Pen pictures and qwerty keyboards

I was sitting at the reference desk one day last week when a man—one of our regular patrons—approached the desk and asked if I knew what a “pen picture” is. He had seen the phrase in two unrelated places recently and was confused about the meaning of the term. He had googled the term for a definition, and he got the result: “Archaic (19^th century): 1. A drawing done in pen; 2: a written account that creates a mental image.” He was not sure how that applied to the two cases he had seen labeled pen pictures, as one of them was a poem, and the other was a recollection of past events.

I helped him to understand how both the poem and the recollection fit the second definition of “a written account that creates a mental image.” We also agreed that the phrase “pen picture” no longer applies, since written documents in the 21^st century are created at keyboards. The conversation brought back memories of the way I used to write as compared to the way I write today.

When I was in high school and college, I would always write a first draft of a paper for school—or of a story—in pen. I would note all my corrections and additions, and then I would type the final draft with an electric typewriter. Even when I got my first desktop computer, I continued to handwrite the first drafts of my work. Only after several years of using a computer did I begin drafting my first drafts at the keyboard, editing them while I wrote them, and then printing a final copy on paper. Of course now I often publish my writing electronically and never have a paper copy of what I have written.

Paper can be destroyed quickly in a fire or a storm. Paper can disintegrate or fade slowly because of light, heat, humidity, mold, insects, rodents, and other hazards. Electronic records are also subject to loss. Computers crash. Storage devices fail. Technology changes, making older storage devices unusable. Even “the Cloud” can lose electronic documents and pictures. The best policy for preserving an electronic file is to save it three different places. Some writers email copies of their work to themselves as back-up copies.

In many cases, when a researcher visits a research library to view a digitally-created document—a string of emails, for example—the library staff prints the document on paper for the researcher. When the researcher is done with the document, the library staff saves the paper copy in case another researcher wants to see the same document later; they will not have to go through the trouble of finding and printing a second copy for the second researcher. The digital age was expected to reduce our reliance on paper, but often paper is still the best way to observe and preserve a digitally-created document or picture.

“Pen picture” may be an archaic term that has fallen out of use, but bloggers and other writers today continue to produce pen pictures of sorts. We still “dial” our cellular phones and still type with “Qwerty” keyboards that were designed to reduce the jamming of typewriter keys. Our digital pen pictures continue to produce mental images in the minds of others. As much as our technology changes, people are still people; we don’t change all that much from generation to generation. J.

Advertisement

Guest post from Johannes Tauler

Years ago we used to sing a song in church with the title and refrain, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.” Christians indeed ought to be recognized by their love. We were created in God’s image, and God is love. Redemption transforms sinners back into the image of Christ, and Christ is love. The greatest commandments require us to love God and to love our neighbors. Love should be characteristic of every Christian.

This month several Christian bloggers have commented on other people who call themselves Christian and yet are deficient in love for their neighbors. Such observations generally are tempered by the understanding that not one of us is without sin; and that even the most annoying and aggravating Christian would likely be an even worse person without the redemption of Christ and the guiding of the Holy Spirit. One saying tells us that we cannot understand another person until we have walked a mile in his or her shoes. (Taken literally, that’s a silly picture. What would we do—expect them to walk that mile barefoot? Or leave them barefoot while we take their shoes a mile away from them?) We cannot know what kind of aches and pains, digestive problems, fears, and anxieties might cause another person to act unloving towards his or her neighbors. If they that they are Christians, we owe it to them to assume that they are doing the best they can under the circumstances. At the same time, Scripture encourages Christians to exhort one another toward a higher standard of behavior. If the love of Christ has changed our lives, we want to bear witness to his love by example and not by words alone.

Johannes Tauler would have blogged if he had the technology. Born around 1300, he never had that opportunity. Instead, he preached and he taught. Tauler noticed the people of his century who called themselves Christians, yet whose lives made that label questionable. He observed, “Then there are the others, who are devoted to religious life and enjoy great esteem and reputation. They are pretty sure that they have left the darkness far behind; and yet they are fundamentally Pharisees, filled with self-love and self-will. All their striving is centered on themselves. Outwardly one can barely tell them from God’s friends, for they often spend more time on pious exercises than God’s friends. One can always see them reciting prayers, keeping fasts, and strict rules. If judged by externals, they are hard to recognize. But those in whom God’s Spirit dwells know them for what they are. In fact, even outwardly there is a way of distinguishing them. They are always sitting in judgment upon others, also on those who love God: but you never see them judging themselves, whereas the true lovers of God judge no one but themselves. In everything, in God and in his creatures, such people seek nothing but their own gratification. So deeply embedded is this pharisaical tendency in their nature that every corner of the world is invaded by it. It is impossible to overcome this habit by natural means: one might as well try to break down mountains of iron. There is only one way, and that is for God to take over and inhabit man. And this is what he does only for those who love him.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same. J.

