Obviously there is truth to that when we look at dialects.
Definition of dialect from dictionary.com: Linguistics. a variety of a language that is distinguished from other varieties of the same language by features of phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, and by its use by a group of speakers who are set off from others geographically or socially.
We understand that. If you have ever listened to a Cajun speak then you know that there is at least one different dialect that is specific to the US. Think of a native from Maine conversing with a Cajun. I'd like to be a fly on the wall listening in. (Yuck! Be a FLY! - there's got to be another way. I may have to stop using that phrase.)
Anyway... different languages. Language within language.
An adaptation of the above definition for dialect : A variety of a language that is hard to distinguish from others because the words sound the same and often the context within which we use the same word makes them seem the same. It is truly distinguishable only when all the different aspects of it's meaning are looked at and then the conversers realize that they aren't saying the same thing at all. They are each speaking in their own personal dialect.
When I'm in the room with my Normal (?) American speaking friends all this doesn't matter...RIGHT??? Not. It does matter.
Let's say I use the word salvation in my conversation. Does the person on the other side of the room know that to me that means more than just that point when I gave my life to Christ? Does that other know that out of my experience that word has come to include the process of healing and deliverance that will, hopefully, in the end, accomplish the complete saving of my soul? To another it means more simply, that you accepted Christ as your savior and will enter heaven when you leave here. Perhaps you would use the word sanctification where I use the word salvation and in my language it is "receiving Christ as savior and His gift of eternal life" and is only the very starting point of one's salvation.
To someone else that word could have even more different meaning.
Here at work, when I ask one of the accountants for an explanation of something I have to be sure that I and she are speaking the same language - they use different words for some of the same things. Their priorities are different than mine.
Language barriers.
In the room with us all the time.
My husband and I have language barriers just because he is a Redemptive Gift Prophet and I am a Redemptive Gift Teacher. And if you don't know what that is then I am speaking incomprehensibly to you. Or maybe you have heard the same teaching but you don't know that when I say RD Teacher (or whatever) that I am not meaning a person who in all ways is just like the description that has been offered of that gift. You may not know that I am taking into consideration many other things about that life that would create a variation that is what makes a person unique among us all.
We and our children and our children with each other have language barriers that make it hard for us to come together as family at this time.
Language barriers will not go away. The filters in our souls are unique to us. God displays his totality in our diversity. God forbid that we should all be just alike. I don't think he's going to let it happen much less make it happen. I believe that it is and always will be a fact of communitiy. A friction designed to be that iron sharpening iron process. We are body parts designed to do many different functions and we cannot be just alike. But we must have some way to get past these language barriers so that we can see more clearly how Jesus is expressing himself in each of us to bring about a complete expression of himself in this earth.
For Larry and I this understanding of ourselves as "Prophet" and "Teacher" is a bedrock of communication. Well, isn't Jesus enough? Evidently not - at least not in our personal history. Just before we heard the teachings by Arthur Burk our language barriers had won the day. Our communication was "hey, how was your day". "Fine - add a few details." "What do you want for supper". TV and/or computer time followed. There was safety in TV in those days. We couldn't talk about God, etc. without getting mad at each other because we each had a different view of things and was tired of the other saying that we were wrong.
But just having that understanding was not enough. We have also learned to converse. And converse. And converse. We will take the same subject and talk it over and over and over even over the course of years sometimes as God brings new information to us and matures us to new degrees. Conversing with each other with an understanding of who the other is and what influences the other's life brings to the conversation has contributed greatly to the "saving" of us and the increase of our ability to be lifegiving to others. Being reconciled to one another through real-time understanding of who God created us to be in this earth allows us to jump the communication barriers.
My heart's desire and prayer is that in days, months, years, decades to come the Body of which I am a part will find it's own key to overcoming language barriers. We are diverse for a reason and I believe, as I said, that it is so God can fully reveal himself in this earth. He is too big for anyone of us - it takes all of us.
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