Tag Archives: ministry

Bedraggled

Bedraggled: (adj) dirty and disheveled.Dictionary B

I know it may sound weird, but I was thinking about the word “ministry.”

It led me to the word “minister.”

In every facet of our society, we have prerequisites–demands for people who are allowed to cross through the front door and be included.

In politics, you have to be political, personable and part of a party.

In entertainment, you should arrive with good looks and talent.

In business, you need a plan, financing and an approach.

In college, it’s a good idea to arrive with a history of good grades and a scholarship.

Even when you’re cashing a check, you need proof that you exist and that you are who you say you are.

But sometimes, in each and every one of our lives, those pillars of proof and attributes of acceptability disappear. We hit bottom, and for some inexplicable reason, grab a shovel and start digging ourselves deeper.

  • We are not passable.
  • We don’t fit in.
  • We are at our worst.
  • We are not pleasing.
  • We are bedraggled.

We have ceased to register on the scope of reasonable human appearance and behavior.

That’s when we need a minister.

That’s when we need ministry.

So if those who are called to serve others and minister have a laundry list of requirements for the bedraggled souls who come their way, then we generate a Bowery of lost souls who have no place to go.

If dirty people have to get clean to be pure enough to remove the specks of grime that cling, then there is no hope for our race.

Somewhere there has to be a place, a person, an idea or a gospel which takes those who have sullied their opportunities, treats them as the human beings they were intended to be, and patiently guides them to a personal discovery and cleansing.

Is there such a place?

Is there a ministry?

Is there anyone who really still believes “whosoever will may come?”

 

Donate Button

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

 

 

 

Aramaic

dictionary with letter A

Aramaic: (n) a Semitic language, a Syrian dialect which was used as a lingua franca in the Near East from the 6th century BC. It gradually replaced Hebrew as the language of the Jews in those areas and was itself supplanted by Arabic in the 7th century AD.

Risky business.

Sometimes choosing to pursue what reaches people causes you to be rejected by the upper crust smart-asses.

When we look at the life of Jesus through the prism of his choices instead of a religious aspect–considering his divinity–we learn much more about the man than we do by merely tagging him as Savior.

He spoke Aramaic.

It was not the popular choice for those who deemed themselves to be intellectual. All of the religious leaders of the day favored Hebrew. Matter of fact, it was a class distinction. The rich and prosperous considered Aramaic to be guttural and beneath their silver “tongues of plenty.”

So immediately, when Jesus spoke in Aramaic, it was assumed that he was stupid, backwoods and uneducated.

It is the same sensation that many white folks might express when they hear a black minister using Ebonics. We are infested with a need to be superior. It is the opposite of the Golden Rule–“do unto others as you would have them do unto you”–which was the central theme of the ministry of Jesus. So it would be a bit contradictory to talk to the common folk about commonality while using an uncommon tongue.

Interesting thing, though–by the time Christianity spread across Mesopotamia, Hebrew had been replaced by Aramaic. And much to the chagrin of many evangelicals, speaking Aramaic was also Jesus’ way of separating himself from the Jews and including himself with all of Arabia.

So be careful when you make Jesus a Jew or when you project onto him a theologian’s demeanor.

He was the Son of Man, who spoke the language of men who had sons who worked hard … and he dared to be considered ignorant in doing so.

 

Donate Button

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix