Tiago's First Movie!

Tiago Lucas Beuerlein

7lbs 12oz
20.25in
born April 30, 2009 at 4:26am
at Centennial Hospital in Nashville, TN

Language Pt. 3 modern prophecy

If you've followed us so far, this post will pick up right where the last one left off. If not, I suggest starting with Parts 1 & 2.

We had just commented on how the diamond of the perfect language that God gave man at creation was obliterated and we're left with shards...

THE SWORD THAT WAS REFORGED

Though we are left holding the mere remains of something much more impressive, it is also true that our languages in their current state also hold power. With the advent of the Holy Spirit and the spiritual gifts, it is clear that the availability and importance of prophecy for EVERY believer is a priority (1 Corithinians 14:1). Paul goes on to urge us in the correct use of prophecy: it is to encourage, edify, and exhort. Since what we say has power, even the power to create something that does not yet exist, it is extremely important that we use our words to lift others up, to comfort them, and to call them to greatness.


WAIT, WAIT, WAIT... Hold on a minute, what about the whole "where there are prophecies they will cease," thing?

Ahhh... You're referring to the doctrine of cessationism. Well, I wasn't going to say anything, but since you brought it up...

Cessationism is the belief that all of the "miraculous" gifts of the Holy Spirit stopped at some point following the final canonization of scripture. It is based on the following passage:

1 Corinthians 13:8-12
Love never fails. But whether [there are] prophecies, they will fail; whether [there are] tongues, they will cease; whether [there is] knowledge, it will vanish away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall fully know just as I also am known.

The problem with that interpretation (i.e. that "perfection" came when we finished the Bible) is that we still have knowledge! Also, there's the fact that this passage in no way refers to scripture.
The much more logical interpretation would be that "perfect" here refers to heaven, after the second coming of Jesus.

The crazy part is, it actually doesn't say that prophecy (or tongues, or knowledge, etc) are going to die out - they're just going to stop being in part. Following the logic of the passage, as a child grows up he puts away childish things


(which are really infantilized versions of adult things) and he takes on "man-things." What are "man-things?" He explains that now we know in part, then we will know fully. Now we prophecy in part then we will prophecy fully.

What does that look like? In heaven... speaking the perfect language... having ourselves been made perfect... when we praise God and say the word "glory," tangible GLORY will actually be manifested out of us and go to God. Wow!

Knowing that this is the goal, and that God is always leading us further and further on into the kingdom - even while on earth, I believe that there is a measure of this, which is actually available to us now. Jesus came to get back everything that was lost in the garden. I believe a perfect language (and the power and authority that come with it) is one of those things.

Now, before you put me in a straight-jacket, I'm not trying to rediscover or recreate a perfect language, but I think there is an application for what I'm talking about in the spirit. 1 Corinthians tells that when we pray in tongues, we're actually praying with our spirit. Ephesians tells us that the location of our spirit is actually with Christ in heaven. So, while our soul and flesh are struggling to make their way through time, God (who is outside time) is sitting in heaven where our spirits are. This means that though my brain can't quite make it there yet, I can actually have perfect communication with God in my spirit.

I realize that we have now arrived at the land of "far-out," but I think there is something very important we can take away from this: ACCESS. Jesus has given us access to redemption, and he has given us the choice to walk in it or not. When I speak, I can choose to be flippant or even intentionally harmful with my words, or I can speak from a place of authority and power - from my spirit - and prophecy life, healing, and encouragement to those that I meet.

Daddy?

So, it looks like someone will be calling me that soon... and not as a joke. It's kind of odd for me right now, I guess because of the way that this is all happening. I haven't really had time to process it all.

We thought the adoption process would take a longer period of time, though we assumed we'd have less warning than say... a couple who gets pregnant. I expected it to be "Surprise! You're going to have a baby in 3 months!" or even 1 month. But I didn't expect it to be two weeks, and I didn't expect it to come before we had even finished our paperwork. I didn't even know that was allowed.

Honestly, I think it won't really hit me until I see him - until I get to hold him and look at his face. And with the little I've been able to process so far - I imagine it will hit me like a brick wall. A very fast brick wall - not the stationary kind.

Everyone keeps asking me how I feel about it all, and I never really have a good answer. Yes, on some level I'm excited, anxious, nervous, happy, etc.; but on another level (closer to the surface for me now) I have no idea what I feel or what it's going to be like. I know that I'm not scared and that a part of me that has been waiting to come alive from birth until now will take its first breath in that delivery room - but how will it feel? I don't know.

