John 1 and the linguaphile had a conversation.
Give me a minute to explain.
Julie Sedivy refers to herself as a linguistic scientist in her book Linguaphile. Like Sedivy, I love words. What struck me was her desire to give scientific quantification – a statistician’s measure – for the following words: pleasure, beauty, paradise, joy, awe, grace, and mystery. Sedivy confesses she is at a loss to quantify the words. I appreciate her candor.
The author then discusses how disembodied language needs to be “anchored” in a body. And I kept thinking,
“I wish I could sit with you and read John 1 together, where The Word, Jesus, becomes flesh.”
The language scientist discovered theological, affective terms that cannot be quantified without Language becoming a Body, a “mystery” all its own according to First Timothy three. Defining words such as joy, beauty, and awe are best defined by biblical theology.
Thanks for spending this minute with me, Dr. Mark Eckel.
Mark Eckel (MA English, ThM Old Testament, PhD Social Science Research) is Executive Director of the Center for Biblical Integration, Liberty University.
“Give Me a Minute” is an ongoing effort to simply, clearly, and quickly explain aspects of true Truth.
Gratitude, as always, to my longtime friend, videographer, and tech guru Josh for his continued service.