The Linguistic Condescension of God

[David T]

Somewhat on the heels of my admittedly nitpicky and more-contentious-than-I-thought-it-would-be Lucifer thread, it reminded me of an insight I had a while ago concerning names and titles in the scriptures, which also relates to the univocality topic also current in this forum.

When it comes to the Gospel, every element of it is something abstract, that the Lord gives us symbols and titles to help us 'grasp'.

The Lord is patient with us, and accepts our imperfect applications of language to refer to His perfections.

In this vein, I think some apologist work overtime when they try to find a direct correlation to a Restoration application of a word to its use in the NT or even OT.

For example, while I do believe the article of Faith which states that, at its inception, the Restored Church had the same organization as the primitive Church, I do not think we need to strain to find exact 1:1 correlations between our Current titles of Priesthood Offices, and those words applied in the NT.

for example, Modern Deacons don't need to line up with the greek diakonos.

Our Evangelists/Patriarchs do not (and are not) the same as the greek evangelistes

Our Elders are not the equivalent of what is translated as elders in the new or old testaments.

The term Sons of Perdition as used in D&C 76 does not need to be retrofitted to be applied to the NT usage of the term.

It appears in many cases, Joseph applied terminology he was familiar with to abstract principles, and the Lord accepted this usage. The ancient Israelite prophets did this as well. It didn't matter what we called these sacred and abstract roles, as long as we applied them.

I used to be far more nitpicky (as in thinking the english pronunciation Jeezus was terrible and grating, as well as Jee-hoe-va), until I realized that the Lord accepted this weak linguistic corruption in our day.

I think we often try too hard to justify scriptural uses of terms by making unneeded links to the past, and claims to revelatory Authority to prove something that doesn't need proving. We're weak. All language is weak. And yet, our Lord still condescends to use it, to help us understand Him. And I think that's awesome.

And sometimes, we just come out as cranky linguistic purists, when it turns out, even our Lord isn't one of those. We sometimes hold scripture to a higher standard than He does. And I think it's sometimes worth while to stand back and recognize that.

[David T]

I just need to remember this:

"Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding."

And keep striving to repent of my linguistic snobbery...

[Tsuzuki]

And keep striving to repent of my linguistic snobbery...

Try not to repent too much. We need more linguistic snobs in the church.