From the home office; the category tonight: the top ten words that Christians in America say most but understand least.  Here we go (begin snare drum roll):
            10.  Patience
              9.  Believe
              8.  Spirit
              7.  Perfect
              6.  Church
              5.  Humility
              4.  Nation
              3.  Fellowship
              2.  Sin
And the number one word that American Christians say most but understand least (move drum roll to floor tom):  Love.  (Cue fanfare.)

X.  Patience

            The quality of patience is often seen as some nebulous attitude which allows one to smile and endure the most irritating or frustrating of circumstances.  However, to get to the bottom of the meaning of this word Biblically, it is best to place it within the context of two other related words: longsuffering and forbearance.  Archaic though they may be, understanding of all of them together brings the idea of patience into clearer focus.

            In order to get these three words into their proper relationship, it is most useful to think of longsuffering as a broad, general category, and forbearance and patience as sub-categories.  When the root word suffer is seen in its earlier English usage, it carries the meaning of tolerance or the idea of putting up with something.  So when Jesus says, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me,” the idea is simply to allow them to come and “forbid them not.”  In modern usage, suffering is almost always seen in connection with pain, physical or otherwise.  But if it is understood according to its earlier meaning, then its other Biblical uses become more clear, such as “suffer me first to go bury my father,” or John the Baptist “suffering” Jesus to be baptized by him.  So from this it will follow that the word longsuffering means allowing for or tolerating something for a long period.

            If longsuffering then means long-term tolerance, then we need to ask whether this involves a stopping point at some future time.  This question then allows for a logical division into two sub-categories, which is where the other two words come in.  Simply put, forbearance is the indefinite term, where patience is the form of longsuffering which looks forward to an end; there is some hope of a time of termination to the circum-stance.  In other words, to be forbearing means that there is no end in sight, when to be patient means that at some future point, something will change, and the period of our longsuffering will be over.  Romans 8:24-25 is a good example, which says:

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

Here, something is expected or “hoped for,” and patience is used until it arrives.  Thus patience can be fulfilled, where forbearance, being the greater virtue, will endure a situation without necessarily having a hope that it might change for the better.

            So why does this matter?  Perhaps because of the way that we say we learn patience; pointing to those persons or situations that aggravate us in some way.  It just may be that the person in question is not the one who needs to change—therefore, if patience waits for a change in the other person, it doesn’t apply here.  Then it becomes us to learn the greater quality of forbearance and thus learn to live with it.  Or, maybe it doesn’t matter, in which case I thank you for being patient in waiting for the end of this segment.

 IX.  Believe

            In colloquial use, believe sometimes means “I think so, but I’m not sure.”  All too often in our logical brains, we might consider the meaning to be expressed thus: “I’ve looked at the facts and have concluded such-and-such.”  We might use the word to indicate mere mental assent to an idea or to a theory based on evidence collected so far.  But in Biblical parlance, the ideas expressed by any translation of the various forms of the Greek root pistis carry a much stronger tone.

            My personal favorite way of relating how we should properly strengthen the meaning of believe to its Scriptural understanding is through a story once told by a Wycliffe Bible translator.  He told of a Native American tribe which had no written form of their language, so the translators worked closely with the local people to develop one concurrently with their Bible translating efforts.  They discovered that the terms “faith” and “believe” (along with the Greek pistis) had no word in their spoken language to communicate the idea.  After lengthy discussion, they finally arrived at the phrase “sitting in a chair.”  This proved to be the only way in their tongue to bring out the concept of full reliance and trust in God—to “sit in His chair.”

            If I believe, really believe in God, I am willing to place my full weight upon what He says and who He is.  Merely accepting a fact is not enough; I must completely rely on His ability to support me and fulfill His entire covenant with me.  Otherwise I am merely expressing tacit agreement with little more than yet another philosophy.

VIII.  Spirit

            Once again, the popular uses of this word cloud its real meaning.  A “spirited” animal is one that is energetic or perhaps feisty.  “Mean-spirited” has become a political catch-phrase meaning antagonistic or at least grouchy.  “Warding off evil spirits” is an act of repelling bad luck as personified by malevolent non-human entities.  The word nowadays carries such a broad spectrum of meaning that we must do a little digging to recover its more specific original meaning.

