Photo and Commentary ©2023 by Maylan Schurch
Sabbath, December 30, 2023
A long time ago I was an English teacher, so I have a habit of keeping an eye out for how words are used. I especially enjoy seeing innocently-written phrases or sentences which can be taken to mean something entirely different from what the writer intended.
Take the above photo, for example. It’s from the cover of a packet of punched three-ring notepaper. As you can see, the promo-writer intended these words to mean something like this:
“This is heavyweight paper, and therefore if you’re using a felt pen or marker, the paper will give ink-bleed less chance of happening.”
But in my mind, I couldn’t resist reading it this way:
“Heavyweight paper fights! Ink bleed!”
In other words, people are doing battle on paper. (Nowadays, of course, it’s screens which are most often used.) These word-battles sometimes get so fierce that it’s almost like people are bleeding ink!
The reason this is so fresh in my mind is that I just read an online comment from someone who had read an independent Adventist magazine and complained bitterly that its contents were becoming “communist/Marxist.”
The Bible, of course, insists that the fruit of the Spirit is not anger, bitterness and verbal vitriol but “love, joy, peace” and other such qualities (Galatians 5:22 – 23).
My favorite of Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” is the one which advises, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” We’re all prone to flying off the handle from time to time rather than going cautiously and tactfully into potentially explosive discussions.
Below you’ll find links to two helpful sets of Bible texts, one about anger and the other about forgiveness. Why not take a minute or two to review them? You might need them early in the New Year!
https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/anger
https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/forgiveness