by A. W. Tozer
God has honored human speech by using it as a medium through which to express His message of salvation, first in the inspired Scriptures and afterwards in a thousand languages and dialects among the nations of mankind. Language is the mighty organ upon which may be played the joyous oratorio of redemption for the blessing of men and for the high honor of God.
Among the countless gifts of God, one of the most precious to us is our beautiful, expressive English tongue. That such a gift should be neglected by busy men and women in their wild race to make a living is at least understandable, if unfortunate; but that it should be neglected as well by the ministers of the sanctuary is not only impossible to understand but completely inexcusable.
For the very reason that God has committed His saving truth to the receptacle of human language, the man who preaches that truth should be more than ordinarily skillful in the use of language. It is necessary that every artist master his medium, every musician his instrument. For a man calling himself a concert pianist to appear before an audience with but a beginner's acquaintance with the keyboard would be no more absurd than for a minister of the gospel to appear before his congregation without a thorough knowledge of the language in which he expects to preach.
There have been extraordinary situations where God has blessed a halting and broken message to the edification of the hearers, but these must be recognized as instances of providential overrulings and not as the operation of the highest will of God. Under an abnormal set of circumstances God moved Balaam's ass to speak with enough eloquence to convict a renegade prophet and rate being quoted in the Bible. But surely no one would cite this as proof that religious teachers should not concern themselves about their skill in the use of language. Those holy men who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, and whose writings constitute the sacred Scriptures, were one and all master of their medium. Each one brought to the service of God a remarkable facility in the use of words. Some were writers of the first magnitude and deserve a place among the great literary figures of all time.
If such a high standard was required of those who recorded the Holy Scriptures, dare we who expound them bring to our task anything short of the best and most perfectly developed gifts possible? We may lack the artistry of a David or the eloquence of an Isaiah, but there is no reason why we cannot acquire a skill in the use of words that will enable us to say anything we want to say with clarity. It will take hard work and long application, but if we begrudge these, we should get out of the ministry. No true prophet has ever been afraid of hard work.
Children learn to speak by imitation. Whether they grow up to use poor or good English depends altogether upon the quality of English spoken by those around them. Adult students of the art of speech never advance far beyond the childhood technique of unconscious imitation. We tend to imitate the speech of those we associate with, and particularly those we admire. For this reason it is vitally important that we cultivate the fellowship of the masters of English.
Intimate association with a great literary figure within the covers of a book will do more to teach us skill in the use of words than twenty years' study of grammar could do. It is a notorious fact that those who teach English in our schools are frequently the worst possible examples of their art. If you want heavy sledding, read an essay written by a professor of English. It is sure to be very correct and just as sure to be very dry. Bone is jointed to bone with anatomical precision, but there is no breath nor hearing. The writer is grammar conscious and tone deaf. He is eager to have his sentences parse correctly, but seems unable to make them live.
Good speaking as well as good writing has its pitch, its tempo, its balance and rhythm, its tone and timbre. And these things cannot be learned in the popular sense of the word; they can only be acquired by unconscious imitation. If we listen long and sympathetically to someone who uses English with style and artistry, something of his art will seep through the pores of our minds and improve our own style greatly. And remember that reading is hearing with the mind. We listen to a man when we read his book with a congenial spirit.
Some of my younger readers may want to know who the "masters" are to whom I have referred, and what books I recommend to develop verbal skill. Here are a few: John Bunyan for simplicity; Joseph Addison for clarity and elegance; John Milton for nobility and consistent elevation of thought; Dickens for sprightliness (start with the Christmas Carol); Bacon for conciseness and dignity.
In addition to these I would recommend Robert Louis Stevenson, John Ruskin, Thomas Carlyle, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Also the poetry of Wordsworth, Bryant, Blake, Keats and Shelley. Then to keep close to the modern mind, and for the sake of style only, we might read Pegler, "Red" Smith and Sidney Harris. Time magazine is slanted and somewhat on the frivolous side, but it is alive, and it will help us to avoid stodginess and literary cliches. For that reason I recommend it-in limited doses.
( The Size of the Soul, Chapter 9 )
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