We here discuss that anything touching language has something of semantic (variant) meaning to it in society. A student seeking knowledge and a professor communicating information have much going for them to pass on truth/meaning and finding ways to use it to improve life. But wait, the student is of another generation with shifts in culture. The experiences of the student and professor differ so that this is blessed by one factor and another is cursed. It is likely that some important facts or interpretations the professor expounds are not that to which the student is listening. The student hears, but may not listen. The prof speaks, but may not communicate. It is unlikely that the meaning is interpreted quite the same way by either party. Again, the context for each individual will dictate what is spoken and what is registered. One dislikes rain, especially on this day when the rain is drenching. The other likes the rain that is good for crops. One has a headache, the other does not. One is in declining health, the other has energetic health. So the story goes and grows. Inwardly for persons, there are variances, some pleasant, some unpleasant.
Similar scenarios apply between a minister and a congregation, a parent with children, a neighbor with a neighbor. So common is language usage that we take for granted that we are understood, and that if we say it, the matter is complete. In common experience what is said may exacerbate the problem, may confound the situation, may mean something more or less to purpose of good or ill that may not have been meant. As this is being written, there have been several American military officers killed, buildings burned, and riots generated because some Americans burned what they believed was trash. In the trash were portions of the Koran, sacred to the people of Islam. No apology from the president of the United States, nor promise for correction in processes, has helped. Heard, but not listened to. Improvement will be difficult to come by. Christians, highly respectful of Christian Scripture, are not offended when worn or soiled copies of the Bible are disposed of in common process. The differences between the cultures of people can, on violation, prevent solutions, respect, understanding and progress. I have listened to troubled wives and husbands. On occasion, their points of view are so divergent even when both are truthful that there is no way remaining in them by which these marriages will be healed. There could be solutions if the persons would delay final judgment listening to the complexity each is facing. There could be solution, but the personal orientation, without recourse, is placed ahead of careful thought, of change, of prayer, of love.
The true learner keeps careful analysis of self, circumstances, differences, feelings, values, thoughtfulness – all at work to understanding, problem solving, and good will in all. In this we sum it up in wisdom. The more significant the issue, the greater is one’s defense for what he or she feels to be the right way, the right interpretation, and that generating a feeling of personal virtue. Whatever was it in Judas that would take the words of Jesus, and turn them into threat, danger to be met by betrayal, violence and death? Judas did not violate only Jesus, but violated his friends – disciples. They had so trusted him that they made him the treasurer of the team. Jesus set himself free of any management of money. Judas, the team banker, began to see money differently than the others. He missed the mark because he did not first love Jesus, or the brethren. To listen is part of love in its respect of the sender. To disagree to the point of protest requires more than my own opinion and preference. There are rules for the game even in warfare. The fight is supposed to be between commissioned soldiers, and civilians are to be protected. The rule has always been broken, but is more prevalent in the breaking than once it was. We are losing balance even in meeting our own rules. Negative direction may be even worse in our relations with God. That we found to be wrong for centuries, taught from Scripture, we discover God is not wrong. God is not mistaken, and mankind is not the arbiter. There are answers to these knotty problems, but we may be unable to persuade the masses to find the answers. We can be sure that God didn’t make mistakes. We find some answers to human needs in practical and tenacious personal biblical faith and conduct. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020