What Makes Language so Important?

As a linguist people question me why language is so important. Or, why I care so much that it is spoken correctly. I took some time to prayerfully ponder, what is language and what makes it so powerful? We all agree that words can truly hurt. "Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Lie. The fact of the matter is there are several amazing things involved with language, and they are all centered on why we speak.

In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, it says that God spoke the world into existence. If we take a minute to ponder that, Wow! God spoke that into existence, but how? What are words? The issue is that when we speak sounds are transferred from one cavity and out of our mouths; those same sounds are then understood by another person and somehow sense is made by what is being said through the way we employ our language.

By now the reader is thinking, what is the point? The true issue is all based in a couple of passages. In John 1:1-2, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was with God in the beginning" Word here is a very special idea.

First of all notice, that the word "Word" is capitalized, and when it is referred to in verse two in no longer is described by a neuter subject pronoun "it," but now one refers to "Word" as the masculine subject pronoun "He." The point being that He, Christ, is Word. He is the Word of God and has been since the beginning of time. He is the Word made flesh fulfilling all prophecies ever created in the Old Testament.

All of that explains why in Spanish the direct translation of word, would be palabra. However, the word "el Verbo" (word, but in the sense of verb) is employed so we see the action of what Christ is. The second and more impressive issue is where the word "Word" comes from.

In the Greek, Word (in this situation) means logos (the other word which Paul could have used was mythos, but that has more of a context of myths: untrue stories to explain major events). Logos means meaning, understanding, and order. Therefore, what is Christ to us? He is our structure, the very thing we use to get through the day. He gives meaning to our thoughts and he gives understanding to our words.

Now that we know what Christ means in terms of language we can place other things into the same system of thinking. We can stop cursing and speaking words that do not edify, because the meaning of the words we speak should do nothing but edify Christ since He gives those very words meaning.

It is understood that much like the English language nowadays is spoken throughout the world as the lingua franca, Greek was spoken throughout the Eastern Roman Empire (what was the Byzantine Empire) and Latin throughout the Western Roman Empire.

Therefore we can assume that Christ also knew Greek, in fact, all people raised in that area were able to converse in Greek. So, what does Christ mean when He says in Revelation, "I am Alpha and Omega, beginning and end." (Revelation 1:8).

He means He is Beginning and End of every thought, because he is referring to the lingua franca, the common language of the time, Greek. Alpha being the first letter of the alphabet and Omega being the last allows us to realize he is everywhere: in every word, thought and idea. God is language, He is Word and He is Spirit