when missionaries use bad language

by Joel Bates

​Language matters!  For instance, years ago while a missionary in Dublin, I went into a department store and asked for pants.  The desk clerk turned a shade of red and awkwardly directed me to the women’s underwear section.  Then as a dinner guest, if I asked for a napkin, the host should have handed me a diaper.  Once I dined with a friend, who hastily ordered calamari from the menu, mistaking it for caviar.  Boy, was he surprised when the waiter set down a saucer of squid instead of fish eggs! 

Apparently, language matters.  This truth is what the latest group of missionaries-in-training took away from their experience orienteering with a map and compass.  The cadre of wilderness wanderers was actually quite adept at reading the map and using their compasses to find the right direction.  They usually knew where they were, too.  However, the unifying challenge for them came when they tried to prove to the facilitators that they were at the intended destination. 

Pointing to a spot on the topo map, one participant would begin, “If you look over here to the right, next to this green part, you’ll see that the river goes the way it should, and the lines go down indicating that there is definite ground, and that’s how we know we are here.” 

We facilitators would scratch our heads and ask them to repeat the description using more precise map-and-compass lingo—like north, south, east, and west or ridge, valley, saddle, and peak.  We pressed them not only to know where they were, but how to explain it to others. 
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After the first couple of leaders finished proving the destination to the facilitators, they returned to the group with an important new piece of information—“Language matters,” they said.  “The better the precision of our words, the more impactful the intent of their meaning.”

​This concept took root in that passel of missionaries who would be going to distant lands not to just live like Jesus, but also to translate what it means to be a disciple.  The facilitators’ demands of the participants as they proved their locations with the map and compass became just the first of many opportunities these missionaries would have to choose their words for the greatest impact.  As missionaries to foreign lands, language matters. 

It’s no stretch to say that language mattered to Jesus.  Speaking just a few, well-chosen, words, this Teller of parables and Teacher of truth was certainly a linguistic sculptor.  Consider how He so skillfully shut down the verbal traps set by the religious leaders.  That takes the oral skill of a trial lawyer.  Moreover, He usually stood alone as He swatted back their ploys like a pro tennis player skillfully returning a wicked serve.

Jesus was a master of language, but one of the most powerful linguistic statements He ever made would make a high school English teacher want to resign.  Jesus stood in the middle of another verbal brawl with the Pharisees in the temple.  They thought they were in control because He was on their turf.  John chapter 8 records how the scuffle begins with a question of heritage and ends with an all-out assault. 

“Jesus answered them, ‘I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill Me because My word finds no place in you.  I speak of what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.’” (Italics mine.)

He simply established His authority, but the religious leaders didn’t take kindly to the comparison.  After claiming heritage from Abraham, they launched a verbal attack to attempt an assassination of Jesus’s character. 

“They answered Him, ‘Abraham is our father….We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.’”
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Pay attention to their language here.  They know the story of a woman named Mary who showed up pregnant for her own wedding, claiming that God was responsible.  They don’t believe her testimony, though, so they will use this to try to discredit Jesus.  Their language is disguised only by sarcasm, but the message is clear:  you’re the illegitimate son of a scandalous woman.  Them’s fightin’ words when you mess with somebody’s mama!  Jesus pulls no punches as He mounts one of his greatest orations about His deity, beginning with the dismantling assertion that their true father is none other than Satan. 

The Pharisees fuss and pout and stick out their bottom lip and try for great comebacks like, “Well, you’re nothing but a lily-livered Samaritan!”  And, “You think our daddy is the devil, but we’re rubber and you’re glue and that claim bounces off us and sticks to you!” [not an exact quote!] Then they add, “You are not fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham?” They must have thought this upstart was no match for their most honored and ancient patriarch of Israel. 
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Then Jesus does it.  He makes a claim, says a phrase that if we didn’t know better, would be just plain bizarre, “Before Abraham was….I AM!”  Bad grammar, flawless clarity.  I bet you could have heard a pin drop as the fidgeting crowd of onlookers, the furtive disciples, and the fuming religious leaders can’t believe what they’ve just heard.  This is burning bush talk.  This is at the heart of the Torah!  This is the very name of Jehovah—unutterable on pain of death!  And they picked up stones to stone Jesus because the message was very clear, and the language mattered:  Jesus officially claimed to be God.  He slipped into the shuffling masses, escaped the barrage, and lived to die another day of His choosing. 
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What about you?  Are you letting the language of the Savior impact your life?  Are Jesus’ words falling on deaf ears?  Is He slipping into the crowd of distractions—an apparition of your soul?  And how do you speak of Him?  Are your words seasoned with the salt of the gospel?  Let His words dictate your life.  Let your words imitate the Savior.  Because after all, language matters.

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May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
Psalm 19:14 (NLT)

(Direct quotes are from the English Standard Version.)