\u201dLiturgy\u201d means the standard speech of public worship. In a figurative sense, liturgy often refers to\u00a0approved\u00a0ritual\u00a0<\/strong>phrases. While attending a funeral last week, I thought\u00a0<\/strong>of the religious language that I rarely encounter in my everyday life. In the specialized vocabulary of religion, there are many metaphors (streams of grace, bread of life<\/em>), archaic expressions (thee, thou, tabernacle<\/em>), unexpected word order (the Son of Man, the word of the Lord<\/em>) and uncommon words (hallelujah, amen, atonement<\/em>). A person’s attention tends to focus on the language and the manner of expression, while the actual\u00a0<\/strong>message seems remote<\/a> from our everyday life.<\/p>\n The challenges\u00a0<\/strong>of the church’s special language are similar to those of the language used by government officials. The church’s\u00a0phrasing\u00a0<\/strong>is closely linked to the Bible; administration\u2019s wording is tied to legal text. The status of both sources is so sacred that those who comply with them\u00a0dare not deviate from accepted expression; instead, they follow past practice\u00a0\u2013 literally.\u00a0<\/strong>With everyday language, by contrast,\u00a0<\/strong>the key message could relate more closely to the experience of the listeners, i.e.\u00a0the word\u00a0becomes\u00a0flesh<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201dLiturgy\u201d means the standard speech of public worship. In a figurative sense, liturgy often refers to\u00a0approved\u00a0ritual\u00a0phrases. While attending a funeral last week, I thought\u00a0of the religious language that I rarely encounter in my everyday life. In the specialized vocabulary of religion, there are many metaphors (streams of grace, bread of life), archaic expressions (thee, thou, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-english-en","7":"category-wordoftheweek-en","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2302"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2306,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2302\/revisions\/2306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}