Jesus made the message plain. So should we.
July 21, 2007 (Saturday) – The word, “radar,” used by us quite a bit these days, is an acronym for “radio detecting and ranging.” Most of us never think about that when we say, “the radar shows a strong storm headed our way.” The word has taken on a life of its own.
Acronyms used as words have become quite common. So have “initialisms,” sort of like acronyms, but we don’t try to make a word out of them, we just use the initials. For instance, we are a “BGCT” church, meaning we cooperate with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. “SBC” can mean Southern Baptist Convention, or it can be used as the logo for “Southwestern Bell Corporation,” which has now become “AT&T” (American Telephone and Telegraph). And so on.
We are sometimes frustrated by writers who resort to acronyms and initialisms, assuming that we know what they are talking about. Many times we have to look them up, because we are not familiar with them.
We say, “Old Testament” and “New Testament” but many times what we’re reading are the initialisms, “OT” and “NT.” And what about the various translations, KJV, NIV, NASB, etc. etc. Generally when reading these initialisms as references, we say them as words. The print on the page says, “KJV,” but we read it aloud as “King James Version.”
According to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, “The longest acronym is.. ADCOMSUBORDCOMPHIBSPAC, a United States Navy term that stands for “Administrative Command, Amphibious Forces, Pacific Fleet Subordinate Command.”
Also from Wikipedia: “The world’s longest initialism, according to the Guinness Book of World Records is NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBOMONIMONKONOTDTEKHSTROMONT. The 56-letter initialism (54 in Cyrillic) is from the Concise Dictionary of Soviet Terminology and means ‘The laboratory for shuttering, reinforcement, concrete and ferroconcrete operations for composite-monolithic and monolithic constructions of the Department of the Technology of Building-assembly operations of the Scientific Research Institute of the Organization for building mechanization and technical aid of the Academy of Building and Architecture of the USSR.'”
(O.K., you may now breathe).
It’s safe to say that the one just mentioned seldom comes up in a conversation.
As our language becomes more complicated, we need to remember that Jesus spoke simple words in a very understandable way. He made the message plain. So should we.