Longer study: Terah – a bad steward ‘A steward is a ruler and servant, one who exists to please his master.’ It is too easy for words to lose their meaning. Like so many of our purchases, if we use words too often or in the wrong context, they almost seem to fall apart. If you’re looking for proof, just take a look at your nearest card shop, where marriage is an adventure, children grow up so fast and death is a loss for which we offer our deepest sympathies. All those words were not always so clichéd and trite. But time and incorrect use has worn them thin. Even the Bible is not immune. Verses can also suffer from quoting fatigue, just like this one:
‘But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.’ Joshua 24:15 I bet you’ve seen it a dozen times before, stitched or printed within a frame near the doorway. Recently I was in a home where this verse was stencilled on two walls. Why two? They really couldn’t tell me. When we strip verses of their context, we rob them of much of their power. We leave them weak and vulnerable to misuse, fitting them into whatever context suits our purposes, regardless of the original intent. Especially well-known verses suffer from another issue: the quotes can be so well-known that they lose meaning, leaving ‘turn the other cheek’ pale and insipid and turning ‘Jesus wept’ into a blasphemous expression of mild frustration. Repeated too often and our minds breeze over the images. We see, hear, and taste nothing. Words become empty, as opposed to being pregnant with meaning.