            Regarding the idea of a spirit as a distinct entity, it is clear in Scripture that non-corporeal beings are a part of our everyday lives.  The two general categories are, of course, angels and demons—and the distinction lies in who they work for.  They are depicted as opposing forces that put us in the unenviable position of being sometimes the battlefield, and sometimes the spoils.  The realm in which these spirits live and operate is no doubt some sort of parallel world to our own, and it apparently intersects with ours to some degree.  These spiritual beings remain invisible to us except for those rare occasions when they are made manifest.  However, the image of a spirit as some wispy, smoky-looking entity flying around in the air is pure Hollywood fiction, and should be regarded as nothing more than a special effect.

            There are times when a “spirit” is depicted as a trait, as in the references in Isaiah 11:2 and 61:3 (see also Romans 1:4 and 8:15), which speak of such things as, for example, a spirit of wisdom or of heaviness.  This category also includes the idea that John the Baptist had the “spirit of Elijah,” as spoken of in Malachi 4:5, and also by Jesus in Matthew 17:10-13.  This personification of a characteristic of a person must not be confused with the idea of reincarnation, which mistakes the actual spirit of someone for the Biblical idea of a comparison of the character of the person.

            A good look at the Greek word pneuma will reveal that the idea behind the term “spirit” is more of a description, or perhaps even a type, than it is a definition.  The breath, or “personal wind,” is a reference to the deepest part of the body; which can be seen in the human anatomy.  When air is drawn in, it goes into the lungs which are situated behind what we call the “core” (exercise buffs will get that one quickly), which gives the impression of a full permeation of the body.  Also, when a deep breath is taken in properly, it moves the diaphragm downward, which displaces the lower part of the abdomen.  All this creates a physical symbol of the air going inside someone as far as it can possibly go.  Sigmund Freud vainly attempted to describe this most central part of the person with the word superego (the comparison of Freud’s id, ego, and superego with the Biblical ideas of flesh, soul, and spirit breaks down much more quickly than one might expect).  In any case, the innermost part of the personality, or of the essence of a living being, conscious or subconscious, is the basic idea.

            This becomes of special significance to the Christian when it concerns the idea of “being led by the Spirit.”  The Holy Spirit of God is seen in the Bible as the means by which God resides in us, and the human spirit is that part of our being that receives His interaction.  This is the thrust of the eighth chapter of Romans, which deals with the distinction of the spirit from the “flesh,” which encompasses physical, natural desires and their gratification.  We then also read in the fourth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews that the soul and the spirit can be “divided asunder,” in other words, separated and distinguished.  So it behooves the Christian to learn to heed the impressions of the discernment of the human spirit and to know when these reflect the Spirit of God.

            Living by the Spirit is different from living by the flesh, but it is also different from living by the soul; this is a difficult thing for the modern Christian, but it is an essential lesson.  The mind is a part of the soul, but the book of Proverbs tells us to “lean not on your own understanding.”  The mind was given to us to help us sort out information, but not to be our guide without the spirit.  Likewise, the emotions are also a part of the soul, but they were given to us to express us, not to lead us.  It is a common mistake to confuse the spirit for the emotions, because these can easily be mistaken for impulses of spiritual discernment.  Our feelings must continually be managed by the Holy Spirit—this is the idea behind the Greek word enkrateia, which is generally translated as either temperance or self-control in the New Testament.  It may take a long time to learn the difference between a spiritual response and an emotional reaction, but in the long run, understanding this crucial difference can help us avoid much sorrow and trouble.

VII.  Perfect

            In contrast to the word spirit above, the word perfect has a much more narrow definition today than it did in the days of the height of the English language.  Today’s popular idea of the word is a state of virtually unattainable flawlessness, immune to even the closest inspection.  This is a perfection which needs no additions or corrections, no refinements or amendments, and no change whatsoever lest it be ruined.