An arranged marriage

When I was young, my father told me about a French trader and explorer who was living and working in North America back in the 1700s. This trader was lonely and wanted to get married, but not many French women had come to the New World. So, like other French traders and explorers of his century, this man decided that he would marry one of the native women. He contacted the chief of the nearby Chickasaw tribe, and the two men decided to negotiate for the marriage of one of the chief’s three daughters.

The only common language the men had was English, and the Chickasaw chief actually spoke better English than the French trader. To avoid stereotyping and objectionable characterizations, I will have both men speak normal contemporary English.

They met at the chief’s dwelling, and the chief explained that among his people, when a man acquired a wife, he must pay a price for her to her family. The French trader agreed to this, and the chief had each daughter come out of the dwelling, spread an animal skin on the ground, and sit on it. The first daughter brought out a deer skin, spread it on the ground, and sat on it. “Twenty pieces of silver for her,” the Chickasaw chief declared. The French trader nodded.

The second daughter came out of the dwelling with a bear skin. She spread it on the ground and sat on it. “Thirty pieces of silver,” said the Chickasaw chief. Again, the French trader nodded.

The third daughter brought with her a hippopotamus skin. She also spread it on the ground and sat on it. “Fifty pieces of silver,” said her father. The French trader looked at the three young women. All three were young and attractive, but he could not see that the third one was more special than her sisters. “Fifty pieces of silver?” he asked. “Why so much?”

“You know that we have no hippos around here,” her father said. “That hide is imported from Egypt. It traveled many miles—very expensive.” He took a deep breath and added, “The value of the squaw on the hippopotamus is equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides.”

J.

She speaks, yet she says nothing–what’s with that?

Language is a strange and wonderful thing. Whereas Pythagoras believed that reality at its most basic level consists of numbers, the Bible reports that God spoke the universe and all that it contains into existence. Moreover, when the Son of God entered creation to redeem and rescue it from evil, one of his followers identified him as “the Word” and wrote, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”

On the other hand, when a group of people defied God and sought to build a tower as a symbol of their defiance, God overturned their rebellion by causing them to speak different languages. Humble and loving people could have overcome this opposition by learning to communicate with one another, but arrogant people like the tower-builders each insisted that he or she was speaking the only proper language and that those who spoke another language were wrong. As a result, the tower was never built.

Since that time, languages have changed, mixed, spread, and in some cases disappeared. English is largely a blend of Germanic and Latin vocabulary and grammar, with some Celtic and other influences stirred into the mix as well. As a result of that mixture and of centuries of change, English contains many mysteries, such as the contradictory pronunciation of the words “tough,” “though,” “through,” and “thought.” New words regularly appear. The word “inflammable” means “likely to burst into flame.” At some point in the twentieth century, someone feared that people would misunderstand the word “inflammable” and shortened it to “flammable.” Now both words are in the dictionary, with identical meanings, even though it appears they should be antonyms rather than synonyms.

A friend of mine thought she could obtain an easy A in high school by taking classes in Spanish. After all, she spoke Spanish at home with her family every day. To her disappointment, she discovered that speaking Spanish at home was not the same as understanding Spanish. Her grammar was not up to her teacher’s standards, her spelling was incorrect, and her vocabulary was smaller than she realized. Getting a good grade in her own language turned out to be far more difficult than she had expected.

This week another blogger took me to task for referring to the meaning of the Greek prefix “anti” in the title “antichrist.” In the Greek of the New Testament, as written in the first century A.D., the prefix “anti” means “taking the place of,” not so much “in opposition to,” as it signifies in contemporary English. The blogger’s rebuttal of my comment surprised me so much that I did not respond, and now it’s water under the bridge, too late for a meaningful discussion. If I offended anyone by seeming too proud of my knowledge of Biblical Greek, I apologize. But the blogger’s suggestion that knowing Greek and Hebrew are not helpful for understanding the Bible carries things a bit too far.

On the one hand, to learn the commandments of God and to see that we have not kept those commandments does not require any knowledge of Greek or Hebrew. The English translations convey that message quite well. To recognize Jesus as the Son of God who redeems and rescues sinners through his sinless life and sacrificial death also requires no special language skills. Once again, the translated Bible conveys that message effectively. To know of his victorious resurrection, his guarantee of eternal life in a new creation, and his ongoing presence in this world also requires no Greek or Hebrew studies. In this case also, the basic message is communicated flawlessly in any translation of the Bible.

