Superlatives

I recently found out that Tom Schreiner, a renown New Testament scholar and professor at SBTS, reserves superlatives like "extraordinary" and "astonishing" exclusively to talk about Jesus Christ and the gospel. This makes a lot of sense. The good news that peace with God is made possible through Jesus' atoning sacrifice is truly astonishing.

This forms a stark juxtaposition with my own parlance. Hyperbole and embellishment are tools in my repertoire which I routinely use to make my conversations seem interesting , no matter how trivial or commonplace. This begs the question, once the mundane has devalued our superlatives, what words will be left to encapsulate the phenomenal?

In a sense, careful word usage is stewardship. We have been given the gift of language (cf. Gen. 11 to see the converse) and are entrusted with the task of clearly communicating the gospel (1 Peter 3:15). The gospel, though simple enough for a child to understand, defies human wisdom. It is so counter-intuitive it requires conscientious and diligent effort on the part of the Christian in evangelism.

I think Tom Schreiner's practice is a good example for us all.