            However, in the days of Shakespearean English, the concept of perfection did not carry the quality of the absolute fulfillment of an ideal.  It could be used as a proper translation of the Greek word telos, which suggests a goal or an end which can be achieved.  Other inferences from this Greek root include the ideas of maturity, finishing of a work once started, or of merely arriving at an understanding that was once elusive.  Therefore, the Biblical statement “be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) does not deserve to be countered by the old quip “but nobody’s perfect.”

            Yes, we can get there.  Perfection in the Biblical sense is an achievable state of being.  It is not a state of “sinless perfectionism” (as some doctrines have attempted to describe it), nor does it place us above others, nor does it render us untouchable by God’s rod of correction.  But it belongs to the kind of people that John describes in his first epistle as “fathers,” and that Paul talks about in I Corinthians 13:4-7 as those who possess love.  Therefore, we owe it to ourselves and to our Lord to strive for maturity, seeking the Scriptures for all the building blocks of a full and complete relationship with our Father, and then applying these elements to our lives so that we may achieve a satisfying walk with Him, and be truly (and scripturally) perfect.

VI.  Church 

            Even though we’ve heard time and again that “the church is not the building, but it is the people,” the way we generally use the term shows that our true understanding is otherwise.  After all, as one teacher said, “how can we go to something that we are?”

            Interestingly, though, today’s confusion about what a church is seems to stem from a different source.  By asserting that a church consists of human elements rather than non-human, we then tend to default to the notion that what we mean by “church” is the institution, the bureaucracy, or the hierarchical construct that has been imposed upon a congregation.  So even for those of us who get that the building is not it, most still look at the organizational aspect as that which defines a church, often to the point where we distinguish one church from the others by such things as “Pastor so-and-so’s church” or by attaching the location of a some denominational headquarters at the end of the name on the marquee.  In fact, every New Testament example of the way God views a local church is by its geographical location, pure and simple, with no further breakdown necessary.

            Sadly, those who adhere to such models seem to view the truth about what the church is as a sort of platitude—applicable only on some sort of nebulous spiritual plane, but not practical in the real world.  Even more sadly, these are usually the persons in leadership in the institutional church which invariably have the most to gain personally from the maintaining of the status quo.  But even the most casual study of the word as used in the New Testament reveals the simple truth that any way of seeing the church, in either its universal or its local aspects, is nothing more or less than any unique group of people called out of the world to assemble in Jesus’ name.  After all, “where two or three are gathered together …”

V.  Humility

            Humility and pride are two words which are rightly understood as opposites; however, considering them together will help to clarify why humility is easily the more misunderstood of the two.

            Pride is best comprehended when it is understood as something beyond mere braggadocio.  The attitude that produces this bragging is seeking the attention that the person is hoping to gain from those who he or she is speaking to.  In other words, the prideful person is saying, “look at me; I have this, or I can do that, or I am able to give you something.”  This plea for notice is the most blatant expression of pride, but certainly not the only one.

            The other expression of pride is the place where the mistake is usually made.  There is another plea for attention which is expressed quite differently, and is often mistaken for humility.  There are persons we encounter who express low self-esteem, and express it rather profusely.  They emanate a “woe is me” attitude, complaining about their lowly estate or else crying about their shortcomings for all to hear.  Yet this is pride, and is just as much so as the braggart is expressing.  A desire to be noticed can be made as equally through the “pity party” as through the chest-beating and conceit of the immodest lout.  Yet many who see this think of it as a form of humility because they fail to understand the truth behind the word.

            Genuine humility does not seek attention for one’s self in either form, or in any form, for that matter.  Humility does not avoid speaking up when the time is appropriate, nor does it lack confidence when it takes its turn.  But its character is evidenced by the way it points the listeners’ attention to what is said, not to the one who says it.  A humble person is one who not only avoids the limelight, but doesn’t allow it to be known that this is a conscious goal—self is simply kept out of the way.  This, after all, is the intent of Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:1-6, where “your Father who sees you in secret shall reward you openly.”  You may never know if you are humble, but everyone around you will know it if you are not.

