In his introduction to the New Testament in The Message, Eugene Peterson says: “A striking feature in all this writing is that it was done in the street language of the day, the idiom of the playground and marketplace. In the Greek-speaking world of that day, there were two levels of language: formal and informal. Formal language was used to write philosophy and history, government decrees and epic poetry. If someone were to sit down and consciously write for posterity, it would of course be written in this formal language with its learned vocabulary and precise diction. But if the writing was routine—shopping lists, family letters, bills, and receipts—it was written in the common, informal idiom of everyday speech, street language. And this is the language used throughout the New Testament. Some people are taken aback by this, supposing that language dealing with a holy God and holy things should be elevated—stately and ceremonial. But one good look at Jesus—his preference for down-to-earth stories and easy association with common people—gets rid of that supposition. For Jesus is the descent of God to our lives, just as they are, not the ascent of our lives to God, hoping he might approve when he sees how hard we try. …[The language of the New Testament is] not a refined language that appeals to our aspirations after the best but a rough and earthy language that reveals God’s presence and action where we least expect it, catching us when we are up to our elbows in the soiled ordinariness of our lives and God is the furthest thing from our minds.” Not only did God become profoundly earthed in Jesus, that earthedness is exactly where we meet God. In Jesus’ descent. In our own. Not in our aspirational spirituality, but in the regular days and moments. In the conversations, and in the dishes. How does that change how you see your days--the awareness that God is present in the earthy "stuff" of life, rather than in the lofty goals we may set for our spiritual lives?

Posted by Jamie Bonilla at 2023-03-30 14:33:31 UTC