Anyone who presumes to teach others about the Bible should go beyond these basics. Even if he or she does not learn to read Hebrew and Greek fluently, he or she at least should be capable of consulting reference books on the Bible and understanding their application. Not only does the Bible need to be translated from ancient languages into contemporary languages; information about the cultures in which the Bible was written needs to be learned as well. Misunderstandings of certain verses and conflicts between different interpretations of the Bible are reduced (but, alas, in a sin-stained world, not eliminated) by consulting the Bible in its original languages and contexts rather than trusting contemporary translations to convey the full meaning and nuance of each word, each sentence, and each paragraph.

The other blogger mentioned a case in which a man from Athens corrected a preacher who referred to some Greek word or phrase from the New Testament. Because no details were included, I cannot tell whether the preacher was truly in error or if the preacher was kind and polite enough not to insist to the man from Athens that the preacher was correct in his interpretation. Consider a similar scenario: a person in France has studied Elizabethan English in order to understand the plays of Shakespeare. Now this French person is teaching a class on Shakespeare. A man from North Carolina challenges the teacher’s explanation of a certain line, insisting that he has spoken English all his life and is better qualified to explain Shakespeare than anyone who grew up in France. (By the way, Andy Griffith performed a wonderful routine about Romeo and Juliet in which, when Juliet exclaims, “Romeo, Romeo, wherefor art thou Romeo?” and Romeo responds, in a thick Carolina accent, “Why I’m right here.”)

A Cuban-born woman once asked me the rule for when the letter t should be pronounced like a d in English. Until that time I had not noticed how often Americans pronounce ts as ds. Say the sentence “I wrote a letter to my sister” with crisp ts and notice how odd it sounds. But if a rule exists about when ts sound like ds, I’ve never learned it. By the same token, Spanish speakers often distinguish “b as in burro” and “v as in vaca” because their bs and vs sound the same.

Language is a strange and wonderful thing. When we think casually about communication, we tend to think of a single message being sent from one person to another. But there are several versions of each message: the version the creator intended, the version actually produced, and the version received by the audience. To further complicate matters, there is the actual creator and the creator assumed by the audience, as well as the actual audience and the audience assumed by the creator. When carefully studying a message, all these versions and participants must be kept in mind. It’s a wonder that two of us can communicate at all in this crazy world. J.

The book of Job

“There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1). The Lord pointed out Job to Satan, noting these qualities of Job, and Satan replied that Job was faithful only because God had blessed him with wealth and worldly comforts. God permitted Satan to afflict Job, while placing limits upon the harm Satan could do. Job lost all his wealth in one catastrophic day, and his ten adult children died the same day. Afterward, Job was afflicted with a painful rash, something like chicken pox or shingles, that covered him from head to toe. Despite all these problems, Job remained faithful to God.

Three friends came to comfort Job. While they sat silently with him, they did well. When Job started to speak out of his pain and depression, they fell short. Job wished aloud for a hearing with the Lord so Job could protest his innocence and learn why God was causing such problems in his life. The friends responded, essentially, that God does not make mistakes. The losses of wealth and family and health were, they said, a wake-up call for Job, a warning to fix his life so God would be pleased with him again.

At the end of the book, God says that Job’s friends are wrong. God did not afflict Job to correct Job’s behavior. Before God speaks, though, the four men are addressed by a younger man named Elihu. Elihu is disappointed in Job’s friends because they failed to set Job straight. Although Elihu does not join them in saying Job deserves to suffer, Elihu suggests that Job is in the wrong for demanding an explanation from God. His language, becoming increasingly vivid as he speaks of stormy weather approaching, anticipates God addressing Job from a whirlwind.

God does not say that Elihu was wrong. Instead, he reminds Job of their relative positions, asking Job where Job was when God created the world. Mockers and critics have said that they do not approve of God’s word to Job. They think that God should have confessed his part in what they call a “cosmic bet.” Their sympathy is with Job, and they do not accept this book’s solution to the problem of why good people suffer while the wicked seem to flourish.

Whenever Christians read any portion of the Bible, we should look for portrayals of Jesus. Job has a particularly memorable confession of faith in Christ: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another” (Job 19:25-27). Job himself is a Christ-like figure, an Old Testament picture of Jesus, suffering though he does not deserve to suffer. Recognizing Job as a picture of Christ helps us to see more clearly the full message of the book of Job.

God does not want his people to sin. He guides us by his commandments, not through our problems as his response to our sins. His Holy Spirit, using the Bible, teaches us why we were created and what we are on earth to do. We sin every day, failing to live up to our Creator’s standards, but every day we confess our sins and every day we are forgiven. God does not treat us as our sins deserve. We live under a new covenant, one in which God takes away our sins and remembers them no more.

Because we live in an evil and sin-polluted world, we suffer. Evil is not fair; it is random and unjust, striking the good and bad alike. When we see a random act of evil, we remember how desperately we need a Savior. When we suffer, God permits the pain and the loss to remind us of the cross, the pain and the loss Jesus endured for us. As Job was a picture of Jesus before Jesus was born, so we are pictures of Jesus today, not only by our efforts to obey God’s commandments, but also by our endurance and patience when we suffer, looking to God in faith and not failing to trust in him.

