Small Preaching: 25 Little Things You Can Do Now to Become a Better Preacher, by Jonathan Pennington (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021). Very few pp.Great little title. Punchy and short. Genuinely full of wisdom. The three things that stood out to me most: The very...
In my other life, I am the editor of Faithlife’s Bible Study Magazine, and one of my first acts as editor was to give myself a column: “Word Nerd: Language and the Bible.” They said I could. I also turn all the columns—plus a few that aren’t in print—into YouTube...
Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading by Eugene H. PetersonMy rating: 5 of 5 starsI've said before that I'm an emotional reader. My five stars for this book represent my rapture at great prose and, more...
There’s a young man I know from Christian circles somewhere in the U.S.—I’ll call him Kyle or Gerald or Edward, or maybe something a little more derogatory—who posted what I can only call an anti-girls-going-to-college meme on Facebook. It argued that Christian...
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On the t-shirt, I like how “And Mitzpah” was just randomly left on at the beginning of the verse.
Right! Except that “Mitzpah” does mean “watchpost.” But it’s still odd to leave “And Mitzpah” at the beginning, and I don’t think they did it because they knew what the word meant (though I’m just guessing from available evidence, namely the quality of design work that went into that shirt…).
This is an example of how slavishly people stick to “verses,” like I think I’ve mentioned. “But God commendeth His love toward us…” They include the conjunction at the beginning because it’s “in the verse,” but they would never do such a thing while quoting a novel or a letter they received.
I don’t want to make too big a deal of typography and layout considerations; it’s more important that people read their Bibles than that they read a Mark Ward approved edition. But I’m still pretty sure that these considerations matter more than most people think; and I think most people don’t think about them at all.
I don’t think the designer was even thinking, just taking the whole verse and plopping it on the shirt, “And Mitzpah” and all.