Some
years ago, I read a book in which the premise was that God has spoken the
message of the gospel into every culture. Think of it, the good news is
available to everyone in every culture. This is pretty profound stuff.
For
example, Japanese is a language where pictograms are used to represent words.
The Japanese word for “holy” is a pictogram with three symbols
representing “ear”, “mouth”, and “king”. The
word “holy” in Japanese literally means “putting your ear next
to the mouth of the king”.
When I
first read that, I thought, “Wow!” Being holy isn’t about
cutting or not cutting your hair in a certain way, wearing particular kinds of
clothes, or performing various rituals. Being holy is simply a matter of
listening to God. I could see that God truly does speak the good news
into the Japanese culture. But that isn’t all.
The
Japanese word for “king” is composed of three parallel lines.
The top line represents heaven, the bottom line represents earth, and there is
a middle line representing man. Then a vertical line is drawn from the
top line to the bottom line, cutting right through the middle line. The
result is an image of a cross. But wait, it gets better. The
literal translation of the word “king” is, “a man suspended
between heaven and earth.”
We have
a King by the name of Jesus, a man suspended between heaven and earth for the
sins of the world, who has left the message of Good News for all men to read
and understand. That is good news to really think about.
By Glenn Howard White Jr. www.writetoinspire.com
