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Acts 22:22 – Trigger Words
Trigger words, warnings concerning such, and an ever evolving PC culture are defining this era. That’s sad – and scary (political correctness was a term coined by Vladimir Lenin); and this is nothing new.
Check out the speech (if I say sermon would that be a trigger word?) Paul makes in his defense in Acts 22:1-21. Now look at v.22 – “They listened to him up to this word” (HCSB 2004). Some translations read “up to this point” (CSB) or “statement” (NASB). The Greek is logos, which occurs 332 times iin the NT; and in the NASB is translated as “word” 179 times, and “words’ 61 times. So the HCSB here is very “word for word” (!) and literal. That means the trigger word for these Jews was “Gentiles”.
After this point was made in class, a lady asked an application question, “What are our trigger words?”
Religiously, if hearing a “denomination” was doing something, even if it was scriptural becomes moot, it is rejected because of that word.
Politically we are witnessing ideas are bad based upon the political party whose name triggers a negative reaction.
Comically Marty McFly’s trigger word was “chicken”.
What this means is, and again this is nothing new, trigger words sadly reveal more about ourselves than the person who says them. While we should be careful to not needlessly offend; we need to not be so easily offended. Of course this only applies to others…right?
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