My Steiner roots and my mother’s influence on my life are to blame (or be praised 🙂 for this recurring topic. In two past posts, I’ve talked about how words matter. Here and here.
Language matters, too. I’m not debating about which language as in English, German, or Mandarin. I’m talking about the power of a common vocabulary and language that unites a group which aides in productivity!
In 2025, I spent hundreds of hours developing my auto repair business’s common language, common vocabulary, and common dictionary. Culture is interconnected with language–that’s not a controversial statement, I don’t think. Here are some conclusions, although this is not our exhaustive list. We also recite our mission, vision, goals, and our pledge every week.
We also have a common language as a family. I asked my 9-year-old just now as a test of this statement–“What is this week’s fundamental?” “Roll with it!” was her response. We develop a common language for the purposes of unity and productivity.
How do you destroy unity and culture? How did God destroy evil culture and unity? Confounding their speech. Let’s look to how nations of the world have done it for the entirety of human history since then: by separating their captives from their homeland, changing their language, intertwining them with new languages and cultures.
What’s my point–I’m hearing that our denominational leadership is making some moves around their acceptance of additional Bible versions. In a previous post, I discuss the problems with anonymity in votes–I bring it up here only to suggest that I don’t know who is thinking multiple Bible versions is a good idea, what their reasons are, etc. As far as I can tell, even the brothers in church leadership truly don’t know how anyone else is viewing such a thing unless that person is publicly stating their view. Our official version is the KJV. There is an upcoming presentation on this in my church and I thought I’d write this post ahead of that presentation. If that presentation is able to change my mind, I’ll write about it. As I see it now, however, a decision to change our common language (or even allowing our common language to atrophy) has a VERY HIGH bar — what the SCOTUS calls Strict Scrutiny. To decide this on with any lower test is simply missing Leadership 101 principles! I’ve spent hundreds of hours to define what my organization says and understands. ELR has a very specific definition in our organization. If I don’t define it specifically, then I let others define it. When they don’t define it the same, then various people in my organization end up arguing whether we won or lost. When you are arguing, you are not producing. Hey, that reminds me of the most interesting little paragraph I read in R.G. LeTourneau’s autobiography entitled “Mover of Men and Mountains.” He talks about salesmen needing a product behind them. He applies the analogy to preachers needing Christians to “produce” Christian living. He argues that Christianity can’t be “sold” unless believers are living it out. He makes a comparison to business production and the need for output.
I seriously advise our leadership to refrain from allowing the disassembly of our common language which is the KJV. To the extent we disassemble common language we grow apart and produce less. To the extent an organization has less common language, there is more confusion, more disfunction, and less production. For the Christian, that means less time, focus, and energy for LOVE and UNITY, not more.