Christians Must Speak God’s Word Plainly, Unashamedly

I believe in plain-spoken, Biblical language because I see God commanding this. For example, in Romans 10:17, St. Paul tells us: “So then faith Cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Thus, if Christians are not preaching God’s Word—but, instead, are babbling incessantly about “values” and “traditions” and being (ugh!) “people of faith”—then God’s Word is not being preached. Faith will not come. People will not be saved.

Commenting on this passage, starting at verse 12, Matthew Henry says, in part:

“The beginning, progress, and strength of faith, are by hearing. The Word of God is therefore called the Word of faith: it begets and nourishes faith. God gives faith, but it is by the Word as the instrument. Hearing (that hearing which works faith) is by the Word of God. It is not hearing the enticing words of man’s wisdom, but hearing the Word of God, that will befriend faith, and hearing It as the Word of God.”

See 1 Thessalonians 2:13.

In 1 Cor. 15:33, God says: “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.” Regarding this passage, beginning at verse 20, Henry observes, again in part:

The apostle closes his argument with a caution, exhortation, and reproof. A caution against the dangerous conversation of bad men, men of loose lives and principles: Be not deceived, says he; evil communications corrupt good manners.... Note, bad company and conversation are likely to make bad men. Those who would keep their innocence must keep good company. Error and vice are infectious: and, if we would avoid the contagion, we must keep clear of those who have taken it. He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. Proverbs 13:20.

For Christians to speak their own words—within the context in which I am writing here—and not God’s Word, is evil communication.

The Further Testimony of Matthew Henry

In Matthew 5:37, God says: “But let your communication be. Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” Says Henry: (5.) “That therefore in all our communications we must content ourselves with. Yea, yea, and nay, nay, v. 37. in ordinary discourse, if we affirm a thing, let us only say, Yea, it is so; and, if need be, to evidence our assurance of a thing, we may double it, and say. Yea, yea, indeed it is so: Verily, verily, was our Saviour’s yea, yea. So if we deny a thing, let suffice to say. No; or if it be requisite, to repeat the denial, and say, No, no; and if our fidelity be known, that will suffice to gain us credit; and if it be questioned, to back what we say with swearing and cursing, is but to render it more suspicious. They who can swallow a profane oath, will not strain at a lie....

“The reason is observable; For whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil, though it do not amount to the iniquity of an oath. It comes ek tou Diabolou; so an ancient copy has it: it comes from the Devil, the evil one; it comes from the corruption of men’s nature, from passion and vehemence; from a reigning vanity in the mind, and a contempt of sacred things: it comes from that deceitfulness which is in men. All men are liars; therefore, men use these protestations, because they are distrustful one of another, and think they cannot be believed without them. Note, Christians should, for the credit of their religion, avoid not only that which is in itself evil, but that which cometh of evil, and has the appearance of it. That may be suspected as a bad thing, which comes from a bad cause.”

In Matthew 10:27, God commands: “What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.” Matthew Henry says that this means: “(7) what I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light (v. 27); whatever hazards you run, go on with your work, publishing and proclaiming the everlasting gospel to all the world; that is your business, mind that. The design of the enemies is not merely to destroy you, but to suppress that, and, therefore, whatever be the consequence, publish that. What I tell you, that speak ye.

“Note, that which the apostles have delivered to us is the same that they received from Jesus Christ, Heb. 2:3. They spoke what He told them—that, all that, and nothing but that. Those ambassadors received their instructions in private, in darkness, in the ear, in corners, in parables. Many things Christ spake openly, and nothing in secret varying from what he preached in public, John 18:20. But the particular instructions which He gave His disciples after His resurrection, concerning the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, were whispered in the ear. Acts 1:3, for then He never showed Himself openly. But they must deliver their embassy publicly, in the light, and upon the house-tops; for the doctrine of the gospel is what all are concerned in, Proverbs 1:20-21; 8:2-3; therefore he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. The first indication of the reception of the Gentiles into the church, was upon a house-top, Acts 10:9. Note, there is no part of Christ’s gospel that needs, upon any account, to be concealed; the whole counsel of Cod must be revealed. Acts 20:27. In never so mixed a multitude let it be plainly and fully delivered.”

