Learning New Vocabulary a Few Words at a Time
- Thread starter CPerkins
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Excellent topic to study!!!
God's Grace is like trying to grasp why God loves us........NO ONE KNOWS!
In His grace, God is willing to forgive us and bless us abundantly, in spite of the fact that we don’t deserve to be treated so well or dealt with so generously.
I would agree words inspired have a meaning applied we must be careful how we hear or say we hear God. Change the meaning of one word it can destroy the authors intents like in Plagerism and violate the first comandment .
It would appear that the Holy Spirit has set up his armor for us to put on and keep on in order to protect the integrity of His living abiding word . In Deuteronmy 4 the warning of a single word not to add or subtract and at the end of the book of prophecy Revelation 22, a warning in respect to the whole or perfect .
The first use of grace was with Abel .Abel's suffering work was made lighter because he was yoked with favor (Christ) . Cain had no faith, Christ working favor again with Abel the power to perfrom coming from God not seen. Abel the first recorded member of the bride of Christ the church he is also the first apotle to be martyred because the favor of God worked with in in him .
Thanks for the reply. It is great to see you jump in and to get your perspective.
God's word explains the meanings of many words this was how God gave me understanding to begin with. It is my preferred approach to any study of God's word. I'm learning various theological concepts in attempt to better understand what someone means when they say things like "means of grace."
In conversations it is easy to assume that words have the same meanings to all participants in a conversation. I've found though that is often not the case. So for me, even when I approach bible study I make notes of many questions. I then look to the context for answers and to lexicons for answers to meanings of specific words in their original languages. Many of my studies are topical these days.
Looking at grace and the "means of grace" is an example of how different meanings have been applied to common words and concepts.
cp
means of grace to me brings up right away Catholic sacramentalism, which to me is not biblical at all!
So as we discussed before this concept "means of grace" is used in reformed theology and catholic theology with different meanings. In both cases I did see emphasis on sacraments as the means of grace.
I agree the emphasis on sacraments as the "means of grace" which is defined by at least some as the ways grace is communicated or received by us, doesn't have any biblical support. We communicate with God through prayer, the Holy Spirit any other means that God chooses. God works primarily through the Holy Spirit within us.
cp
I wouldn't worry about it if you don't attend a catholic or reformed church. I think different churches have different lingo for things a it becomes their 'jargon' and not really known by outsiders. But it's the same with workplaces, but a bit worse because they have acronyms. So eg in the bookshop the manager keeps going on about a COT order and I'm thinking..uh, what? Baby cribs? But no it stands for Central Operations Transaction. Or something like that.
You are correct! I thought the very same thing my brother. Scary isn't it???
I tend to agree for the most part, though when you get involved in conversations over the internet you often have a vague idea or no idea of what denomination someone is part of.
Having been an accountant and studied sciences, I agree that vocabulary is created often to confuse outsiders. I find it humorous when you look at the meanings of many scientific names that sound difficult having come from Latin, Greek or other languages. A dinosaur name might mean three toed animal but it's in Latin so the general public doesn't understand what is being said.
cp
A lot of latin names in botany, though most people only know the common names.
I'm more of a gardener than a botanist, though its helpful to distinguish between different plants, it wouldn't be something I refer to everyday assuming everyone would know!
Though I think with catholics because their Bible was only in latin for so long, the words have taken on new meanings. Latin is totally different from the Greek. I did find it hard to discuss on spiritual matters with catholics, not really knowing what a novena is or rosaries or vespers or catechisms and other stuff like that. That is totally unique to their form of religion. A devotion to a catholic is something different to what devotion means to non catholics.