IV.  Nation

            Nation has become the most politicized of the words on our list.  Our concept of a nation has been molded by the media, our politicians, and by the popular idea of things that are national as opposed to those that are local or global.  We see a nation as a body of land which is defined by geographical borders, has a capital city, is governed by a political system, etc.  But just like church above, a nation is a people—yet it is more.

            Our first clue to the true Biblical meaning of nation is the Greek word from which it is translated in Scripture: ethnos.  Ethnos is essentially a reference to an ethnic group, just as you might think.  Yet when it is rendered in English as the word nation, our minds tend to magically automatically jump to the concept of the political entity.  The tension created by the difference between the ideas of a group of people under a particular government versus a people group which comes from a common racial, familial, or cultural heritage usually escapes our notice, especially in a “melting pot” society such as the modern United States.

            So why does this matter?  In Biblical days, those who lived in a particular “nation” were part of a common ethnic group which could be traced by following each person’s heritage back to a common ancestor.  This group stayed together as a political as well as a familial unit, and seeing both components as one was the norm.  Thus when the word nation is used as an interchangeable term with kindred or tribe, the translation makes sense.  But nowadays with the proliferation of hyphenated-Americans sharing the same land, governmental authority, civic services, and requisite privileges, our word nation has retained these new things as the defining qualities rather than the older ones.

            Again, why does this matter?  The problem stems from Jesus’ parable given in Matthew 25:31-46, in which all the nations are gathered and separated into two groups: the sheep and the goats.  The sheep are then praised and brought into Heaven, and the goats are berated and sent to their punishment; the difference being how they treated the poor and downtrodden among them.  Two false ideas come up at this point.  The first stems from the misinterpretation of the term ethnos as a political entity, and results in the idea that it falls to the political leadership to be the means of that society‘s efforts for taking care of its less fortunate.  Therefore the whole population will be judged by the response that their government gives to the situation.  This then becomes the Christian justification for the secular welfare state.

            The other misinterpretation would be that each ethnic group will be accordingly so judged; yet this fails for essentially the same reason.  It is clear from the full witness of Scripture that judgment befalls the individual and will be meted out according to that person’s own deeds or misdeeds.  According to certain scholars who study the figures of speech of Biblical days, “sheep and goats” are good and evil individuals, and the use of the term “all nations” is a way of conveying the fact that all will be called into judgment and our deeds fully examined.  Therefore, each one of us remains with no excuse for shirking our personal responsibility to those in need around us or for passing the buck to some larger group.

III.  Fellowship

            The most trivialized term on our list has to be fellowship.  Most of our concepts about this term tend to let it mean little more than a social time, which not surprisingly may be imagined as taking place in a “fellowship center.”  It becomes even worse when we make it into a verb, as though it were something that we do for a particular period of time, and then go our separate ways.  Perhaps he said it best who said, “Fellowship is a lot more than just two Christians getting together and giggling.”

            The Greek term is koinonia, and is sometimes thrown about and trivialized as much as the usual English translation.  The truth is that the word is the same root as the words for common, communal, and even communism.  The dialect of Greek in which the New Testament is written is called Koine (or commoners’) Greek.  The best English rendering might be “common-ness;” in any wise, the idea behind the word goes light years beyond the mere concept of social interaction that it most often implies in today’s parlance.

            A brief look at the two main passages in the Book of Acts which describe the interactions of the early Church will clearly reveal both the character and extent of their relationships.  The primary section is the closing portion of the second chapter, with the other being the closing portion of the fourth chapter (specifically, 2:42-47 and 4:32-37).  Here we see a church that is not suffering from decay due to denominations, doctrines, or divided loyalties, but rather unified by their common faith, common purpose, and a common life together.  It doesn’t take long to observe that their unity in their one Lord renders all other considerations as trivial, whether that means their possessions, their talents, or their time.  Other passages in the epistles are less explicit, yet they also add much to such a description rather than take away from it.

