Grammar: It's a good thing.

There is nothing like a quick grammar review on a Monday morning to get the week off to a great start!  Don’t you agree?

Grammar is nothing more than understanding how we put words together so they can communicate a message.  There are nouns and verbs and conjunctions and participles and adjectives and adverbs and all kinds of multi-function words that fall into the category of “particles.”  All of grammar is dependent on a single unit:  the word.

Without words we would be limited to communicating with gestures and grunts.  That may be sufficient if the message is, “HEY - Get outta my way!” but is severely inadequate to describe the beauty of a rose.  We need words.

In the spirit of great philosophical debates, we may ask ourselves, “Which came first, the verb or the noun?”  Philologists love that question (philology is the study of language - yes, there are people that do that!).  It is my understanding (insert appropriate caveats and disclaimers here), that the noun came first and then verbs.  In other words, we develop language by defining the stuff of life - nouns - and then describe what it does -  verbs.  

We are then able to add extra words to describe the noun (adjectives) and how it is acting (adverbs).  We can describe who is doing the action (subject) and who is the recipient of the action (object).  It then goes downhill from there as we have dependent and independent clauses, conditional phrases, subordinating and coordinating conjunctions, and the “defy-you-to-describe-me” language particles.  Add to all this asyndeton and periphrasis and, well, maybe we should just go back to grunting at each other.  Our heads begin to spin as we try to decline nouns and parse verbs . . . or is it the other way around?

The fact that language can have this level of complexity is itself an indicator of this important truth:  words matter. Ideas matter.  A doctor cannot listen to a series of grunts to interpret MRI results nor can he perform surgery by grunting for a medical instrument.  It is hard to tell the difference between  a IV line and defibrillator using grunts.  Words, please.

Words alone are not the measure of an idea’s validity.  Just because someone can use multisyllabic words in long, complex sentences doesn’t validate or give greater significance to what they are saying.  Sometimes less is more.  Would  you rather hear, “My hypothalamus triggers the endrocine gland every time the cochlear nerve is stimulated” or, “I love the sound of your voice?”

On one hand, the message of reconciliation with God is beyond words.  How do we explain something that is so completely unnatural for us?  How do we explain God’s grace and love, His willingness to forgive?  There are words for that even though we may not fully understand it.  But what else can we expect when we attempt to explain infinite nature of God’s character using our finite words and minds?  Amazingly, as complex as it is, God has made His love and forgiveness understandable by using words.

The beauty of the famous words, “For God so loved the world . . .” does not exist in a vacuum.  There is a long, historical record of God’s interaction with His creation that provides context to those words.  We call that textual documentation the Bible.  It is made up of words.  It accurately describes both the human condition and the heart of God, neither of which can be accurately perceived without the use of carefully chosen words.

This is why it is essential for us to embrace another difficult idea:  that the human authors of the words that make up this historical documentation used the exact words God wanted them to use.  This is important because it assures us that the truths communicated by those words are an accurate description of who God is and what He is like.

Those words provide us with an understanding that is our source of hope.  They provide comfort when we are brokenhearted, disillusioned, and discouraged.  In fact, most of the words used by the psalmists are sourced in our common dilemma of human anxiety.  These words of anxiety also conclude with a confession of trust: “It doesn’t make sense to me, God, but I’m not God and You are good - so I will trust You” (Graham’s version).  That trust is only valid, though, if we are able to understand the nature and character of  God.  For that, we have words.  

We can use words to express to God the condition of our own hearts.  Obviously He knows that, yet He wants us to use words directed to Him.  Sometimes words fail and we regress to a grunts-only form of communication.  It doesn’t matter.  God also hears and understands those.  

Grammar is good.  God is good-er (sorry - but you get my point).  Express your heart to Him.  He hears, He understands, He cares, with or without words.