Choose Your Adjectives Carefully

Think of ways to encourage one another.
                    —Hebrews 10:24

Best-selling author Philip Yancey noted that “C.S. Lewis once likened his role as a Christian writer to an adjective humbly striving to point others to the Noun of truth. For people to believe that Noun,” wrote Yancey, “we Christian writers must improve our adjectives.”

All Christians, not just writers, need to give attention to our adjectives—the words by which we point others to the Noun, to God. A labored-over turn of phrase or exhausting search for just the right word often determines how a message is received. Choose your adjectives carefully.

J.B. Phillips translated Hebrews 10:24 this way: “Let us think of one another and how we can encourage one another to love and do good deeds.”

Words can break the heart
or hearten the broken.

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