I heard a cool fact in the sermon today. And I looked it up on google just for fun, so it must be true. Did you know that the Inuit have 12 different words for snow? They don't just say "snow", but have distinct words for wet snow, powder snow, etc. They need these words because snow is such an important part of their environment. The specific kind of snow affects their daily life. Hence, the specificity of their words.
The Bible has several different words for love. The "big three" are eros (romantic love - no explanation required), phileo (brotherly love - a feeling based on common regard and shared interests), and agape (self-sacrificial love - not a feeling but a choice to do what's right for the other person at any cost). And why would God need to be so specific instead of just letting us guess what the generic term "love" means through the context? Because, like the Inuit are surrounded and affected by snow, we as Christ-followers are surrounded and affected by love. It is such an important part of our lives that we need to be specific about what it means. "They will know we are Christians by our love..." yes. And, hardest for me to comprehend, They will know we are Christians by the way we accept love too.
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An attempt to keep people updated on my life, since I am not always good at corresponding. And, hopefully, a reminder to me and everyone who reads this that God is the conductor of my life and deserves all the glory.
1 comment:
Ruth,
I did know that, and I find it interesting to. One thing I have noticed is that growing up where I did we definitely had different words for snow, but not 12. Where as where I live now everything is just snow and they get excited about it. Just an interesting fact, that seemed to go along with the fact that the more surrounding and important it is, the more time we take to accurately describe it with a variety of different words.
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