Words or Pictures

During this past year I have had a growing interest in autism and have looked at the DVD titled “Temple Grandin” at least six times. Learning about Temple and her thought process has caused me to consider how I think. During this past year I also acquired an iPhone and have come to enjoy it and the apps you can get for it. One of those apps I use every night is the Bible.is app. I am currently using this app to read and listen to the New Testament in 40 days. As I use this app I have come to realize how much of the time I actually say the words in my mind when I normally read. As I sit at my laptop and write this I actually am writing from what I am hearing in my mind. I find this rather interesting to realize how strong pictures and audio are to my thinking process.

Several nights ago, when I couldn’t sleep, which occurs at least once every night, I got up and worked on my lesson for Sunday morning Bible study when I realized how strong sounds and pictures were in how I process things. The lesson is on Romans 10 so I got my iPhone and listened as I read the chapter several times. As I read and listened the verses began to break down into sound phrases and then into pictures. Let me take a very well-known verse to illustrate. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, ESV).

The sound phrases began to arrange themselves as follows:

For

God so loved the world, that

he gave his only Son, that

whoever believes in him

should not perish but

have eternal life

When I do that I hear the phrases over and over in my mind and I see a picture of how they are arranged and their relationship. The picture shows me that there are two main points to the verse; how God feels and the benefit for those who believe. As I look at the structure I see another picture as shown below:

From this verse I know that God loves everyone in the world no matter what their sin might be. I also know that those who believe in God’s Son should not perish and instead have eternal life. The word “should” reminds us of those who believe but have a faith that is not a saving faith. A good example of this is found in Matthew 7:20 – 23.

There is one thing the verse doesn’t tell us and that is what causes a person to decide to become part of the red circle. Why is one able to decide and another isn’t? If you didn’t witness to someone is it possible that person might end up in hell when otherwise he might not? If a child dies at a very young age will it go to heaven, but if it lived to old age it might end up in hell? Let us be careful when we study the Bible that we have a good translation and take time to see what a verse actually says.