And in Acts 26:26, St. Paul says:

For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner.

Says Matthew Henry, in part: “[St. Paul] appeals to Agrippa concerning what he spoke (v. 26): For the king knows of these things, concerning Christ, and his death and resurrection, and the prophecies of the Old Testament, which had their accomplishment therein. He therefore spoke freely before him, who knew these were no fancies, but matters of fact, knew something of them, and therefore would he willing to know more: For I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; no, not that which he had related concerning his own conversion, and the commission he had received to preach the gospel. Agrippa could not but have heard of it, having been so long conversant among the Jews. This thing was not done in a corner; all the country rang of it; and any of the Jews present might have witnessed for him that they had heard it many a time from others, and therefore it was unreasonable to censure him as a distracted man for relating it, much more for speaking of the death and resurrection of Christ, which was so universally spoken of. Peter tells Cornelius and his friends (Acts 10.:37), That word you know which was published throughout all Judea concerning Christ; and therefore Agrippa could nor be ignorant of it, and it was a shame for Festus that he was so.”

The Testimony of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

In a book by Harold Stahmer, titled Speak That I May See Thee! The Religious Significance of Language (Macmillan, 1968), there is a chapter about Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, a man whose work has had an important impact on the thinking of Dr. Rushdoony. Born in 1888 in Berlin, ERH is described as one who became a Christian at 16 years of age and one who “gnawed continually on the bone of language,” being appropriately hailed throughout Europe as Der Sprachdenker—“the Speech Thinker.”

As Stahmer tells it, for ERH and those who were associated with a group he was, in known as “The Patmos Circle “ (1915-1923), the problem of their age was, as it had been for St. John in his time, a speech problem. And “this problem was characterized by an absence of real personal encounter, together with a lack of a common language able to bridge the cultural and academic compartmentalization which prevailed not only in academic circles but at every level of European and, especially, German culture.”

But, ERH was, as a Christian, dead set against this. Says Stahmer: “He was determined that any commitment he should make would not result in departmentalization—in an isolation of his energies in any single area, whether politics, religion, or scholarship. The time was behind him when he could view life categorically in terms of recognized divisions and compartments. In the trenches he had experienced the breakdown of the civilization that included these three intellectual pillars.”

Stahmer quotes ERH as observing, in an assertion as relevant today as when he first uttered it, perhaps more so: “The professors seemed as wanting as the princes, the ministers of the Word as secluded as their laity, the makers of political constitutions and of party platforms as unaware of the judgment of God upon our world as blind masses.” Stahmer says—and, again, this sounds as current as reading today’s newspapers or watching T V “news”—that for ERH the complete breakdown of the German language between 1933 and 1939 was, in the words, of ERH , “one of the speediest and most radical events of all times in the field of mind and speech.” Reflecting on this breakdown, ERH remained more convinced than ever that “... the science of this lifeblood of society [i.e., language] should... be exalted to the rank of social research.” Stahmer says that ERH presents speech “as the means whereby men become conscious of their variety and at the same time aware that it is speech which provides the clue and means to healing the rifts between men and creating a viable, healthy society.” And he favored submitting to the approach of St. John, with such an approach providing a means of overcoming (and do we need this today!—J.L.) “the difficulties created by those who insist upon rigid, often absolute distinctions between sacred and secular concerns.”

For those who inflexibly separated sacred/secular concerns, Stahmer says ERH believed the answer to this problem re: the question about the place and nature of God was a simple one. The answer was within a Johannine setting. He quotes ERH as saying: “The power who puts questions into our mouths and makes us answer them is our God. The living God thus revealed by Jesus must be forever distinguished from the merely conceptual God of philosophers. Most atheists deny God because they look for him in the wrong way. He is not an object, but a person, and He is not a concept but a Name. To approach him as an object of theoretical discussion is to defeat the quest from the start. Nobody can look at God as an object. God looks at us and has looked at us before we open our eyes or mouths. He is the power which makes us speak. He puts words on our lips.”

“Speak That I May See Thee!”

What a wonderful title.

What do people hear and see when you speak? Do they hear and see a Christian, speaking the Word of God? I hope so. Because God is also listening and watching. And He tells us that when we stand before Him, we will give an account for “every idle word” (Mt. 12:36).