Resources/Articles
Building Holy Vocabulary
What word could be used to describe the temple and palace complex built by King Solomon? While teaching a Wednesday night Bible class, I came up with one: “It was...splendiferous.” I noticed a friend of mine who was in attendance began chuckling. “Did you just make that word up on the spot?” she asked afterward. “Yes, I think I did. But it worked, didn’t it?” Over a year later, I was reading a story where a man visiting a major publisher’s office in Britain was escorted into a “splendiferous conference room.” I laughed out loud and for the first time bothered to look the word up. “Splendiferous (adj.): splendid; magnificent; fine.” At last I was vindicated! I had no idea where it came from at the time, but during that class the word came to my mind and I used it correctly. At some point I had read it, picked up on its meaning from the context, and my brain stored it away for a time when I might need to conjure up a one-word summary for King Solomon’s royal architecture.
This is how most of us build up a working vocabulary. Most of us don’t develop a knowledge of words by reading the dictionary cover to cover. We do it by reading and discovering meanings by the sound of a word, its similarity to other words we know, and the word’s relationship to its context. If you are reading your Bible, you have to do this all the time. Even in translation, God’s word is filled with far-off places, foreign names, and holy concepts that we do not encounter any other place in our daily lives. Sometimes you have to stop and look a word up. Many times you are able to get the gist of things from the context. Over time, you build up a holy vocabulary. And you should. Some things are worth talking about. God is worth talking about most, and He deserves enough of our attention and admiration that we should go looking for words to fill out our sense of HIs awesomeness, especially if they are given to us already in Scripture.
Last Sunday we began our worship with two hymns, “How Great Thou Art” and “Night, With Ebon Pinion.” There are some big words in those songs! Ask a third grader to explain just the titles for you. The first is archaic. Why not revise it to be “You Are So Great” so we can be sure everyone understands what is being sung? And “Night with ebon pinion / brooded o’er the vale”? Forget it! I had to have that one explained to me at some point. But if it has to be explained, why bother? Can’t we just say, “It was a dark and windy night / In the garden, Jesus was crying and praying”? We could, if we decided that saying something indirectly with beauty and depth was a worthless enterprise. But given that a big portion of God’s holy word is delivered by way of poetry, parable, and symbolism, I wouldn’t recommend it. It is worthwhile to use exalted language when we are learning about exalted things. I grew up listening to men pray in King James English, their petitions filled with Thees and Thous and Thines, ready recollections and whithersoevers. I might not have always been able to explain to you what the phrases meant, but over time they taught me that you talk to God like you talk to no one else.
Worship is a context where we should build a vocabulary that is about God and godly things. “Set your minds on things that are above” (Colossians 3:2a), things described to us in adornments of chrysolite, beryl, chrysoprase, and jacinth. Higher words are the building blocks of higher thinking. “Apply your heart to instruction, and your ear to words of knowledge” (Proverbs 23:12). It will surprise you what your mind can comprehend and store away for a time when you are searching for words you know to tell Him what an awesome God He is.