            It is regrettable that throughout our history as the Church, we have allowed the practice of this level of relationship to slip through our fingers.  As I have described in the article Koinonia in TV Land, it is certainly not out of the question to see how people in a local church in a modern setting might work together to aid each other, even with the most mundane tasks of life.  Perhaps Tertullian said it best in his Apologeticum: “We (Christians) share everything except our wives …”

II.  Sin 

            The first problem we encounter with the word sin is the way we often hear the Greek word for it defined.  It is true that the Greek term hamartia can be accurately defined as “missing the mark,” but as Vine’s Expository Dictionary quickly points out, ”this etymological meaning is largely lost sight of in the New Testament.”  The mental picture commonly associated with society’s current thinking of such a phrase relates to the missing of a bull’s eye with a dart or an arrow.  This could lead someone to think either that he made a mistake, or perhaps a certain amount of skill was lacking, and that if we try a little harder next time we might measure up.  But we cannot allow the word sin to imply that an act was somehow accidental, out of our control, or beyond the reach of our ability to prevent.  Sin is always avoidable, and at least on some level, intentional.  It is impossible to “sort of” sin; otherwise, how could we stand in judgment for it if it were only an accident?

            So is there a difference between a sin and a bad habit?  Part of the intentionality of sin is that somewhere in either the conscious or subconscious, you know that God is not pleased with this particular deed, word, or thought.  But if you are unaware that it is against God’s will, He will not hold you accountable.  However, there will undoubtedly come a time in your walk when the Holy Spirit will begin His convicting work in a matter.  At that time, the thing will become sin for you through your dismissal of God’s voice of conviction.  Perhaps your initial unawareness came by way of a lack of teaching, or through peer pressure, or the fact that you’re simply too new in the faith to understand.  In any case, once you become aware, the responsibility falls on you, with God’s help, to form a new replacement habit that refrains from the sin.

            Our second problem with the idea of sin does not so much concern our defining of it but of our tendency to attach categories to it, much as the National Weather Service does to hurricanes.  Let’s see how that would look if we admit it and then charted it out:  (The following is taken from a conglomerate of various weather related sites and highly modified.  I do hope that the various sites whose information I borrowed and butchered will forgive me for making my point at their expense.)

Sin/Hurricane Category 1: 74 - 95 mph winds.  Light damage to buildings, virtually unnoticeable injuries to relationships.  Damage to unanchored mobile homes, poorly constructed signs, only the most highly active consciences.  Hardly noticeable coastal flooding with minor pier damage and little consequence to other believers.  No real embarrassment in church.  Judgment surge 5 feet or less.

Sin/Hurricane Category 2: 96 - 110 mph winds.  Some damage to building roofs, windows, and anger containment.  Considerable damage to mobile homes, less to feelings of others.  Flooding thoughts in the mind damage piers and small craft, but only briefly.  Some trees blown down.  Distracted during teachings or sermons.  Judgment surge 6 to 8 feet.

Sin/Hurricane Category 3: 111 - 130 mph winds.  Some structural damage to small residences, utility buildings, and the believability of the usual excuses.  Large trees blown down.  Mobile homes and some weak relationships destroyed.  Flooding near the coast destroys smaller structures while gossipers delighted by floating debris.  Mental state may be flooded well inland.  Fidgety during worship.  Judgment surge 9 to 12 feet.

Sin/Hurricane Category 4: 131 - 155 mph winds.  More extensive spiritual failures with complete roof failure on some residences.  Major erosion of areas of morality.  Tornado threat inland, so beware of bad language.  Unable to look elders in the eye while shaking hands.  Judgment surge 13 to 18 feet.

Sin/Hurricane Category 5: 156 mph & over winds.  Complete roof failure on many residences and in the submission to spiritual coverings.  Severe flooding of attention span with major damage to all structures near the point of the transgression.  No redemption seen as possible; off to Hell in a hand basket for you.  Evacuation of residential areas may be required.  Judgment surge exceeds 18 feet.

            No matter how we may look at it, God sees every as an act of disobedience.  Period.  Please notice that in the Bible, whenever there is a list of transgressions given; those we consider small are right beside the ones we think of as big.  It doesn’t matter how we may try to categorize and compartmentalize it, analyze and scrutinize it, or demonize some sins while marginalizing others, the awful truth is: a sin is a sin is a sin.

