Please read the two sentences, which share identical meaning, in the two bullets below. For lack of terminology, let’s say that Sentence A is a noun-led statement. Sentence B is a verb-led statement.
- Sentence A (noun-led): Mr. Smith is a murderer.
- Sentence B (verb-led): Mr. Smith killed someone.
How did you react/response to these two sentences? What were your initial thoughts on Mr. Smith based on Sentence A and Sentence B? Are they similar, or different? If they are different, why do you think they are different?
To Sentence A, people tend to react with judgement. People tend to judge early and decisively that Mr. Smith was a bad person, a person to be deservedly sentenced to many years in prison. To Sentence B, however, people’s reaction was different. People were more curious than judging. They wondered why Mr. Smith killed someone. Although identical in meaning, the verb-led statement seems to evoke different reactions from the noun-led sentence. This is one of the insights shared by Professor Kim, a psychology professor in Ajou University in South Korea.
How God uses noun-led and verb-led statements
His short lecture gave me an “aha!” moment and a new insight on how God perceives and evaluates His people despite their flaws and failures.
Here are a few examples of how the Bible uses the noun-led statements.
- Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth (Numbers 12:3).
- God labeled David, a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22).
- Gideon was a valiant warrior (Judges 6:12).
- Jephthah was a valiant warrior (Judges 11:1)
- Jesus designated Peter as the rock upon which He will build His church (Matt 16:18)
Notice that these are noun-led statements and all highlight good positive aspects of that person. For positive qualities, God uses the noun-led statements for people to make a quick, decisive judgement on their goodness.
In contrast, we have never seen these statements in the Bible, although they are true.
- Moses was a murderer (Exodus 2:12).
- David was an adulterer and murderer (2 Samuel 11).
- Gideon was a corrupt king (Judges 8).
- Peter was a betrayer of Jesus (Luke 22:54-62).
Instead, the Bible uses verb-led sentences to describe the flaws and failures of these men of God, but never makes a decisive noun-led claim on their negative aspects. For Moses, the Bible describes why Moses killed the person (not to justify). For David, the Bible narrates David’s act of committing adultery with Bathsheba and of craftily killing Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, in the battle field – this allows the readers to wonder, question, and learn, instead of making a premature condemnation. The Bible also depicts the situation in which Peter denied Jesus three times, but never labeled Peter as a betrayer – so that we can read and meditate on the shortcomings of Peter, and reflect our limitations and flaws to focus more on the grace of Jesus Christ.
In summary, God labels great quality of His people by noun-led statements. For flaws and failures of His people, God narrates those events in verb-led statements for the readers to meditate, ponder and learn both the depravity of people and loving-kindness of God.
How do you use noun-led and verb-led statements?
I pray that you will use them in an apt manner as God did to His people. You will shine like stars in the sky in this crooked generation (Phil 2:15).
Give Life 