If you ever read this one day, Tiago, I want you to know that it's o.k. to not always have the answers. In fact, if you're honest enough with yourself to admit that you don't, you create an opportunity for God to speak to you in that place. Assuming you know all the answers makes you kind of hard of hearing. I don't know where you are now or what you're going through - but know this: I love you, son. Everything's gonna be just fine. Hang in there, Slugger.

Language Pt. 2 the perfect language

If you're just now joining us, this post won't make much sense without reading PART ONE. I suggest starting there. Then come back and join the rest of the class. Don't doddle.

PERFECT DIAMOND

I believe that the language that Adam and Eve spoke was the very same language that the Lord spoke, when he created the universe. It was a perfect language. This makes sense to me particularly because Adam and Eve never actually learned the language. It was simply given to them. They also acquired this language while they were living in a perfect state in perfect communion with God. Why would he chose for them to use an imperfect form of communication in paradise? Let us remember, that they were created in his image to be like him in just about every way, down to the language.

I have some examples of WHY I think they spoke a perfect language, which I'll get to in a second. First, I want to talk about what a perfect language IS by starting with what it ISN'T.

In every form of human language (written, oral, or signed) the connection between the signifier and the signified is completely arbitrary. Let me explain what that means... There is absolutely no direct correlation between the word "tree" and the actual entity of a tree. There is also nothing about the sound or the shape of the word that universally represents a tree. Furthermore, there is nothing more tree-ish about the English word "tree" than there is about the Spanish word "arbol." Both of these signifiers are simply symbols that we agree upon to represent something - but they have nothing to do with the thing itself. This is the mark of an imperfect language.
There are a few exceptions here: onomatopoeia (omg i totally spelled that correctly on the first try!), and sign language. Also, for anyone familiar with the poems of e.e. cummings, some of his devices create visual effects that represent the subject, i.e. "Grasshoppers." These examples are only partial and still there is only an indirect connection between the signifier and the signified.
Even when we do agree on a meaning for a "word," that meaning is still very vague and open to the interpretation of the listener. When you hear the word "tree," which do you mean?

You can see how much ambiguity is built into our everyday speech. I've also heard that in sign language (especially when spelling), or in lip reading, the goal isn't to catch every single word that is said. In fact, you only truly focus on a few of them and then simply fill in the blanks with whatever is logically missing.

This is one of the prime differences with a perfect language. In a perfect language, there is no ambiguity in meaning at all. It would be impossible to be misunderstood. On top of that, there is a direct correlation between signifier and signified. Words would have only one specific meaning, which would communicate the exact same thing to any person who listened. In fact, the connection between word and being is so strong, that the true word (or expression) for a thing IS the thing itself. Thus, when God says the word "LIGHT," light happens.

Though I came to this conclusion about the nature and power of a perfect language before I heard it elsewhere, other wiser men than I have written the same thing: Plato and St. Augustine, to name a few.

PROPHETIC POWER

From that last revelation, God connected the dots for me to the idea of Prophecy. Biblical prophecy has two major functions: foretelling and forthtelling. Foretelling is the one we more commonly think of, though it occurs much less frequently. It's what we normally think of as predicting the future. The much more common form of prophecy in the Bible (and the one that concerns us here) is forthtelling: in other words, calling things forth, creating. When God tells Joshua "Be strong and courageous," he isn't commanding him to muster something up from inside himself. His words actually create strength and courage in Joshua. Therefore, God actually prophesied the universe into existence.

I believe one evidence of the power of this perfect language come from Adam's first job:

Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.

What's understood here is the value of the name in the Hebrew mindset. To the Hebrew speaker name = identity. God wasn't simply giving Adam the task of cataloguing creation - he wanted to let him help create. Yes, the being itself was already created, but it was Adam who gave it identity. He got to put the "lion" into the cat.

Another example of the power of this perfect language comes with the story of Babel. Only with a perfect language could mankind accomplish something so profound that even God admitted they could do anything they put their minds to:

And the LORD said, "Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them."

He recognizes the danger of a perfect language among a fallen people, so he smashes the diamond.

I'm going to have to split this post again for fear that no one will read it otherwise.

