janet Lord plunges into editing. She takes on ‘Outlook’, the parish magazine of Holy Cross and St Cuthbert’s church, Haltwhistle. Cumbria. It is ‘my first experience into the world of editing anything.’ Undeterred, she finds a place for a charming story about a girl in school drawing God. Look it up on the church website. The magazine is strong on advertisement revenue. Holy Cross church claims that St Aidan preached there. Much later it attracted the attention of the Pre-Raphaelites: William Morris and Burne-Jones enhanced its appearance.
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