I.  Love

            Some people find it amusing when I tell them that Christian love can be defined and actually understood.  But this word love may be grasped very clearly and thoroughly when taken in context with its four Greek counterparts (for this understanding I am deeply indebted to the C. S. Lewis book The Four Loves—see the citations page).  To achieve this we should look first at the three of these Greek words that are not part of the usual Christianese so that we may contrast them with the fourth, into which we will then delve more deeply.  (Much of the discussion below is reiterated in the essay OK, I Admit It under the subheading Understanding love.  Please pardon the redundancy.)

            The most commonly understood type of love in our culture is represented by the Greek word eros (a reference to the Greek god of love) and also the term erotic—a reference to romantic or sexual attraction.  This love will manifest itself in the most selfish of ways: “I want you ...  I must have you ...  I want you always near.”  Even the noblest actions taken in the name of eros (or romance) are usually motivated by some expectation of reward such as a return of the sentiment or the outright sense of an exclusivity of attachment or of possession of the one loved.

            Next on the list is storgos, which might be translated into English as affection.  It is the love for parent or child, for siblings, grandparents, or other relatives or friends.  It can be as strong as the romance seen above, but without the sexual overtones or the selfish incentives.  Storgos carries with it a strong sense of nurturing, support, and emotional bonding.

            Another Greek word is phileo, often synonymous with friendship or brotherhood.  It is the most general term, sometimes denoting fondness (“I love hot dogs”), or more widely, a sense of societal or civic responsibility.  But despite the broad nature of the term, it would be a mistake to discount the potential for strength it carries.

            Our final word is agape, which is the most specifically Christian and the most etymologically obscure term.  The first appearance of this word in the Greek Christian vocabulary is in reference to the meal that the early church would take together, which then culminated in the practice of the “Lord’s Supper.”  These were known as “love-feasts”, or agape-s (see Strong’s number G26), sometimes translated as “feasts of charity” as mentioned in Jude 12 and in II Peter 2:13 (compare to Strong’s G4910).  Some Greek scholars assert that it may have been made up by Christians to describe a love for and by God which other words could not convey, or as Vine’s Expository Dictionary puts it, they “used it to express ideas previously unknown.”  So the only way to see what this word really means is to look at the actions it causes.

            As we spend some time with the word agape, some things become crystal clear.  In the Gospel of John we read of such events as Jesus telling Nicodemus that “God so loved ... that He gave ...,” and of telling His disciples that we would be known to be Christians only if we love one another.  We are commanded to love the brethren, our neighbors, our enemies, and God Himself.  In several places the King James translation uses the term charity instead of love, and renowned evangelist Charles Finney tended toward the word benevolence in describing it.  Lofty sections in I Corinthians 13 and in I John also give much description of the idea behind agape.  So the first common thread we see is that Christian love gives without measure or reservation.

            But we must go a step farther, because in John 15:13 we read that the greatest love is when a man lays down his life for his friends.  Biblically, life is defined with a much broader stroke, encompassing all that which we value and live for.  Luke 12:15 explains the non-material side of this idea, saying that “a man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses.”  There is also much discussion about the affairs of life, one’s manner of life, and of hating one’s life in this world in order to save it unto the next (see II Tim. 2:4, Matt. 6:25, and John 12:25).  Life (in the Greek zoe) thus encompasses one’s goods, concerns, values, and activities; and laying all this down for the benefit of another is the second common thread.

            Finally, a third common thread is the idea of the emotion of compassion which accompanies agape love.  Merely committing acts of self-sacrificial giving fails to fulfill the requirement, because in I Cor. 13:3 Paul tells us that even if he were to give the most he had, if he were to “have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”  The emotion here is rather different from those of the other Greek words we saw earlier, but in this case the emotion of compassion as an element of our agape love will motivate us rather than dominate us.

            So with all this being said, we can see that a good definition of this Christian agape, or the “God-kind of love,” might be expressed as a compassionate contributing to or acting for another’s benefit without consideration of what it might carry as a personal cost.  This then places the ultimate good of someone else above any personally valued object, intention, or situation.  So when a person loves another with Christian love, that person must do so without regard to reward, reputation, comfort, convenience, or even thanks.

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