Hammer on Anvil '

Adjectives are words that describe something.  A person can be old or young, short or tall, nice or mean, silly or serious, etc.  Objects can be red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or purple, and they can be square, circular, or triangular.

When we look at the adjectives that describe people, we find that many of them are subjective; they only work when the person being described can be compared to other people.  When you call a person tall, you’re not truly saying that they are tall; you are saying that they are tall compared to others.  If they were not taller than others, you would not describe them as tall.  This is the case of many (but not all) of the adjectives that we use to describe ourselves.

There are a few points I want to make with this.

Firstly, God gives everyone gifts and He delights in variety.  If you want to know of several ways that God delights in you, simply compile a list of adjectives about yourself.  Some people are funny, witty, and popular.  Others may be shy, smart, and introverted.  These traits are neither good nor bad.  God uses all of them and He delights in all of them.

Picture a scale with one trait on one end and its opposite on the other end (i.e. short/tall, serious/silly, introverted/extroverted).  God didn’t make us all the same.  That would be boring and we’d probably drive each other crazy.  God took all of those scales and he chose what would make up you – the unique combination that would make you special.

We sometimes look at these traits that God has given us and assign values to them.  Maybe we think it’s better to be tall than short or better to be popular than shy.  But God doesn’t view it that way.  He doesn’t make anything second rate.  To illustrate my point, consider Down Syndrome.  Many people consider Down Syndrome to be some horrible disease, but you know what?  I don’t know that I have ever seen a person with Down Syndrome who was not smiling.  I wish to God that I was that happy.  What a blessing.

My second point is this: since adjectives are used to compare ourselves to others, we need to be cautious that we do not become prideful.  We all have some trait or skill that exceeds other people.  If you want to keep your pride in check, just change who you’re comparing yourself to.  Instead of comparing yourself to others, compare yourself to God.  Now what adjectives can be used to describe you?  Certainly nothing flattering.

Lastly, there are some adjectives that don’t require comparisons.  You can describe a tomato as red without comparing it to a carrot.  When these adjectives are used with people, they describe our shared humanity.  We have all been sad, afraid, worried, and defeated and we have all been happy, courageous, calm, and victorious.  We need to never forget that we are all God’s children.  We are all sinful and need Jesus Christ.

Who knew that there was so much we could learn from a single type of word?

Did you know that words actually have two meanings? They are denotative and connotative. The denotative meaning is what we normally think of when we consider the meaning of a word. It is what you would find if you looked the word up in the dictionary – its literal meaning.

Then there is the connotative meaning. This is essentially the emotional meaning that we attach to words. The advertising industry pays very close attention to connotative meanings because it affects how we react to an advertisement. The term “Buy 2 and get both at 50% off” means the same thing as “Buy 1 get 1 free,” but the second term gets more buyers. Why? Because we react to the word free. It evokes an emotional response from us that make us feel as if we are getting a good deal. Also, consider the term “used car” as opposed to “pre-owned vehicle.” Which one sounds nicer to you? Used car sounds kind of dirty in the sense of a used tissue. Pre-owned, in contrast, has none of that negative connotation. Using the tissue comparison, it’s like somebody owned the tissue before us, but they didn’t use it, so it is therefore still nice.

A lot of the words in the Bible have strong connotative meanings. The words often play on extremes. For example, God is described as the most high (Psalm 47:2) and king of kings (Revelation 19:16) while Satan is described as the father of all lies (John 8:44) and the ruler of this age (2 Corinthians 4:4). You can’t get any higher than most high and you can’t get any lower than the father of all lies. These are extremes.

But extremes aren’t the only words with strong connotative meanings. Consider these words that are common in the Bible: grace, love, peace, righteousness, mercy, freedom, joy, forgiveness, salvation, etc. We look at these words and it can be easy to translate them into a connotative meaning. Good. These things are good. And consider these words that are common in the Bible: persecuted, sin, trials, judgment, suffering, deceitfulness, death, etc. Bad. These words are bad.

So what’s my point?

Good question. I got to thinking about denotation and connotation the other day when I was reading the Bible. You see, I started to zone off when I was reading. I was still reading the words, but they weren’t truly registering. When I zoned back in, it occurred to me that I had been reading only connotatively. That is, I had absolutely no idea what I had just read, but I still had a residual feeling about its connotative meaning.

But the thing is, if I want to truly understand Scripture, I have to get past the connotations. I have to dig deeper into the true meaning of what is being communicated. It can become so temptingly easy sometimes to just gloss over the Word and replace it with connotations. Instead of reading “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23a), we translate in our heads to “the fruit of the spirit is good stuff, more good stuff, blah, blah, blah, and more good stuff.” When we do this, we rob the Bible of its meaning. We should be looking at each word and their individual meanings in an effort to “examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

I say this to hopefully make you aware of something that you may not have even known is happening. All of us who read the Bible probably do this from time to time to some extent. Being aware of it should make you better prepared to confront it the next time it happens.