every house has one

Every house has one, a room or attic, or corner of the basement where things accumulate that are seldomly used, but still too good to throw away.  In my parent’s house it was a closet off my old bedroom, and on my last visit 4 years ago I went through it looking for something of my past.  Never did find them, my old Tom Swift books, but came across instead my old tape recorder.  It was a 4 channel Magnavox, that we used to sing or scream into, or record songs of the radio on.  Nothing high tech about the 10 year old that had been using it, but inside were two 7” reels full of memories and deeds, some better left in the past.  Of course my desire to listen to them only increased when I found the recorder didn’t work, and actually thought of trashing the whole thing, erasing 5 decades of my youth, but then was reminded by my son that you can have them transferred to DVD’s, and rather than trying to fix an old recorder, I could listen to them in my car, on my computer, or anywhere DVD’s were played.  So for $75, my wallet was lighter, but my memories richer, and 1964-65 came alive again.  By what we talked about, the TV shows, the songs, the news, and girls, you could tell how old we were an what year it was.  Some 4 hours later, wishing there was more, I had taken a trip back, better than Mr. Peabody’s Way Back Machine, and could even remember the days and events we recorded.  Never knowing the impact they would have today.  We didn’t think of the future, or the past growing up, we were having too much fun then just being us.  Everyday was an adventure, being a kid was supposed to be fun, and we took every advantage of it we could.

But in that 50 years ago of tape, without the technology of today it would have been thrown away.  Recording had come a long way from old Tom Edison and his wax cylinders.  The 78’s my parents listened to and found for 10 cents a piece at yard sales had turned to 45’s, both sides full of music, one the hit, the other the B side.  All for 59 cents!  That any kid could afford.  33rpm records, referred to as vinyl today, filled the soul for much longer, and had another side of songs to play...plus the album cover which may have sold you on the music in the first place.  Cover art came into its own in the late sixties, and the $2.99 purchase had you both listening and looking.   4-tracks by Madman Muntz morphed to 8 tracks, and soon became the norm in every teen car.  You could play an entire album with only minor interruptions as it changed tracks, sometimes in mid song, making us wish for the album version.  Cassettes remedied that, and played both sides, just flip them over like an album.  CD’s became hot, could be played in a Walkman, and soon in cars.  Easy to store, but fragile, one scratch could change the whole song or mood, and soon records, 8 tracks, cassettes, and reel to reels became history stored in the  archival room in every house.   And this is where I discovered my past, many technologies ago.  Amid the background noise I found many memories Dolby may have erased, but for now technology was a good thing, it would rescue my past, or reveal it, and it was OK that it went on this long.

But maybe not, as finding some CD-R’s, small CD’s this weekend from a camera filled with trip memories, I found they could not be played back on my computer.  Bummer, but with an adaptor could in my DVD player on the TV, and relived a past I had lost, or at least I had thought.  But again trapped in a technology time warp, with no escape, at the mercy of the current generation, far removed from their initial recording, all of 10 years ago.  So maybe technology was a good thing, and it may have gone on too long, and I wonder what the future kids will look back on.  No photo albums, no vinyl records or even tapes, all stored in a memory taking up no physical space, easily misplaced, but easily played back.  No album covers, no flip sides, no pages to turn, just hit the next button, and fast forward as you wish.  Looking back has never been so easy, or so impersonal.  But lose the i-Pod and all is lost. 

2000 years ago, and even further, back to the first books of the Bible, God needed a way to preserve history, His story, and to pass it on to the next generation.  He used scribes, people whose job it was to record events, a skill for the learned, and very important in society.  No margin of error, and often the skills would be passed down from father to son, entrusting the recording for the next generation.  Accuracy counted, no opinion here, and although a scribe may be a Pharisee, they worked for kings and religious leaders, giving way over the years to journalists, authors, lawyers, and typists of today.  And in some places helping illiterates keep records, they were the tape recorder of their day, providing information for years to come.  Historical, legal, and factual, they literally wrote history.  Just as they were told. 

Many today question the authority of the Bible, whose author God revealed it by spirit to some 40 authors in 66 books.  Recorded by scribes, painstakingly recorded word for word, which when compared to editions like the Dead Sea Scrolls give veracity to them, proving them to be God inspired, man recorded, and spiritually insightful and correct.  Just as God wanted them.  They are like Jesus, the same yesterday, today, and forever, and no matter the version, all verses pint to God.  To Jesus as the way, and to the holy spirit to guide and comfort.  Only a cult will change the words, change the meaning and deny Jesus his deity, but they are not of God, but of Satan the father of lies.  Think about it, if you were God would you want your message, the story of you corrupted?  Changed to fit your sin rather than the love of God?  Consider this, is God stupid?  Would he who created the earth leave it up to your interpretation, or to the truth?  Would he bother to send his son Jesus to die, only to have his true story lied about?   Either God is real, the Bible true, or we are all in trouble.

Today you can read many versions of the Bible, listen to it on tape or DVD, access it through satellite radio, or hear it taught in person.  Recorded in your memory for future playback.  For some a room where the memories are forgotten, to others as fresh as the day you were first saved.  Either way God’s word is perfect, and as we are told in Timothy “all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”  A gift from God, all about God.  The following just how tough it was to be a scribe, and how important they were to God, and to us receiving exactly what his spirit directs. 

The Jewish scribes used the following process for creating copies of the Torah and eventually other books in the Tanakh.

1. They could only use clean animal skins, both to write on, and even to bind manuscripts.
2. Each column of writing could have no less than forty-eight, and no more than sixty lines.
3. The ink must be black, and of a special recipe.
4. They must say each word aloud while they were writing.
5. They must wipe the pen and wash their entire bodies before writing the most Holy Name of God, YHVH, every time they wrote it.
6. There must be a review within thirty days, and if as many as three pages required corrections, the entire manuscript had to be redone.
7. The letters, words, and paragraphs had to be counted, and the document became invalid if two letters touched each other. The middle paragraph, word and letter must correspond to those of the original document.
8. The documents could be stored only in sacred places (synagogues, etc.).
9. As no document containing God's Word could be destroyed, they were stored, or buried, in a genizah.

Remember that next time you question God or his word, could you have done what a scribe did?  Many of us have problems with too many buttons on the radio, imagine taking a bath every time you entered the recording studio, and the places we store things are a lot less holy than a synagogue.  Do we speak what we read as we record as they did?  Could we record the words of God as he wanted them?  Suddenly God is pretty smart....are we?

All scripture refers to Jesus as God.  If he is part of your past, keep the memories alive via testimony.  If not, start a new chapter in life today with him.  Find life and love, forgiveness and grace in his words, his word.  The Bible. Don’t leave your Bible to gather dust as my tapes did, keep the love fresh everyday.  Meditate on Jesus and his word, finding life and comfort in the day’s trial and tribulations.  Get to know God, and as he writes his word on your hearts, for instant retrieval, let it take on a deeper meaning than any written word other than his can.  If it was important enough for God to speak it, for the scribes to record, it ought to be important enough for us to read today.  So put God in the first groove and let it wail.  And remember this bit of technological advice, the same amount of grooves on a record is the same amount of a living God.  One.  From beginning to end, it is all about Jesus.  The word of God, long before cassettes, 8 tracks, or DVD,s, it was bringing life to a dying world.  Unlock that room in your heart today...technology is a good thing, only Jesus will last forever.

love with compassion,

Mike

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