This month I am addressing an issue with last month’s posting.
“Honey, what does kerygmatic mean?” asked my wife-with-a-Ph.D. over breakfast in reference to last month’s article. Oops; I realized I have some explaining to do… to everyone.
When I use such words, I am really just trying to share with you the instruction that I received from someone else in turn. I am imitating St. Paul when he says, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.” (1 Corinthians 15:3a) I apologize for doing this thoughtlessly; I just forget sometimes (especially when I am in a busy season of ministry) that not everyone knows those words and they should be explained. Kerygma is the New Testament word for “preach,” “declare,” or “proclaim.” In church we call something kerygmatic when it proclaims what God has done or is doing. Confession is kerygmatic (or proclamative) because the pastor’s job is not to forgive anyone’s sin, but to proclaim to them that God does so… if they will only trust God to do it!
Technical words can be a bit of a pain, but sometimes they are unavoidable. The modern notion that anything true can or ought to be able to be explained in a simple way is simply a falsehood. When I go to my auto mechanic or talk to Deacon Michael about masonry, I am constantly confronted with words I did not know before, but are essential for explaining what is wrong with my car or how to complete my home improvement project. Believe me, a few weeks ago I had no idea what 2B stone was or how it was different from any other bunch of rocks!
It is no different around a church, because God uses the Church to do something He does not do anywhere else; save human beings from sin, death, and the devil. Just as a special ops soldier or a brain surgeon is engaged in something special and so has a specialized vocabulary to do it, so the Church has special words to describe what goes on in her life… because those things aren’t happening anywhere else!
Around the Church you will hear words you don’t hear anywhere else, words like justification, Parousia, Eucharist, hypostases, sanctification, sin-offering, agape, and catechism. Take the word propitiation for instance; I wish I could tell you that you can get by without knowing what it means, but it is central to some of the most important and encouraging verses of the Bible, like 1 John 2:2. “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:1–2, ESV) The Eerdman’s Bible Dictionary notes that this Biblical word is also translated as expiation (hardly an improvement, right?), and means “The restoration of the relationship between God and human beings through some act of atonement.” Don’t know what atonement means? Think of “repayment through sacrifice,” and you are getting the idea.
See how quickly the waters get deep? I wish we pastors could make it simpler and eliminate all the specialized words in the Bible, but we cannot because simplifying concepts always screws up their meaning…
either a little or a lot. A generation ago Christians stopped talking about sin and started talking about human “brokenness,” and now people have gotten the impression that God is primarily their cosmic therapist rather than the One who “will come again to judge the living and the dead.” While it is true that God wants us to get well spiritually, the Great Physician cannot heal us if we don’t accept His judgment of our sin so that we do not cling to it thinking, “God just wants me to be happy.”
So, when you read a word you don’t know in a book or hear me or Deacon Michael use a word you don’t know, please don’t get frustrated; we are all here to learn together. (Not so long ago I didn’t know any prayer but the Lord’s Prayer and I could not have named four Gospels to save my life—ask my wife to hear the amusing stories of our dating years!) Even Deacon Michael and I are learning new things about God and the Christian life every day too… and it is our privilege to learn alongside you and from you, sharing freely what we have already learned with you.