Like Job, we are blameless and upright in the sight of God. Like Job, we have no right to question God’s decisions or second-guess the burdens he allows us to bear. Like Job, when we do question the Lord, we are forgiven. We may not receive the answers we demand during this lifetime. Then again, perhaps we do.

God leads Job through a lesson in biology, pointing to the variety of living creatures God has made, and asking if Job could do anything remotely comparable. The list concludes with two monsters. The first is Behemoth, which some people think is an elephant, others a hippopotamus, and others a dinosaur. The second is Leviathan, which some people think is a crocodile, others a legendary sea monster. Could, however, Leviathan be Satan? Consider these descriptions: “Will he make many pleas to you? Will he speak to you with soft words?… Lay your hands on him: remember the battle—you will not do it again! Behold, the hope of a man is false; he is laid low even at the sight of him. … His sneezings flash forth light, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. Out of his mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap forth. Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke, as from a flaming pot and burning rushes. His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from his mouth…. He sees everything that is high; he is king over all the sons of pride” (Job 41: 3, 8-9, 18-21, 34). What other created being so resembles the dragon of Revelation 12?

If Leviathan is a picture of Satan, then Job is told (in a round-about way) the source of all his problems and the reason for his suffering. He is warned that on his own he cannot defeat Satan; but, like us, Job is not alone. Jesus has battled Satan, and Jesus has won. When our sufferings remind us of the cross, we can look beyond the cross to the victory—and to the eternal victory celebration that awaits us in the new creation.

At the end of the book, Job has twice as much money and twice as many animals as he had at the beginning of the book. At the beginning Job lost ten children; by the end of the book he again has ten children. Why was the number of children not doubled? Because on the Last Day, when Job sees his Redeemer with his own eyes, he will be reunited again with all twenty of his children. The first ten were not lost as the animals and other worldly wealth were lost. They died, but they were in Paradise awaiting the resurrection. Because Job feared God and turned away from evil, his faith was able to sustain him during his suffering, and his hope in the resurrection for himself and for his children was not crushed. J.

Baptism

InsanityBytes wrote a charming piece on baptism which you can (and should) read here. As I commented to her, I agree with most of what she wrote. Many of the other comments began to head in several different directions. There are some more things I want to say about baptism, but rather than trying to say them all in her comments section, I decided to say them here.

First, Christians can disagree about baptism without condemning one another. We can have different opinions about what baptism is, what it accomplishes, where and how it should be done, and so on. To use technical language, each Christian believes that he or she is orthodox (or correct) and that Christians who disagree are heterodox (or incorrect), but we do not accuse the heterodox of being heretics, hypocrites, or unbelievers. We have the same Lord and Savior. We will meet in the same new creation, where we will know and understand all truth and will be able to identify (without shame or embarrassment) who was wrong about what teachings in this world.

Why then continue to discuss baptism? Why not “agree to disagree” and remain silent? Because those Christians who misunderstand baptism are missing the fullness of a blessing God intends them to enjoy. Because of their misunderstanding, they are missing the peace and comfort that comes to them through their baptism.

The key question is: is baptism something we do for God or is baptism something God does for us? If baptism is a work we do for God, then it cannot be involved in our salvation, for we are saved by grace through faith and not by works (Ephesians 2:8-9). But Peter wrote, “Baptism now saves you” (I Peter 3:21). On Pentecost, to answer the question “what shall we do?” Peter answered, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children” (pardon a little throat clearing at that last phrase) (Acts 2:37-39). Mark 16:16 says, “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned.”

Can God save people apart from baptism? Of course; God can do anything. Unbelief condemns; lack of baptism does not condemn. But God links salvation to baptism for a very important reason. Even the most faithful Christian sins, and we all need assurance of forgiveness that goes beyond our repentance and our faith. We all have bad days when we wonder if we have repented correctly and sufficiently; we all have times when we wonder if our faith is strong enough for us to be saved. If we were left only to measure our repentance and our faith by the way we feel or by the good works that we do, we would be left in doubt.

To rescue us from doubt, God gave us the gift of baptism. When the devil and the sinful world and the sin still within us accuse us and make us doubt our faith and our salvation, baptism is our escape. Because God has linked the promises of forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life to the blessing of baptism, we use baptism as our defense when we doubt or when others attack. The correct attitude is not, “I was baptized on a certain day,” but, “I am baptized.” Baptism is a state of grace under which each Christian lives in this world while looking forward to the life to come.

Earlier this year I wrote more about baptism, which you can read here, here, here, and here. J.