An Inagural Explanation

Ahhhh. The inagural post. This one has to be one of the best I think. Capture the audience. I'm new to this blog thing. So, maybe it's time to post the weeny posts while the only follower I have is myself. That way, I'll at least know who the anonymous hate e-mail comes from! I suppose I will start with explaining the title of my blog. Hupogrammos. It's not a made up word. Really. It's not. Go look it up in the dictionary if you don't believe me!


Couldn't find it?


Try the Greek dictionary!


Yup, there ya go.


For those of you without a Greek dictionary, I will expound. A hupogrammos is a "tablet that contained the entire Greek alphabet. Students would use this to trace the alphabet, learning each letter from alpha to omega."


I began learning cursive in second grade. I'm glad they made those little papers that had the letters in grayscale so you could trace them a few times before trying it on your own. Had my teacher just told me to start writing cursive without ever having something to trace, I have a feeling my paper would've just included a lot of my own scribble that only I could read. But now, I have mastered cursive. I am an adult. I can do it all by myself. You know, I bet those Greek kids from back in Peter's day were certainly happy to have a hupogrammos to help them out while first learning to write.


Jesus often mentioned having faith like a child. No wonder His example is found in something so common to school-children, a tracing tablet.
Hupogrammos is the original word for "example" that Peter used in chapter 2 verse 21 of his first epistle.


"For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow His steps..." (NKJV).


When I first learned of the beautiful analogy at play in these words of Peter's, I remember getting goosebumps. What a word picture. That Christ's life is our own hupogrammos. That we are so often bumbling about, wondering what Christ would have us do with our lives when it's already been carved out in a tablet waiting for us to simply trace.
Maybe its time to go back to school.