Follow the Verbs: An Alphabet of Life

“Ever since the Greeks, we have been drunk with language! We have made a cage with our words and shoved our God inside.”

Morris West

What if verbs lead to wisdom but we prefer adjectives and nouns?

The world is a mess. People are crazy. I am fat. He is annoying.

Thanks to Alexander the Great, and his philosophical tutors, most of the world dances to an ancient Greek tune. For instance, when we search for the bottom line, or pin an opponent with adjectives, or raise our voices to defend a favorite noun, we reveal our philosophical bent.

Bullet points and lists, categories and tables, statistics and flow charts both comfort and frighten, but do we question their right to be heard? Truth is what I see, what I can poke, what can be factually proven…or is it?

It is, if you’re balancing your checkbook.

But the Bible speaks from an ancient Hebrew, verb-oriented point of view. Our Greek-smeared lenses can confound our reading, especially in the Old Testament. But there is another lens. Notice the difference:

Hebrew………….Greek

• Active……………………………..Passive
• Concrete…………………………Abstract
• Substance……………………….Outward appearance
• Experience………………………Explanation
• Functional……………………….Philosophical
• Right Conduct………………….Right Thinking
• A God-soaked world…………A human-centered world
• Descriptive……………………….Didactic

Verbs or Nouns: An Example

In one sentence, tell me about your neighbor.

Which answer compels you to meet her? Which answer better informs?

One could say that Hebrew reveals rather than theorizes, and speaks to the heart more than the head. And the language is literally rooted in verbs. Modern minds search the Bible for doctrine, creeds, proof texts, and conclusions…

…and, what do we find instead?

The Great Reveal

We find a dynamic, plot-driven narrative, a deep, grounded reveal of a Way that leads to Life, where Truth is a Person, and Hope plants its seeds in the darkest of days.

Before our eyes, mountains quake, waters roar, trees clap their hands, rocks cry out, and the sun stands still. We watch cowards become heroes, the brave often blunder; the proud and the humble find their positions reversed. And there we are among them all–worse off than we feared, worth more than we imagined, and made for a Joy too good to not be true.

Because, a Love-that-never-fails weaves all together, the good and the ugly, into one grand story, of Glory.

Verbs Hurt

Verbs can make our too-modern brains hurt. Invited to wrestle, mull-over, to chew, puzzle, ponder, or savor, we yearn for something succinct. Yes, nailed-down nouns perform well on a pie chart, but what if wisdom is found in the verbs?

We all have the wiring for a holistic grammar–why not let verbs have their say? In the weeks ahead we will explore the verbal, dynamic heartbeat of the Bible–see you next time with A is for Act Justly, from An Alphabet of Life: Wisdom Learned in the Verbs.