Most
of us read Jesus’ comment, “Render unto Caesar…” as a negative but it clearly
is not. Jesus turned the Pharisees’ hostile trap question back on them and they
walked away humiliated. The point of what Jesus said is that the commandments
of God supersede or override those of any government whenever there is a
conflict between the two. His comment acknowledges that the government can make
legitimate claims on us. Remember that all governments are in place only with his
consent.
Our
compliance with and assistance to government can take many forms, including jury
duty, military service, running for a place on the local school board, and paying
required taxes. I know, I hate them too, but Jesus himself paid taxes.
There
are many avenues for Christians to faithfully serve their government. For
Americans with an interest in history, there is one very intriguing option. (I
am not sure if this is restricted only to American citizens, but other
countries may also have programs such as this for their own documents.)
The
vast majority of the millions of original documents from the 17th to 19th
centuries and many from the early 20th still exist only in handwritten form. These include military records, land transaction and dispute records, supply requisitions, court records, official correspondence, census books, tax records, government pension applications, and various miscellaneous documents. The United States National Archives is
seeking unpaid volunteers who are able to read cursive handwriting and
especially the handwriting of the 17th to 19th centuries.
The needed skill is called paleography: the science or skill of transcribing ancient or
historical documents.
The
Archives need this because people have shifted through the years from
handwriting, to type-setting, to typewriters, then word processors, then
texting, and many now almost exclusively use talk-to-text technology. Some even
tell an artificial intelligence program what they want to be in a document and
then allow the AI to compose it. These people will look at the English-language
handwriting of the 18th and 19th centuries and may be as
confused as if it were written in Chinese or Arabic.
The
handwriting of prior centuries is very different from what is now considered to
be standard. The forms of letters are different, the language can sound stilted, flowery, or obscure, the letters may be written very close together to get more writing
on one page (paper was expensive), unfamiliar or archaic words may be used, and the
spelling is often very fluid, even in the same document.
The
difficulties are compounded by the fact that in some modern school systems,
cursive handwriting is no longer even taught. My granddaughter went to one such
school and had to ask me to teach her how to read and write cursive.
Volunteers
for the National Archives program may sign up online and pick any one of the
over 300,000,000 currently digitized but still un-transcribed documents. There
is no specified number or type of documents which the volunteer must process
and no time limitations. Those who are uncomfortable reading older forms of
cursive can still volunteer their efforts since the documents transcribed by
others also need to “tagged” by mentioned subjects and names to make them
easier to search. Information about this program can be viewed here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2025/01/15/national-archives-is-seeking-citizen-archivists-who-can-read-cursive/77717797007/ and the government website is
here: https://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist/missions/revolutionary-war-pension-files
Matthew 17: 24-27, 22:15-22; Mark 12:13-17: Luke 20:20-26; Romans 13:1-7.
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