One of the things I like least about viewing the Olympics is the gymnastics competition. Not only are the athletes immodest, I just don't care for all that tumbling and flipping around. As far as I can tell, the one who can run, twirl around, and tumble the most without falling over himself wins the gold (I must admit...such an assessment is rather simplistic, but that's how it is to me.)
I believe we are becoming more & more like "gospel gymnasts" these days. We are not running around some mat nor hanging on some uneven bars. We do our gymnastics with words. When asked straight up what we believe on a topic, many today in the Lord's kingdom starting jumping through "linguistic hoops" in attempts to justify their position. This is nothing new. We've seen an American President lie to the citizenry, and then play word games concerning the definition of a simple 2-letter word. Why, even Jesus dealt with this very notion among the scribes & Pharisees (Mt. 23:16-22). They would try to excuse themselves from obligations by technical use of words.
The Scripture warns us about wrangling over words or other vain babblings (1 Tim. 6:20b; 2 Tim. 2:14). Rather, we should concentrate on "guarding the gospel entrusted to us" (1 Tim. 6:20a) and "rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15).
One area we see this type of behavior the most is the present controversy we have among brethren over marriage, divorce, and remarriage. May an unscripturally put-away spouse subsequently divorce his/her mate after his/her mate later remarries or commits fornication? Many begin to answer this question by arguing more over phrases we've coined ("mental divorce", "marriage bond" or "civil procedure") than by consulting what the Lord or His apostles said about it (Mt. 5:32; 19:3-12; Mk. 10:2-12; Lk. 16:18; Rom. 7:2-3; 1 Cor. 7:10-11).
Make no mistake...I'm not opposed to using accomodative language to make a Biblical point (I've done so in this article). However, when we become known more for such language than we are for a Bible answer, we are nothing more than "gospel gymnasts." Either a position will hold up to Biblical scrutiny or it won't...no matter how much "spin" we put on our words.
