Recently, the issue of semantics seems to have been popping up all over the place. This seems to be due to the fact that we rarely define the terms we use. Often, we don’t have to: word meaning is generally understood rather universally. The issue comes up when a word is not understood in the same way; people will often—with little to no reason for it—insist that their definition is the correct one and all others are wrong. This post is written in an attempt to clear up some confusion and, perhaps, make some conversations more productive.

The Meaning of a Word

Language is a tricky thing. My professors here have pointed out that a word, by itself, does not really have any meaning. It must be used in a group of words (thoughts, clauses, sentences) to really mean anything. This is shown, perhaps most obviously, by the fact that dictionaries often have more than one definition for a word; context is an huge deciding factor in determining word meaning.

If word meaning is so inextricably tied to context, it follows that the meaning of a word will shift over time as one’s cultural and historical context changes. A good example, which probably needs no explanation, is the development of the word “gay” over the last few decades. Put simply, it doesn’t mean what it used to.

An Important Distinction

Now, I wish to make a distinction between what I’m saying and what some liberals would say. Contrary to liberals, I do not think that the audience gets to decide what a word’s meaning is. It is the job of the audience to try to understand what the communicator means by the words he says; it’s not to import their own meaning and thus render the words effectively meaningless, a blank canvas upon which the audience can paint any meaning they want. At the same time, however, it is the job of the communicator to make his message as easy to interpret as is reasonable.

The Big Problem

Why am I saying all of this? Well, there are (at least) two mistakes we can make when it comes to word meanings. One is the aforementioned liberalism, making a communicators words mean whatever we want them to mean. The other is insisting on our definition of a word being the right one, despite the insistence of others that it is not. This is actually a massive problem when it comes to how people do theology.

When we do theology, we have to use words to describe things. Some words are universally agreed on: “Christology” means the study of Christ to virtually anyone. Some words mean different things to different people. “Sovereignty” will mean something different to a Weselyan than it does to a Calvinist; by a Calvinist’s definition of the word, a Weselyan does not believe in the sovereignty of God. Other words, those words used in the Bible, must be defined within the context of the passage being discussed. The word “love” in the Bible does not always mean sacrificial-love, even if you drill down into the Greek. God agape’d the world (Jn. 3:16), but we’re told not to agape the world (1 Jn. 2:15). Aren’t we supposed to sacrificially love the world? Yes. John, in his usage of the word agape, means something other than sacrificial love.

So What?

This has been long, but I’m coming to a close. Here are some basic principles:

For words that everyone agrees on the meaning: we should continue to use them as we do. If confusion starts to arise, we need to ask people to define their terms or define our terms.

For words that mean different things to different people: we need to define our terms, not hold to tightly to our definition of a word, and be willing to substitute another word when talking to someone who doesn’t understand that word the same way we do. Sometimes this will result in using made-up language just for the purpose of holding a conversation: like substituting “all-controlling-ness” for the word “sovereignty.” This might seem silly, but it’s helpful.

For words that are found in the Bible, there is no simple solution. Understand that just because someone is using a word found in the Bible does not mean they are using it the same way the Bible does. For example: the Bible never uses the word “call” to refer to telephone usage. We use it that way all the time, though. Additionally, as I already mentioned, there are many words in the Bible that we cannot nail down a universal definition for (like agape). You’re going to have to talk through a person’s word usage when they use a Bible-word and understand why they are using it the way they are; get them to either admit they aren’t using it the way the Bible does (there’s nothing wrong or sinful about that; it’s just sometimes confusing), or tell you what passage they are getting their meaning from.

Summary

In short, the trick to having a productive conversation is to define terms. You can avoid a lot of those conversations where you are “saying the same thing but disagreeing on how to say it.” Try to get to the root concepts that you’re talking about and move past the words that may or may not be describing them. Arguing over semantics is probably one of the most boring things you can possibly do.