Language Pt. 1

So, I'd like to start my spiel on language. I want to have it in a place where it's written down and I can add to it, and also having a place to point to will save me from spending 45min+ every time I want to explain it. Let's see, where to start... How about here:

HOW IT STARTED

Perfect. This all started for me when I first became fluent in Spanish, about 5 years ago now. It actually happened more instantaneously than gradually. I remember it extremely clearly:

I was riding in the back of a pick-up truck in San Pedro, Mexico. I was on my way back to the missionaries' property where I lived. I had just spent the morning at Laguna Splash (a local water park and pool) where the soccer team had practice (they also have big fields in the back). This isn't the moment that I became fluent, but it's the moment that I had the revelation. I suddenly got a picture of languages being shards of some great and ancient diamond that had been shattered thousands of years ago. English is the piece that I had lived with all my life, but I was struck by the fact that I now had another shard. I put them together in my mind and was left holding a slightly larger shard. Without knowing what exactly I was asking, or what the ramifications were, I mused: "What would it be like to have the whole diamond?"

At the time, I had no idea all of the confirmation that would come from this vision once I got into college. Yet, almost everything I learned about the history of language in my study of linguistics led me back to the same conclusion.

As it turns out, splintering and constant change are two characteristics of any healthy, living language - even today (sorry, high school English teachers). If a language doesn't change, adapt, and reproduce, it dies. English, along with most of the European languages you're familiar with, can be traced back to German, Latin, and Greek (among others like Sanskrit). Even vague familiarity with these older languages will lead anyone to believe that they are related and most likely had a common ancestor. Experts in historical linguistics have recreated what is almost unanimously accepted as the "mother" language of Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and others. They call it "Proto-Indo-European." There are many other "mother languages" that have been reconstructed, and the combination of these proto-languages have been taken back further and further up the chain. It is necessary to understand that the further back you go, the more unreliable the evidence gets (recreating languages based on recreated languages based on recreated languages... you get the point). Some have even traced it back to one original language, which has been named "Borean." (click to enlarge)


And here's one of Proto-Indo-European, so that you can see where English fits in (it's on the left about half-way down:



Now, before I bore you to the point that you stop reading, I'll end our technical discussion there. The point is: people who study this stuff for a living have come to the same conclusion: there was one original human language from which all other languages sprung. It wasn't English, it wasn't Latin, and it wasn't Hebrew; it was something much older. We'll discuss what I think it is in Part Two.

Fortunately, the Bible does give us some clues as to how this all went down in Genesis 11, which tells us that everyone was speaking the same language, they tried something rash, and God got mad and smashed the diamond (for our own good, of course).

So, what happened to me in Mexico made me realize that God's original plan for language was something far greater than the shards we currently possess. It made me hungry for whatever that plan was, and drove me to study language and learn as many of them as possible.

Stay tuned for more...

Freedom from Possession

Abby and I recently had an opportunity to give away some rather large and stretching possessions at God's prompting. They were by far the largest things I have ever given away, and I'll admit that it took everything in me to do it. The aftermath of that event has been extremely rewarding and a little unexpected.

I do want to clarify. Yes, it was hard for me to give these things, but I would not have given them at all if I could do it with peace and joy. A giver who gives begrudgingly reaps no reward. The joy that I felt in taking the leap of faith - deciding to give - was all the confirmation I needed that I was doing the right thing, even if it didn't make sense to most.

Since then Abby has felt a greater measure of Joy and Peace than she can remember having felt in a long time. I, too, have had a huge amount of peace, but the real impact came in a revelation I had yesterday: I have been freed from my possessions.

I looked around my room at all my Stuff, and realized that I no longer own anything that I'm incapable of giving away. My computer, iPod, guitar, you-name-it; I no longer have such a strong attachment to my things that they define who I am. The things I've surrounded myself with are now mere conveniences - not essentials.

I noticed a real difference in my attitude when we had an opportunity to give more stuff away this week. A family that has been going through some rough times moved into a new house and didn't have any furniture. One of their girls is in our youth group and is one of our favorites. We gave her our guest bed, sheets, blankets, pillows, a huge bookshelf, and bedside table. We didn't even flinch. It was so easy! Giving has become second nature, and it all started with our first big give.

Something happened inside of me that day. Something was broken, and I hope it never grows back. I can think back to all the times I've seen adults wince when a young child has gotten a hold of something expensive, or it's in the hands of someone who's not "responsible," and I realized, "That will probably never happen to me again."

My recommendation: get free. Give things away to those who need them - valuable things. Once you start, you'll never turn back. We don't take this crap with us, folks.