“LISTENING TO LIFE THROUGH THE BIBLE”
by Dr. Dennis W. Foust
In order to survive and thrive in today’s world, you should grow in multi-lingual understanding.
And, in order to survive and thrive as a person of faith, you should learn how to listen to your life and the life of the world through the various languages used in The Bible. Just as you are constantly communicating with people who speak different languages, you are experiencing a variety of spiritual languages as well.
Communication is the process of:
- Encoding messages and Sending messages
- Receiving messages and Decoding messages
- Interpreting messages and Connecting these interpretations to known data
- Responding by encoding another message, Etc., Etc., Etc.
Sometimes, when you get communication right, clarity results and understanding is realized. Sometimes, when you don’t get it right, dissonance, static and discord happen. We have been created to like peace and harmony better than conflict. In all our communications, we like clarity better than static. And, this clarity should also be true in our communication with The Bible.
The Bible is a collection of various languages humans use to communicate between one another and between themselves and God. The Bible gives you clues as to how your life can be more productive, more successful. As you listen to life through the languages spoken in the Bible, you understand how God communicates with humanity. Most inter-personal and inter-national conflict results when individuals are either unable or unwilling to listen to or understand the languages being spoken so that common values can be determined, and mutual goals defined.
In the Bible, there are more than twenty languages spoken. And, this is not describing Hebrew, Greek or other ancient languages. Each biblical language communicates meanings through words that are often decoded without paying attention to the cultural, theological, ethical, doctrinal, political, institutional, sociological, psychological and philosophical motives behind the words.
The Major Languages in the Bible include:
- HISTORICAL
- SYMBOLICAL
- MYTHICAL
- MISSIONAL
- LAW
- INFORMATIONAL
- WISDOM
- COMEDY
- POETIC
- LAMENT
- PROPHETIC
- GOSPEL
- SILENCE
- NARRATIVE
- PARABOLIC
- METAPHORIC
- BIOGRAPHICAL
- TRANSFORMATIONAL
- SHORT STORY
- INSTRUCTIVE
- COMMUNAL
- PASTORAL
- APOCRYPHAL
- APOCALYPTIC
By listening to life through the Bible, you will be better equipped to differentiate between euphemisms, idioms, syntax, dialects, taboos, obscenities, jargon, advertisements, gobbledygook, semantics, intonations, phonetics, and grammatical structures present within each language.
In order to survive and thrive in today’s world, you should grow in multi-lingual understanding.