“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be” John 1:1—3.

Language is critical in human relationships. Its precise function is to convey meaning. A successful gauge of language is how easily understanding is facilitated. Having been in college a few years now, it seems as if the general tendency of academia is toward sophistication. Is this truly necessary to be considered “smart?”

I have seen many doctoral theses in the library. As I curiously flip through them, I cannot help but wonder at the phenomenon that they all manifest. With so specialized a vocabulary, and sentence structures hardly conducive to being spoken aloud, they beg the question, “Who will read this?”

Each thesis is so convoluted and inaccessible as to be selfsentencing itself to oblivion. The greatest Teacher, however, spoke to the common person. The opening verse of this piece fittingly used “Word” to describe Him. Jesus used parables—analogical stories—to convey understanding.

In the Gospel of Matthew, the apostles asked Jesus why he used parables. Jesus said, “This is why I speak to them in parables, because ‘they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand” Matthew 13:13.

Part of the success of C.S. Lewis is indebted to the accessibility of his writing. For example, in Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis said, “In God’s dimension so to speak, you find a being who is three Persons while remaining one Being, just as a cube is six squares while remaining one cube.”

The clarity of an analogy, here, is most evident. Analogies, while never fully describing the actual essence of something, do capture well an insight that sheds light.

I do not endeavor to advocate a vulgarization of all of academia. Scholarly research has its place and the restless pursuit of further knowledge is invaluable. Contentedness and complacency with insufficient explanation or an inadequate answer is never encouraged.

It seems though, there is a spectrum between, on one end, complacency with little knowledge and on the other end, where academia falls, incredibly specialized information inaccessible to the masses. It seems that such writing gives precedence to the number of syllables over the number of insights.

The middle of this spectrum is optimal. It is understanding that conveys meaningful truth and is relatable to the audience. The essence of language is its relatability. Jesus used parables because they took people’s experiences and used them to point to something higher.

Oscar Wilde once said, “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well worth remembering from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” In other words, firsthand experience is most efficacious in learning. Therefore, appealing to an experience of a person is one way to help them grasp something better.

Sometimes I wonder whether it is the most appropriate test to have graduate students undergo oral comprehensives to a select board already well versed in the discipline-specific terminology related to the thesis. Perhaps, the true metric of an expert in his or her related discipline would be giving a person off the street an understanding and insights about the study at hand.

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