A reader recently asked me, “What does a secular contemporary song title have to do with the Bible?”
Previously I attempted to explain why I was using song titles or slight modifications thereof as my article titles. Evidently my earlier explanation was inadequate, as even the editors changed the title on the previous article. So, I’ll take another stab at explaining why I chose a modern song title as my article title.
For the last few articles we have been summarizing Paul’s letter called 2 Corinthians. In an attempt to be “pithy” I am using contemporary song titles from my youth as the article titles. Every Bible topic we are privileged to write and teach about is approached from the prospective of 2 Timothy 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,” which is part of Paul’s final instructions to his understudy Timothy. When studying the Bible a key part to “rightly dividing the word” is memorization!
So what does a contemporary song title have to do with memorizing Bible quotes? The answer is simply word association. No doubt many people can recite countless lines from the songs of their youth.
By associating something we already know with something we are trying to learn, we connect the new memory with an old established memory. Writers, students, teachers, preachers and other communicators frequently use word association to make their messages memorable. Memory devices such as word association are nothing new and come in many forms. The inspired writers of the Bible have used literary memory devices from the books Genesis.
The structure of the creation account in Genesis is a memory device known as a Mnemonic, in which numbers and words are associated in a pattern to aide memory. Countless authors have written on the Genesis creation mnemonic, including myself, so I won’t rehash it any further here.
Poetry is another memory device, plus poetry is the basis for all songs. The Psalms were originally written as Hebrew poetic praise songs. They were intended to be repeated, back to the first reader by the hearers. This way everyone could memorize the Psalm. It is no wonder King David, who is responsible for at least one-third of the Book of Psalms, penned these immortal words: “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” (Psalm 119:11)
Memorizing the scriptures was necessary because all written copies were painstakingly handwritten and only a select few priests had copies. It must be noted that Johannes Gutenberg didn’t invent the printing press until the 1450s. Hundreds of years after the last Greek New Testament books and thousands of years after the Torah (five books of Moses) were written in the original Hebrew. So memorization was the best way for people to know God’s inspired word.
One other small piece of business that needs to be taken care of from our previous article is word spelling and meanings. Specifically, I want to address word spelling and meaning for my preferred translation, the KJV Bible. The most readily available and our current version of the KJV Bible, often uses archaic 17th century KJ words. In the 500-plus years since the original 1611 KJV Bibles were chained to the pulpits in Great Britain, the English language has changed considerably.
The meaning of many words, word pronunciations and spelling of words have changed since 1611 King James English was the daily vernacular (language spoken by common people in a specific region). Dictionaries like Websters add new words and redefine exiting word meanings every year as our language changes. Not only do word meanings change over time, often the spelling also changes. Additionally, the way a word is commonly used as a part of speech can change over time.
Therefore, running a spellchecker on KJV Bible quotes, often results in replacing an archaic word with a modernized spelling, which can have a different meaning. It also can result in replacing the original word with a similar sounding word of a different meaning. Sometimes the difference in meaning between the old word and the revised spelling is glaring. At other times the difference in meaning is nuanced.
For instance, a spell checker was inadvertently run on the Matthew 7:14 KJV quote in our previous article. Matthew 7:14 is the infamous verse about the “strait and narrow.” The spell checker program changed strait to straight. These two words are homophones, which means words that are pronounced/sound alike, but have different meanings, origins or spelling, for example new or knew. Homophones can cause confusion, because they are often misused. This is especially true for these two words, so much so that the original spelling of straitjacket has been changed to straightjacket.
Straight in today’s English is always an adjective, that in its base connotation means not having bends, curves or angles. Whereas, strait on the other hand is almost always a noun, that means a narrow channel joining two larger bodies of water or any two places. For instance, Strait of Gibraltar or Bering Strait. Derivatives of strait are, financial strait or dire straits. If you’re still confused this should help. Strait is typically a geographical term, i.e. Bering Strait. Straight is a directional term. For instance; turn right on First Ave. and continue straight for 2 miles, the church will be on your left.
However, in the KJV old English, strait is used in the archaic as an adjective to tell us something about the gate in Jesus’s Matthew 7 judgement parable. On top of all that, Jesus is speaking in parable, because at that moment the message is for his Apostles and followers only. Yes, in that moment his parable had a hidden meaning. Hidden, because as Jesus told Mary before his first miracle at the wedding supper “mine hour is not yet come.” Jesus still had work to do before he would submit himself to the death of the cross. (See Philippians 2:6-8 KJV)
So the adjective use of strait in Matthew 7 is telling us something about the gate in Jesus parable. Matthew 7:14 KJV
“Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
Remember Matthew 7 is a part of Jesus’s famous lecture known as “The Sermon on The Mount,” that begins in Chapter 5. In which sermon Jesus is teaching that the law and the prophets can only be fulfilled thru humbling oneself by becoming a servant of God.
Matthew 7:1 begins the conclusion of the teaching, and is a warning that God’s judgment is imminent. The entire 7th chapter is interlaced with parables and Hebrew idioms. The gate is the entry to Heaven (“life eternal”). It is not just any gate, it is a strait gate, which leads to Heaven.
Jesus is the Messiah that rejoins earth to Heaven. Jesus is the gate.
Jesus also explains the way to Heaven in the “Good Shepherd parable found in John:
John 10:9-11 KJV: “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. [10] The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. [11] I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.”
Over the last 500 years the difference in meaning between the homophones strait and straight have become blurred. So much so that it’s hard to explain. One thing is for sure, the truth of God’s word has never changed. There is only one way to Heaven, his name is Jesus.
“Taking care of business in every way.”