Daily Post: Hidden
I’ve always loved mazes, optical illusions, and jigsaw puzzles. These devices challenge my mind to think creatively for solutions using visual keys. Apparently the latest “thing” from education to advertising is something called the “wordle.” Along with pimping up our vehicles or FB profiles, text now takes on a different image. It’s no longer a monotone black and white world of words. Today it’s horizontal, colorful, and mildly entertaining to discover what’s hidden in the wordle text images, as seen in the one above. In the educational world, teachers have learned the pedagogic value of wordles, useful as a text analysis tool, using these images in speaking or creative writing. We’ve come a long way from paintings on the walls of caves.
Wandering through the mazes of popular opinion, conventional wisdom, or long-held traditional spiritual beliefs, often cause a person to be confused or frustrated by a perceived “hidden” message. Looking at the image above, for example, the largest words are: “like, king, thousand, now,” and “hundred.” But what does that mean? What’s the significance? The other 50-70(?) words surrounding these surely have significance, but how would anyone know the order of things, or be capable of making sense out of them? It becomes a very subjective experience, which may be great to teach creative thinking, but eliminates all possibility of an absolute interpretation.
Therein lies the universal problem in approaching the Word of God as though it were just some cosmic wordle. The ancient world, along with many men and women today, while ignoring the veracity of God’s word, have relegated Scripture to the shelves containing fairy tales, myths, and other entertainment fiction. Here’s the crux of the issue. Why not consider the Bible today as accurately transmitted down through the ages, in the same way that scholars consider Homer’s Iliad, Sophocles’ Tragedies, Herodotus’ History, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, Palto’s Tetralogies, or Demosthenes’ Speeches? Why? Because the “truth” of the Bible seems still “hidden” to the men and women who make such decisions. For details on this issue see CRI-The Biographical Test Updated. If you are interested in such things, you might also find these 25 facts about the Dead Sea Scrolls interesting.
Like the Dead Sea Scrolls, hidden in caves for hundreds of years, the word of God still seems hidden or undiscoverable to the minds of many around the world. This is due to many factors, but the one that sticks out for me is the simple word “Truth.” In order to find truth one has to be willing to submit to the premise that there is such a thing as absolute truth. Not subjective truth, as though looking at a wordle and perpetrating some explanation for the whole based solely on what you see or perceive. No, not subjective truth, but objective truth, accepting without feelings, ideas, or opinions that one can know absolute truth.
Only when a person casts aside their own preconceived notions will they be able to come close to hearing the words of Jesus in the manner they are intended.
John 8:32
You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
It follows then that if someone is still subjectively seeing God’s Word, as only some confusing “wordle,” it is because something is blinding them to the truth. What could that possibly be?
Paul speaks clearly to this issue.
2 Corinthians 4:3-4
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Objective truth? Or wordle?
You have to decide for yourself.
Trust me, it’s right there in black and white!
≠
If you liked this blog post feel free to share it on your Facebook page. Send me a “friend” invite on my FB account or sign up by email to follow my blog!
As I was saying... 