What's That You're Saying?

Relating with the world becomes exceedingly difficult when you realize we’re just not speaking the same language anymore.

For example, in the world, love most often describes a sort of romantic feeling , rather than radical action contrary to human selfishness. 

Peace, also, most often connotes an absence of conflict, judgment, or disapproval, rather than the presence of God Himself surpassing our understanding.

Joy has come to mean following our bliss, doing what fulfills us, or finding what makes us happy, rather than describing the state of unbroken, forever-connectedness with our Maker, no matter what.

Jared C. Wilson, writing at The Gospel Coalition, believes that justice, also, has morphed into a sort of “nebulous fairness,” a sense of “altruistic equality,” or giving people what they want because it’s only fair to do so, rather than “the spreading dominion of the righteousness of God.”

Wilson writes, “When God calls us to ‘do justice,’ he is calling us to reflect the life-giving, culture-flourishing, gracious abundance that is in keeping with his glory. Justice includes care for the poor and hungry and sick, for instance, because it is a reflection of God’s righteousness to address the effects of the fall on individuals and systems with gracious provision.”

Biblical justice, therefore, is not superficial fairness, but “more deeply the express manifestation of the righteousness of God.”

Let us love, then, with radical action. Let us bring peace, then, shining the light of God that is within us brightly. Let us share our joy, then, because we are saved from eternal separation from the One Who unites us with Himself. And most of all, let us do justice, pouring out our Father’s gracious provision for all that is wrong with the world.

And in doing these things, take back our language.