by Joanie Butman
While reminiscing with an old friend this weekend, she reminded me of a comical story that played out years ago in Bible study. We were studying the book of Acts at the time, which concentrates on the work of the Holy Spirit. It begins with Pentecost, when the disciples were given the gift of tongues, enabling them to speak in many languages. The purpose of this miracle was to allow them to spread the gospel to “Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth.” The importance of knowing different languages, and even different dialects, was brought home to me at one of the closing lectures. This incident wouldn’t be the first or last time one of my faux pas illustrated a Biblical lesson.
During the teaching time, my mind wandered off as it’s known to do frequently, and the next thing I knew I heard our teaching director asking what sounded like the question: “Are you sure?” I’m a New Yorker and phonetically, the way a native Brooklynite pronounces that question is, “Ya shaw-a?” There are some rules available to sound like a Noo Yawka. For example, many of the words that have the short "o" sound are pronounced with an "aw." For example, the word dog becomes "dawg," and "coffee” becomes "cawfee."*
Anyway, I was trying to follow the teaching director’s point and wondered if she was looking for a southern Baptist-type response. Thinking she was asking whether we were confident in Christ’s sacrifice for our salvation, I briefly contemplated jumping to my feet while waving my arms shouting, “I’m shawa! I’m shawa! Praise the Lord!” Luckily, I was sitting with a friend who has saved me from embarrassing myself on more than one occasion. Before offering my enthusiastic, rousing reply, I leaned over and whispered, “What is she asking if we’re sure about?”
My friend, born and bred in Texas, turned to me and by the aghast look on her face was most definitely thinking, “Bless Her Heart” which is Texan for “I can’t believe you just asked that.” Or “She’s so stupid I feel sorry for her.” Apparently, the speaker was not asking anything. She was saying “Yeshua.” The word has a number of different meanings: help, salvation, victory, but is most commonly known as the original form of the name Jesus. I’m embarrassed to admit that by this point I had been in Bible study for almost twenty years!! Apparently, my mind must have wandered quite a bit during that time if this was the first occasion I was hearing that title for Jesus. A perfect illustration of why I’ll never graduate. Jesus always has something new to teach me.
A comical example for shawa, but it does highlight the importance being multilingual was in spreading the gospel. Circulating the good news must have been equivalent to a spiritual game of telephone. Do you remember that childhood game, where you whisper something to your neighbor who then passes it along, often becoming garbled in the process? God didn’t want His message distorted in any way, so He needed to equip his disciples with the ability to speak to others in their own language – including dialects. As Nelson Mandela wisely stated, "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."
God speaks to everyone in a unique love language only they can understand because He knows exactly what will reach their heart. However, we do need to choose to be still and listen. We live in a chaotic, noisy world. When we choose to turn down the volume, we open a sacred space for Christ to speak into.
Choose wisely.
An amusing youtube about a Brooklyn spelling bee:
* http://www.wikihow.com/Talk-Like-a-New-Yorker