The Good News in Japanese

Some years ago, I read a book in which the premise was that God has spoken the messageof 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.

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Contributed by Glenn Howard White Jr.
You may email Glenn at this address:glenn@writetoinspire.com
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