Onomatopoeia? If you aren't a word nut, English teacher, Scrabble player, or crossword puzzle aficionado, you may not have ever heard or seen this word before. Onomatopoeia (on-uh-mat-uh-pee-uh) is a great word. It comes from the Greek words onoma, meaning name, and poieo, meaning I make. Basically, onomatopoeia is a word that makes the sound of it's name. Confused? This may clear it up. A bee says what? Buzz. Hold it out now...buzzzzzz. Doesn't that word kind of imitate the source of the sound that it suggests? Oink, meow, roar, tick-tock, are all examples of this. (On a side note, if you could see me testing all these onomatopoetic words as I write, you would be quite entertained). This is a concept that is not only in the English language, it is universal across the board. Even Scripture contains onomatopoeia, however you must look in the original languages to grasp it.
As I consider onomatopoeia, I think of words that sound like what they look like. At church, I see a lot of very nicely dressed people, and various dress code requirements throughout my educational history have forced me, and many other people, to look nice and dress nice, but the question for us today is, do I sound like I look? Am I an onomatopoetic Christian?
Anyone can dress up nicely for any occasion - a pig could wear a hat to church, but that's not who he is! The challenge for all of us is to become onomatopoetic Christians - not that we walk around perpetually saying, "zip, bang, pop, ribbit, woof, snap, and cuckoo" but that our actions match our speech. I could tell you that I am an excellent singer, but until I actually sang, there would be no validation of that. Today, let's validate our Christianity and live this day as an onomatopoetic Christian.
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