Certain Words


Words are to easily stolen. That is why I have a bad attitude about words like emergent, relevant, relational, incarnational, missional. They are to easily co-opted by the very things they are trying to distinguish themselves from.

I struggle with this because in the end these words make communication easier with those of like mind and yet they can really guarantee nothing because they are words in the public domain.

How many times I have wished that someone using the name of Jesus would just stop, if only we had some card they could carry that said authentic, another one of those words, Christ-follower. We could have some double top secret glasses that showed the real from the fake like with gems.

If only, and then I am reminded that John said you would know them by their love and it all becomes clearer. You can have the words I should be worried about love.

Oh, but words are so much easier than love.