What is Semiotics? Why Is it important?

Semiotics is the science and study of "signs," or semeia (semion) in Greek.

You don't get a driver's license without passing a semiotics test: a driver's test is all about reading the signs of the highway. Jesus insisted that his disciples also pass a semiotics test and know how to "read the signs of the times" not just "the signs of the sky" (Matthew 16:2b-3). A doctoral degree in Semiotics, Scripture and Culture (SSC) will induct you into the tribe of Issachar, the scholarly tribe who is famous for being able to "know the times and know what to do" (1 Chronicles 12:32).

Culture is a story language. Learning to read that language is what is called semiotics. We are perpetually signaling our intentions toward one another and expecting those signals to be picked up, translated and processed. Growing up is learning to "read" that signaling. Since 90% of communication is nonverbal (facial expression, body language, energy flow, etc.) everyone needs semiotic training, especially preachers. 

A doctoral degree in Semiotics, Scripture and Culture (SSC) will help you open up the Scriptures in ways that you never knew possible.

A doctoral degree in SCC will enable you to read the Scriptures in the vernacular of our culture--story with a soundtrack-so that as you read them cinematically they become a motion picture in your mind.

A doctoral degree in SCC shows you how to go beyond meeting people where they are, and instead meeting Jesus where he is in the midst of people where they are.

A doctoral degree in SCC enables you to move beyond seeing the Bible as a 31,102 verse puzzle to putting the puzzle together so that you see the Scripture as one Big Picture, one Big Story-from Genesis to Revelation. 

A doctoral degree in SCC helps you rise above autobiography to "read" what God is doing in the world and in the church. 

A doctoral degree in SCC teaches how to exegete the white spaces in life and in Scripture-the silences, the pauses, the hushes and the hums. 

A doctoral degree in SCC empowers you to connect prophetically the dots of what is going on in the world and the word.  

A doctorate in SCC specializes in learning how the mind thinks--not in words and ideas but in metaphors and narratives. Symbol gives rise to thought. Where words can dam up the divine, narratives and metaphors (narraphors) are doors to the divine that invoke, evoke, provoke. 

A doctorate in SCC specializes in truth-tracking, not trends-tracking. Every age, every epoch, has its trends. The question for the tribe of Issachar is which trends tend toward truth, and which trends tend toward evil and falsehood. 

A doctorate in SCC will sharpen your skills at textual hermeneutics (reading the Bible as a text) while raising your Contextual Intelligence to the highest levels of cultural and biblical semiotics (reading the Bible as a contextual story). 

This doctoral program will platform your research and writing into a publication, a book, vlog, podcast, art work, that will build up the body of Christ for mission in the 21st century with our 22nd century kids. 

This doctoral program will cause you to fall deeper in love with Jesus. 

This doctoral program will bring to life this Issacharian Prayer:  "May you go out into a short-sighted world that sees very little ahead and be far-sighted followers of Jesus. In a world ruled by signs and symbols, may you be the ones who connect, put together, and bless the ties that bind not break. In a world whose currency is story and song, may you be Jesus curators of story and cantors of song. Amen.”

Dr. Leonard Sweet