The Power of a Preposition

An old man and his wife were sitting in their rockers on the front porch one day when the man said to his wife, "Ma, I'm proud of you." "Eh?" she responded. "I said I'm proud of you!" he shouted a little louder. "What?" she asked again. "I said, Ma, I proud of you!" he yelled as loud as he could. "Well, I'm tired of you too!" she snarled back at him.

Missing one little word can make a big difference some time. No where is that fact more true than when it comes to a discussion of the grace walk. While none of us want to be guilty of nitpicking each other's words to pieces, the other side of of issue is that the words we use do matter. One wrong word can change the whole meaning of a statement. Consisder these examples:

I've been in the flesh lately.
This is the kind of confession a Christian might make in confession that he hasn't been acknowledging Jesus Christ as his life source lately. Maybe he has willfully lived independently, doing his own thing by gratifying the flesh instead of walking in the Spirit. What's wrong with the statement?

The fault with it is that no Christian is ever "in the flesh." In Romans 8:9, the Apostle Paul said, "You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him." So no Christian is "in the flesh" then. At all times we are "in the Spirit."

A biblical way to express those times when we behave fleshly would be to say that we walk after the flesh. We aren't in the flesh, but we are following after it. (See Romans 8:4-5,12-13, 2Peter 2:10) "In" or "after" - small words that make a big difference when we're talking about our relationship to the flesh.

Here's another example of the importance of using the right word:

As Christians, we live for Christ.
What's wrong with this one? The fact is that we don't live for Christ. We live in Him. In fact, the whole message of the New Testament could be summarized in the two words "in Christ." To say that we live for Him lends itself to a performance based mentality about our Christian life which suggests that it's all about what we do. Confessing that we live "in Christ" points toward our identity and acknowledges Him as our very Life-Source. Two small words with very different meanings when used in this context.

Sometimes people say to me that the differences they have with what I say "is just semantics," but that's not true. Words mean something. Considering the widespread tendency people have to misunderstand the message those of us who share the message of the grace walk constantly face, it is important that we grow in the ability to use the best words when we communicate the message.

"In, after, for" - small preposistions, but important words when we want to make the message clear.