It is a question I ask when I find myself in a defeated place of miscommunication, when I see two parties completely misunderstanding one another, or when I am studying Greek: Is language really worth the trouble? Of course, even in a defeated place, most of us recognize the irony of the question itself. To voice the trouble of communication is still to utilize the form of communication. But if it is difficult to imagine a world without the presence of language, it is altogether sobering to imagine a world without its benefits and joys—a conversation with a friend, the power of the written word, the importance of banter, reasoning, and debate.

Though many religions recognize the power of words, I believe it is inherently Christian to recognize the weight of language. The first chapter of the Gospel of John echoes the first pages in all of Scripture—namely, that out of silence the universe was brought to order, for in the beginning was the Word. The Greek word logos means not only “word” but “reason,” hastening the notion that there is not only meaning at the heart of all things but there is one who speaks and bestows this meaning. The Christian worldview interprets all of life and time through this medium. We live within a story of words, reason, and meaning in which there is an author telling us what it means to be human, what it means to be here.

The presence of language among us, therefore, is itself a subtle apologetic. That is to say, we speak because there is one who first spoke. There is meaning and order among us because in the beginning was the Word. Author Steve Talbott fluently articulates the significance of a speaking world:

“The intimate relation between the meaning of our words and the meaning we find in the world may be so obvious as to seem almost trivial, yet its implications are so profound as to have mostly escaped the notice of working scientists. If we took the fact of the world’s speech seriously—the world speaks!—there would be none of the usual talk about a mechanistic and deterministic science, about a cold, soulless universe, or about an unavoidable conflict between science and the spirit.”(2)

The evidence of a speaking world is a wonder the scientist cannot explain away with mechanistic words. But what if language is the gift of a speaking, personal God to a creation holding God’s image? The world speaks and God listens. Will we, in turn, stop and take notice of the one who spoke first?

In July of 2004, the people of Ranonga, a small, remote island in the Solomon Islands, read the words of Christ for the first time in their own language. The arrival of the New Testament in Lungga, the local language, followed more than twenty years of fundraising efforts by the local people. When the finished copies were finally made available and the people held before them the written words of Christ, a local pastor declared: “Today God has arrived in Ranonga. God has arrived in our own culture and is speaking to us in our own language.”(3)

Into a world of souls, some listening, many preoccupied, Jesus embodies a word for all: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in.”(4) To recognize a voice and a face speaking in a language we understand is so much more than acknowledging a string of inanimate, recognizable words or cold information. We recognize a person beyond the sounds, image and meaning within the language, an invitation in the face that speaks. How much more so this is true of the voice that first spoke into the silence and called creation forth by name.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) This piece by Stephen Watson, entitled <i>Creation</i>, was installed at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, in June 2014. It was inspired by imagery of the DNA molecule and a rose window, and is comprised of cayenne, curry, mint, onion, paprika, and rosemary. For further information: http://stephenwatson.squarespace.com/

(2) Steve Talbott, “The Language of Nature” The New Atlantis, Number 15, Winter 2007, 41-76.

(3) “God Arrived,” Bible Society, 2004.

(4) Revelation 3:20.