adjectives

One of the rules we were taught in office training was this: write it first with no adjectives or adverbs. Just verbs and nouns, subjects and objects. That will communicate information at it’s most basic. Then, add the descriptors only where the basic message doesn’t communicate adequately. It’s hard to do, but in a bureaucracy like the government rules encouraging plain communication are helpful.

Maybe for that reason, I tend to pay attention to the absence of adjectives. Those missing words caught my eye this morning in 1 John 2:9-11: “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.”

Notice there are no adjectives related to “brother or sister.” It doesn’t say good or godly or honest or friendly or hard-working or beautiful. It doesn’t say bad or untrustworthy. There is nothing here to hint at whether our brothers or sisters deserve love or hatred.

I can’t believe the Holy Spirit, guiding John in this letter, was not aware that an adjective is a good way to add necessary meaning. Instead, it seems more likely that in this case adjectives would add nothing at all. If true, that would mean that to John, and to God, the degree to which our brothers and sisters deserve love or hatred has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

This isn’t about them, it’s about me. Showing love proves I’m a person of the light, a person close to God. Hatred shows the opposite. This isn’t about what others do to provoke a reaction in me, it’s about how I reflect God’s nature to people around me. God is love, therefore Christians love.

I wanted there to be adjectives because I’d like this piece of God’s word to give me a little more wiggle room than this. But it doesn’t.