When talking about the Bible, what is:
Effective,
Efficacious,
Effectual,
Able,
Consequential.
Decisive,
Critical,
Convincing,
Incisive,
Pivotal, and
Crucial.
Instructional,
Edifying,
Educational,
Didactic,
to Teach,
to Train, and
to Wisen.
Potent,
Cogent,
Compelling,
Forceful,
Impelling,
Impactful,
Impressive,
Reproductive, and
Striking.
Useful,
Beneficial,
to Deepen,
Gainful,
to Grow,
Helpful,
to Intensify,
Positive,
Productive, and
rewarding.
Spirit Home > Words About the Bible > words of change and effect
This page looks at the meaning of terms that describe the ability of the Bible to bring about change, action, and repentance. Also, it defines words that describe how the Bible teaches you, and helps you have greater impact as the Spirit impacts you through it.
The words below are offered as a place to begin to think about the Bible, and its role in your life and that of believers in Christ as a whole. Take up this challenge: think prayerfully about the use of each of these words. Are they true and/or useful, and in what ways? What does that mean for how I read the Scriptures? In what way(s) does this word go too far, or not far enough, and does some other word describe it better? There's a place for words that confine and words that broaden - how does the word do this? Or is it intellectual gibberish? Who in the past has said such things, and what did it lead them to do? If you find out what you really think of the Bible, it will lay the groundwork for how you learn Jesus through it.
Effective [ < Latin effectus, past part. of efficere (to accomplish)]. It can bring about the desired result.
The Bible succeeds in doing what it is created to do. Through the Spirit's work, it shows God, God's vision, God's purposes, and God's good news to us. Our collective openness to the Bible seems to be shrinking, but the Spirit is still using it to pry us open to God.
Other words like 'effective' include :
You can also check for
effective in the dictionary.
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Decisive : When something is called the decisive factor, it means that it is what causes things to be the way they will become; it sets the path, tips the scales. When someone is a decisive leader, that person is someone who leads without blind impulse but also without waffling. Such a leader is focused, direct, and purposeful; any differing thoughts in that leader's mind are harnessed to make the decision wiser, better, clearer and fuller. A decisive moment is a turning or tipping point, when the changes stop being potential and start taking effect.
And so it is with the Bible. When you're waffling on how to live your life, or even on knowing what a Godly life is, Scripture is decisive. It shows the way to go; it is what is given to you by God to set your path and tip your scales. And it is bypassed only at great spiritual cost.
Other words in this same field of meaning include :
Potent : [ < Latin potens, pres. part. of posse (to be able) < potis (able) + esse (to be) < assumed Indo-European poti- (a root word indicating ability or power to accomplish)] Strong, vigorous; able to get a task done; exerting strong influence, control, or authority; able to cause reproduction.
The Holy Spirit, as God, has the power to touch people through the Spirit's tool of choice, the Scriptures. Touch, heck -- often the Spirit really lays the hammer down, smashing to pieces your strongest resistances and shaking your worldview at its foundations. That's what being 'potent' is about. Through the Bible, the Spirit has moved many people at roughly the same time, with ideas whose time has come or a new awareness of what's really at stake. Even after thousands of years, the Bible still causes its readers to give birth to new ideas, expressions, and angles on the challenges of life. It exerts an influence over each Christian's life.
Other words like 'potent' include :
Another like term is 'striking' (as an adjective). One of the most common occurences people have when reading the Bible is when they're busily reading, plugging ahead with nothing happening, and then suddenly they come across something that hits them like a baseball bat. They get stunned, can't get it out of their mind, and are caught in a eureka moment where they see things differently. This is done by the Spirit. Not that all the Spirit does through the Bible has "pow!"; most of what happens is gradual, adding up, accreting. But "pow!" happens quite a bit, and lives get shook by it.
You can also check the dictionary for
potent and
striking.
More on being struck by it, from Ann Voskamp.
Useful (adj.) [ < Old French user < Latin uti (to use, utilise)] Having a beneficial or practical application; able to be put into service for a purpose..
Most terms for describing the Bible are not words that the Bible's inspired writers used. (They were too busy living it to spend much time thinking about how to describe it.) However, in 2 Timothy 3:16, it says that the Scriptures are God-breathed (inspired) and useful (for teaching, training, and correction). The Greek word there is ophelimos; the root meaning has to do with using something in order to progress, gain, or profit.
Other words in this same field of meaning include :
Two other such words, 'progress' and 'profit', are best avoided in the context of the Bible's usefulness. These words carry far too much partisan and polemical baggage in philosophy ('progress of humankind'), politics ('progressivism') and economics ('profits'). Not that these are themselves evil things; they may even be good at times. But their sharply partisan meanings would give a false impression about the Bible, and thus the words should not be used.
Instructional is another of the words like 'useful' which spring from 2 Timothy. The Bible teaches us what God most wants us to know. It enlightens or illuminates the way forward in a world of shadows.
The Bible itself has two key things to say about this: Matthew 22:29 and
2 Timothy 3:16. In the Matthew verse, Jesus tells us that if we come to understand Scripture, we will not spend our time on working out the technical details as these Sadducees did. Instead, we'd focus on what God is revealing in Scripture - in this case, that there is a resurrection, and that resurrecting and restoring is the way God does things. In 2 Timothy, Timothy is being told that through the Scriptures he has known from childhood (that is, the Hebrew Scriptures), he has been given the tools he needs for the task he's about to be given in Chapter 4. He's told that Scripture's really good at such teaching and training. "Reproof" and "correction" refers to the work of Scripture as the 'norm' for instruction. "Teaching" and "training in righteousness" refer to this instructional work of Scripture, so that the believer can tell the difference between the insight given by God and the ear-tickling stuff.
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Other words in this same field of meaning include :
You can edify yourself by checking the dictionary for 'instructional' and 'useful'.
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| ver.: 12 July 2012 The Effective Bible. Copyright © 2000-2012 by Robert Longman. |