What Is a Word, Really?

Zyanya Citlalli (@zonalsublime) | Unsplash Photo Community

I think we sometimes forget that a word is first an idea and then the expression of it. That ink on a page is the way it is captured and conveyed.

Written words are simply containers. Their life is in its source.

My first year at university, I registered for French 101, when I could have studied the German of my ancestors at my high school for free. I wanted to experience something entirely foreign, so I waited. French sounded so, so…romantic, not like the clunky syllables I’d hear my father exchanging with his mother.

And so here I was, sitting in a room with a company of expectant students, ready to receive the book that would teach us French. Through the door burst a grey-haired little lady, chattering away in what sounded like French, and fast.

In the center of the room, she stopped and took a look at us, eyebrows raised, as if she expected us to respond. When all she received were blank stares, she spoke again. This time, just a couple of syllables. A short phrase — something that sounded familiar. “Bonjour, les étudiants.”

A brave young man up front took a chance and responded, “Bonjour.”

Only then did she speak one of the few English sentences we would hear that semester in that room. She told us that when we walked through those doors, it was as if we were in France, and we were expected to speak as the French do.

The texts she reluctantly distributed were hardly helpful, and the creators of Babbel, Duolingo, and YouTube had yet to be born, I fear.

Some letters of the alphabet, although they seemed the same as those that constructed English words, were pronounced differently. In some cases, we had to learn to speak through our noses.

We had to listen carefully to our teacher’s voice and become familiar with its inflections. Was that an excited exclamation or a huff of exasperation?

We had to read her face.

There, in that room, I had to apply what I already knew.

As a teenager arriving home two hours after curfew, it wasn’t hard for me to discern if “Where have you been?” meant “I’ve been so worried!” or “What in the world have you been up to?” I knew the voice, I knew the face, and more than likely, I was in trouble.

Later, when I was living on my own and I neglected to call my mother, she would call me and I would hear: “Have you forgotten about us?” By the inflection in her voice, I knew there was a smirk on her face, not sadness in her eyes. I also knew that she was not prone to self-pity; I knew how to interpret what she was saying because I knew her.

These days, now that texting has all but replaced telephoning, we are left with little to aid us in decoding our incoming communications, and we have countless opportunities to offend others with our ambiguous phrases — that’s why LOL now has a place in the dictionary.

So, inconvenient as it might seem, there are times when a phone call or a face-to-face meeting can’t be avoided.

And there are times we want nothing less. We want to be fully understood; we want to fully understand. We need to hear the words from the mouth of their source, not hear them from some messenger or read them from a page. We need to see the face of the one who expressed them.

Such is the Word of God.

Seeing the face of God is still just a promise for those of us who seek it, but we are invited — and expected — to experience His presence right now, to hear His words in whatever “language” He chooses to speak.

In His presence, we can hear His words— perhaps not as the expelling of His breath, but as the transcendent expression of His heart. As concern. Or correction. Joy, or sadness. All with the inflection of love.

The fullness of His voice can’t be communicated on paper, or through a computer, or by the voice of another. Without hearing His voice in the medium of His presence, we can’t expect to fully understand what He’s saying.

Even if the Scriptures could contain all the information we need to know about Him, we still need His presence to make sense of it. It’s impossible to experience Truth through ink or pixels alone.

As teachers in the body of Christ, our understanding can be perfect, our pronunciation flawless, but we can’t be the sole interpreter of that which is on the page.

And as disciples, only by hearing His voice in the context of His presence, can you, or I, or those we love, receive and understand the Word who speaks.