I have read through the Sermon on The Mount more times than any other part of the Bible. The teaching and the thinking are so rich and revolutionary, it beckons me when I need a good lesson on thinking more about God’s Kingdom than my own. This particular time, I was using “The Message” translation, which brought to life a familiar verse. Here is Matthew 5:34 according to “The Message.”
“You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ and never doing it, or saying, ‘God be with you,’ and not meaning it. You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.”
I know this verse is usually applied to swearing and making oaths, but it did get me thinking about some of the frivolous religious phrases we use in the Church. It seems so often we cloak our feelings in spiritual platitudes and wonder why the world views us as inauthentic. In the spirit of truth and authenticity, here are a few such phrases we should cut from our conversations.
- “Quiet Time:” If you were praying, say you were praying. If you were reading the Bible, say so. If you were singing at the top of your lungs and it wasn’t so quiet, let others know about it in those words. Why have we turned our time with God into a ritual with an obscure and silly name. In Heaven, we’re going to be raising hands and voices to God and it will be everything but quiet, why make it that way on Earth?
- “The Holy Spirit has laid something on my heart:” Sounds painful. You might want to go the hospital immediately and make sure that’s not a tumor. First of all, before you make a statement like that, you need to make sure you’re not blaming your personal anxiety on God. Second, just be clear. Say you think God wants you to do it, or that God is showing you the importance of something. Why all this weirdness with laying a heavy burden on your heart of hearts?
- “My walk with The Lord:” Where did we get this one? If you have a relationship with Christ, call it a relationship. If you’re struggling, instead of saying your walk is bad, say you don’t feel close to God anymore. If you’re getting better, say you’re praying more and getting to know Christ more. Don’t say, “My walk is improving.” Your walk should only be improving if you recently broke your leg and are recovering.
- “Ask Jesus into your heart:” Again with the hearts. Aside from the fact that this oft-repeated phrase is found nowhere in the Bible, it’s kind of confusing to an outside observer. Why cloak it? If you want Jesus to take control of your life, then say that. If you realize that you are completely deficient and that you need the life-changing love of God in your life then say it. Instead of saying “I asked Jesus into my heart when I was a teenager” tell your story. You’re missing an opportunity to be real with someone just so you can sound like you know the right words.
- “Prayer Life:” You have your real life, and then you have a prayer life? Is that kind of like Second Life? How about being honest. “I’m having a hard time praying lately” or, “I’ve started getting better about praying and it is really helping me.” Pray throughout your life, in good times and bad. Don’t make some loony separation like prayer isn’t real.
- “I’ve been so blessed:” I’m sure you have. But let’s not use this to talk about your new car, or your $400,000 house. Jesus says the meek, mournful and spiritually poor are blessed. If you’re thinking that new yacht of yours is a blessing, you wouldn’t want to be truly blessed by God, because His blessings tend to have eternal benefit, not monetary or material benefit.
- “Love Offering:” As opposed to a hate offering? Or did you want a giant group hug instead of money?
- “Spiritual Journey:” Again, we’re compartmentalizing. Christ did not come to change one aspect of our lives, but our whole lives. There is no such thing as a spiritual journey, the phrase you’re looking for is, “my life.”
- Small Group: Is it a Bible study? Call it that. is it a Sunday school class? Call it that. Are you hanging out with a group of friends discussing your shared faith? Call it that. “Small Group” is vague and connotes shame.
- Being Fed: Someone once asked my wife and I how we were being fed. Knowing my wife was not familiar with the term, I quickly answered the question and talked about the church we were attending and the role it was playing in improving our relationship with God. I wanted to say, “Well, we’re still in college, so the food is pretty cheap. If we eat at all, it is of prison quality.”
- Intentional: To be perfectly honest, I don’t even remember what we mean by “being intentional” anymore. I suspect it has something to do with making every move and comment relate somehow to “witnessing.”
Honerable Mentions:
- Saved
- “Take every thought captive”
- “Held in His hand”
- Hedge of protection
Got anymore? Add them by commenting.
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Although there is merit in the above humor, aren’t you glad that God is a God of grace. We often use cliche’s to communicate God’s truths to others. These can be challenging to someone who is not familiar with our language or our particular list of cliches.
I grew up in a church that advocated, “Where the Scriptures speak, we speak and where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent.” They were also concerned about using Bible words and not using words that weren’t in the Bible.
As I wrote Getting To Know Jesus, I tried to avoid cliches and terms that weren’t found in the Bible. I don’t know if I was totally successful, but I did try.
Go to http://www.gettingtoknowjesus.org and learn about how you can build an even more passionate, personal and powerful relationship with Jesus Christ by studying His complete life and teachings. If you find any cliches or vague terms, let me know and I’ll work on a revised edition.
Another cliche that annoys me is this whole god figure. I mean, he clearly doesn’t exist. Why would a graceful and loving god create a world stricken with poverty, death, homicide, homophobia, genocide, torture, animal cruelty, disease, deformities, witch burning, crusades, ethnic cleansing, castration, those annoying boogers that stick inside your nose and can’t be blown out, tonsils, vestigial limbs, pedophiles… I mean, it’s god, it made the whole thing knowing what would happen right down to the last atom placement, supposedly. Seems awfully unintelligent and quite frankly evil to do this.
I like your list. A few of the items are harmless in my mind, such as “being fed” or “my walk with the Lord.” Others are more of a problem, such as “asking Jesus into my heart.” I had to re-teach my children many times that the way to become a Christian is through faith in Jesus Christ, not by asking him into one’s heart. I need to put my faith in Christ because I am a sinner and need a savior. “Asking Jesus into the heart” doesn’t have a firm Biblical foundation, and is often presented as something we need to do so Jesus will be our lifelong buddy, not because we have offended a holy God.
The phrase “The Holy Spirit has laid something on my heart” is used far too widely and thoughtlessly in the church. Has he really? Usually that is just another way we Christians have of saying “it seems to me that…”
A phrase I would add: “Spiritual warfare.”
Anon has obviously spent too much time reading Dawkins et al. The “New Atheists” don’t have the slightest idea what they are talking about. Even other atheists are embarrassed by these sorts of arguments.
Kevin,
Thanks for your comment.
I wish I had thought of “Spiritual warfare” that’s a good one, although the misuse of that concept is probably worthy of its own blog entry.
[...] 24, 2009 The real.faith blog has a post on the Top 10 cliches that should be excommunicated from the [...]
Jul 24, 2009 at 7:52 am* DO WHAT THE LORD TELLS YOU TO DO TODAY BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT THE devil MIGHT HAVE IN STORE FOR YOU TOMMOROW*!!!!!!!
Jasmine,
Were you adding a phrase or making a threat?