Bible Question:
I found this rather and unusual article in a christian publication. The Paomnnehal Pweor of the Hmuan Mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredo the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzaning huh? I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are they works; and that my soul knoweth right well -- Psalm 139:14 End of Article. You have no idea how difficult it was to key this in. Try it. I'm thinking the hidden message behind this article is pretty powerful so let me know what you think about it. It says a lot to me but I'm more interested in your response/opinion. Blessings to you all. Country Girl |
Bible Answer: Vrey itestnreign. And one is empted to say something about that in terms the psychology of it, in terms of attention and perception and cognition and maturation and levels of processing, and it is very hard to resist the first and the last of these especially, because they seem to be the important issues here. This writer did a study once on the effects on recall of facts from randomizing the order of sentences in a paragraph, and the results were interesting. Many explanations have been offered for the effects of these things and it is interesting to read them. The nature of this forum being what it is, though, I suppose we must seek a scriptural correlate and a spiritual lesson. With all the explanations that are given for spiritual things, what can we say? Persfsoor Jnoathan Ewdadrs says, “Beileve on the Lord Juses Csriht and tohu sahlt be svead”. Prfossoer Steevn Schacs says, “Tehre is olny one God and Maammohd is his porhpet”. Waht is the dcifferene? All reliogins wshorip the smae God. It deos not mettar what you beleive as lnog as you are sencire. Some say that words are converted into pictures in the mind. But what picture do you see when you read “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ”? What does believe look like? And we have no idea what the Lord Jesus Christ looks like. We may have a picture of the place in the Bible where we read it or the physical location we happened to be in when we heard it “and knew the grace of God in truth” (Colossians 1:6). Some preachers believe they need to help you to create those pictures by giving stories or other illustrations. For example, they would say that believing is like sitting in a chair and trusting it to keep you up. I have done that. But one wonders sometimes whether the effect God wants to create is not a voice rather than a picture, his voice. After all, it does say, “Faith cometh by hearing”. What if you are reading the Scriptures? Does he not want to convert that into his vioce (sic) in your heart and mind? Why is it people have such little difficulty with the passage in spite of incorrect spelling? One reason is that we are influenced by words such as “research“ and “university” and “professor” and we are more open and less critical towards what is to follow. Thank God for a heart that is similarly influenced, but more so, by the words, “God said” and “Jesus said”? It causes us to think of passages such as Exodus 14:15 and Luke 5:5. One other reason is that we sense we are expected to make sense out of it regardless of the errors. We read these strange words with an optimistic expectation that we will be able to understand it. Initial success breeds subsequent success, and eventual success. It reminds us of the process we go through in our spiritual understanding, adding spiritual truth to spiritual truth (1 Corinthians 2:13) and going from faith to faith (Romans 1:17). One can go on and on with this but again, the most important issues seem to be those of attention and levels of processing. As we read the Scriptures, are we focused and expecting to hear the vioce of God? Are we into it with a “Speak, Lord, for your servant heareth”? Or are we focused on the physical words on the page? What if the translator did make a mistake? Can we hear the voice of God anyway? How deep do we go, and do we allow the Spirit of God to take us there? We can ask ourselves even now what it is we see when we read, “Beileve on the Lord Juses Csriht and tohu sahlt be svead”. |