Hot Air (Chapter and Verse part 5)

"Every word of God is pure: He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him. Add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar." (Proverbs 30:5-6, emphasis mine)

I don't really know what to say. Honestly, if I have some grandiose notion I have something God hasn't already covered through "His words", I must be nursing a Messiah complex. Because honestly, with all the noise in the world and all the opinions and thoughts flung and flying through the atmosphere, I am going to have a hard time stringing together something in which someone might be interested to the neglect of God's obviously stronger and more powerful thoughts and sentences. I suppose, then, that the answer to my speaking and writing what I want, doesn't lie in Fiction, nor in the incorrect exposition of God's thoughts, but in my story. I can't "add to [God's] words" if I talk about myself in relation to what He's shown me and done for me. All I can really say is what I think and what I've experienced and see if somehow it mirrors that which came before—in the Bible. And then center it back on Him.

"Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work." (James 3:13-16)

A sibilant syllabus

"For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them." (Romans 1:12)

Epenthesis is where you intersperse a slight vowel sound between two consonants. For instance, when you overpronounce something for emphasis (don't be tumescent, if you can avoid it) or when you suffer from a speech impediment. I find I have almost the opposite when I speak. I tend to blur sounds and syllables together in a "heap of gibberish" as Calvin put it, if I don't slow down and pronunciate* correctly. It would seem sometimes that I tend to talk too fast to the possible estrangement—at least around the thoughts I'm discussing—of the hearers. And that's not good. Paul implies in the above that God spoke clearly the first time. And that it was impossible for Him to be misunderstood. As "God is not the author of confusion" (1 Corinthians 14:33a), anything above what He originally said (i.e. what we write or say) must flow in line for it to be fully digestible in the heart. There's a lot to this but let's get started. Perhaps a little epenthesis might not be a bad thing? We'll see.

What makes the thousands upon thousands of books in the Christian section of your local bookstore any different from the sixty-six books that make up our Bible? When you think about it, a lot of what we read in modern-day Christian titles have the same few ingredients as do the biblical books. Please don't think me heretical. You have a human author, a desire to traffic in the written word, and (hopefully—this is the kicker) the inspiration of God behind it. And without waxing too legalistic, I would say a lot of what goes into getting a Christian book from the mind of the author to the shelves and then hands of the reader is so much packing material. I don't honestly find much in the way of freshness or newness when I peruse the stacks for something good. It's this way with Christian books, and it's this way with the mind and heart of any brother or sister in Christ, whether you know them and count them a friend, or not. And whose fault is this? It's just the way it is.

"He said unto Him, What is written in the law? How readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself." (Luke 10:27)

A pathetic prospectus

"And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." (Matthew 5:29)

So, prosodically speaking, we have epenthesis, the interspersion of a little something extra to make clearer that which we're looking to get across. You also have prothesis. Where you add an extra sound to the beginning of what you're saying. Extrapolating it out to prosthesis and that means you're now adding sounds to get the meter right, say, in a poem or lyric. Adding flourishes and touches here and there to your exposition and that which comes from your heart and (hopefully) from God. But as you make your art or music or in the case of words, your writing, please don't lose sight of the substrate fact that "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5b) That was John speaking, the same John who had been with Jesus since the beginning. The first part of that verse says "This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you..." You cannot say anything that hasn't already been said. But you can let God lead you into areas and situations He alone can tailor to your needs and your heart and the individual way He created you. And if you feel led and inclined, to write from that standpoint. Anything less is the unnecessary and confusing addition of non-essentials.

*a word

Cool Breezes (Chapter and Verse part 6)

Be Advised