Two Words I Hate

There are two words I have really come to hate in the Christian "vocabulary" of common terms.

The first is "precept," as in "precept-upon-precept." This is the idea that the whole of Christian life breaks down to following a set of rules (precepts in a common Bible translation). Relationship with God is about whether or not I'm learning and following the precepts. Doing the things that God wants me to do and not doing the things God doesn't want me to do makes God happy. Bible study is almost entirely about gleaning from it what those rules are. I have to say that if the Bible is really all about a list of precepts, then God chose a pretty crappy format for doing it.

The second is "equip." This is the idea that Christian maturity is really all about "equipping" Christians with the knowledge and skills necessary to evangelize (or more generally for "ministry"). It includes things like how to pray in public, how to evangelize, how to defend the inerrancy of scripture (apologetics, etc.).

It just really urks me that Christian formation, spiritual transformation and a growing affective intimate relationship with God are constantly being reduced down to a rule book and a skill set primarily geared toward proselytizing.