What language does your church speak?

From Battered Sheep

Rebellious, as in "a rebellious spirit" or "a rebellious heart": (1) When a young person in the congregation or group asks the pastor or leader an honest question about the justification for a peculiar practice or belief of the church or group, and the pastor is unable to answer the young person's question with an open Bible, then that young person has a "rebellious spirit" or heart. (2) Also used as another term for anyone, who is "unsubmissive", most especially a wife who is "unsubmissive". See also "a Jezebel Spirit". (3) What a person is when they are "unwilling to reconcile". (4) Anyone who doesn't get with "the program". 

Teachable: You are "teachable" when you passively accept what you are taught without questioning the exegesis or logic. (See "unteachable")

Troublemaker: (1) Someone who has the audacity to think the elders should be effectively accountable to the congregation. (2) Anyone who had the nerve and gall to see through the pastor's slipshod exegesis and pseudo-scholarship, and as a result refuse to accept the pastor's interpretation and application. (3) People who have left the church. They were just "troublemakers" so we don't have to give any serious thought or care as to why they left. (4) Anyone in a business meeting who asked critical questions the elders didn't really want to have to deal with even though the questions were very relevant to the issue at hand. (5) Anyone who voted "no" on a proposal or matter the elders favored. (6) Anyone who said anything that was in any way negative about the church. See also "slander".

Unteachable: (1) You are "unteachable" when you have the audacity to go home and study an issue for yourself from the Bible, and come to a different conclusion then what you were taught. The sin in doing this is you're exposing the teacher or preacher's flawed exegesis and sloppy scholarship. (See "teachable" and "unsubmissive") (2) Also used to describe "not getting it". "I was supposed to "get it" when the elders asked me to "resign" from being deacon. I am guessing that what I was supposed to "get" was that "it was all my fault", and the actual offending party had no responsibility whatsoever. In that group of churches to be labeled "unteachable" is equivalent to a "death sentence". Someone who is "unteachable" is on the road to excommunication; they have committed the highest offense a Christian can commit." (3) Also used to describe those who visit the church for a period of time, but then cease coming and go to another church.

Unsubmissive: (1) When you follow your own conscience in the light of your own understanding of Scripture instead of doing what the pastors or elders told you to do, you are "unsubmissive". (2) When a godly Christian wife refuses to tolerate the outrageous, dictatorial overbearing abuse of her husband, then she is an "unsubmissive" wife. See also "a Jezebel Spirit" and "Rebellious".

Unwilling to reconcile: What a person is when they will not accept the pastor's non-negotiable version of what took place and agree to back his version.

Divisive: (1) What a person is called because some people actually realized what that person said was the truth so the church is split. (2) A term used of someone who doesn't swallow the party-line hook, line, and sinker. See "Apostate".

A Bitter spirit (variation "Don't be bitter"): (1) The charge made against a person because that person still stands by what they first said. (2) Former members who say anything negative about the church or group are charged with having "a bitter spirit", so what they say is not given any credibility and ignored even though it is factually true. (3)"Don't be bitter." Said by the truly unkind in order to deeply wound, for (spiritually abused) survivors aren't bitter--we just hurt... a lot! Said to shame, usually in a very public venue and/or in front of other kind people or, worst of all, in front of the "Undecideds" who, upon hearing this condemnation, decide that yes, the (spiritually abused) survivors are indeed "bitter", when all we are doing is hurting... a lot! 

Black sheep: see Apostate 

A Jezebel Spirit: (1) A term used specifically to describe a woman who is "unteachable". See also second entry for "unsubmissive". (2) Also used to describe a woman in the congregation or group who has the audacity to seek to publicly expose the unwanted and unasked for sexual harassment she received from the pastor or other prominent male church member. Such harassment usually fits the definition of a criminal sexual offense as defined by statute law, and exposure would result in negative publicity in the community at large. (See "a family matter") ( A Judas Spirit- for a male- ed added) 

The "World": "The classic, them against us attitude. It was often used when we would do something that some took as "worldly"; watching certain TV programs, or too much TV, buying an expensive car, suit etc. The lists could go on and on, and it was always up to those in authority to interpret it the way they wanted to. We were never totally sure what was worldly or not. Usually, it was the unspoken rule that we should all know. It led to a lot of conformity to this image of what was part of the "World" and what was part of the "Church". So we were always second-guessing all the things we did. It left one with a certain uneasiness, knowing that we were always wrong in certain areas and slipping up. Kept us on the endless treadmill of perfectionism to work at our own salvation. This contributed to never measuring up and was the cause of depression and in rare cases, leading to suicide with a few. I know personally one of my friends who committed suicide. He was always going over the deep end in this area."


More terms to reevaluate in the light of Scripture

"Babylon"
"The Harlot"
"Hidden Manna"
 "Confirmation"
 "The Manchild Doctrine" 
"sowing your own seed"
"The Apostate Church"