Render Unto Caesar What Belongs to Caesar: Christian Citizen Involvement

 

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 17^th to 19^th 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 17^th to 19^th 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 The needed skill is called paleography: the science or skill of transcribing ancient or historical documents.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 18^th and 19^th 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.

Saints on the Loose! Tools: "Search This Blog" and "Translate This Blog".

        On this blog, Saints on the Loose!, there are two useful tools: "Search This Blog" and "Translate This Blog".

        The "Search This Blog" drop-down tool provides the reader with access to over 1700 subject listings from Christian doctrinal issues, social and cultural issues, sports, health, movies, food, books, television programs, history, Christian heresies, apologetics, and many other subjects.

        The "Translate This Blog" drop-down tool allows the the reader to select a language other than English in which they may read the blog post. This tool uses the Google Translate function and, as of January 2025, can translate 249 languages. A detailed but not excessively technical discussion about Google Translate can be found on Wikipedia.

        Use of these two tools in tandem can greatly increase the usefulness of this blog to you.

        The Google Translate tool provides what is probably a very literal, but readable translation.  Idiomatic meaning and some subtleties unique to particular languages may be lost. The following two example translations are of a portion of this post, in Traditional Chinese and in Spanish..

在這個部落格 Saints Loose! 中，有兩個有用的工具：「搜尋此部落格」和「翻譯此部落格」。

        「搜尋此部落格」下拉工具為讀者提供了數千個主題列表，包括基督教教義問題、社會和文化問題、體育、健康、電影、食品、書籍、電視節目、歷史、基督教異端、護教學，以及許多其他主題。

        La herramienta desplegable "Buscar en este blog" proporciona al lector acceso a miles de listas de temas, desde cuestiones doctrinales cristianas, cuestiones sociales y culturales, deportes, salud, películas, comida, libros, programas de televisión, historia, herejías cristianas, apologética, y muchos otros temas.

Where is Sinim?

 

Isaiah 49:12 refers to a country named סִינִים (Sinim). It is never again mentioned but obviously was known at the time. Modern thought believes that this is possibly a reference to China, very far to the East.

The modern English word sino comes from the Late Latin word sinae which is a plural form which translates as “Chinese.” The Latin word may possibly be derived from the Old Chinese word 秦 (Qin). This word is often used in compound-word constructions such as Sino-Russian or Sino-Japanese. It is the root of the English language descriptive word sinitic, which means “relating to Chinese things.”

The Jews may have traded with the Chinese as early as the 3rd Century BC/BCE, with other possible contacts in the 7^th and 8^th Centuries. In the 11^th Century, a small Jewish trading settlement was established at Kaifeng. The Mandarin-speaking Jewish merchant’s modern descendants are now assimilated into the mainstream Chinese culture and, in 2016, numbered about 600-1000 in China and 20 in Israel.

In the 16th Century, the Ottoman Empire established a trading relationship with China in part because of a love of Chinese white porcelain. The Chinese are known to have had a merchant colony in Jerusalem during this period.

Chinese porcelain fragments have been found in the Middle East. In 2024, a broken piece of a Chinese porcelain bowl from the Ming Dynasty was found during a dig on Mt. Zion outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The Chinese inscription translates as “Forever we will guard the eternal spring.“

福音歌 (The Gospel Song)

This is absolutely beautiful!  William Chong’s daughter loves her daddy and helps him sing his song.  William is a gathered worship leader at Howick Baptist Church in Auckland, New Zealand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OAPxinCISU

聖潔神以愛成為
完美人承擔我罪
十架上受苦犧牲
祂受死我得永生

Holy God, love becomes

Perfect bear my sins

Sacrifice on the cross of suffering

His death I have never

Shèngjié shén yǐ ài chéngwéi

wánměi rén chéngdān wǒ zuì

shí jià shàng shòukǔ xīshēng

tā shòu sǐ wǒ dé yǒng

Amazing Grace Performed in a Falsetto Voice

超級星光大道 (第二屆  One Million Star is a Taiwanese television singing competition similar to American Idol. Here is a video of one of the contestants, Lin Yu Chun (林育羣), singing “Amazing Grace.”  Though he has an adult speaking voice, he is a counter-tenor.  He was born in 1986 in Taiwan and uses an alternate stage name of “Jimmy Lin.”

Two sites which discuss the counter-tenor singing style are presented below. The inclusion of these sites does not imply endorsement of all their statements. Counter-tenors are often natural baritones or basses who have the ability to sing in a falsetto voice which sounds natural though there are men whose natural voice is in the countertenor range. The countertenor part is believed to have been developed during the Renaissance in reaction to the prohibition on women taking part in church choirs, taking the place once occupied by the castrati.

http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/performers/countertenors.html

http://www.voiceteacher.com/counter_Tenor.html

Repost, With Additions, of "Amazing Grace in the Cree Language"

Someone recently recently viewed my post of the hymn “Amazing Grace” being sung in the Cree language.  I realized that I had provided no information about the Cree themselves.

The Nehiyaw tribe is commonly known in English as the Cree tribe.  They are one of the Native North American tribes. Their traditional language is part of the Algonquian group (see below at the # sign) of languages.  Here is a photograph of a young Cree man taken in 1903.

You may notice that the English transliteration of the language is inconsistent.  The same word is represnted as "kihci" and as "kitchi." This is quite common in the transliteration process.  The Chinese language, for example, was represented by at least twelve different transliteration systems before the adoption of the modern Pinyin system. 

#: The Algonquian group includes Arapaho, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Menominee, Ojibwe (Chippewa),  Shawnee, Potawatomi, Massachusett,  Miqmaq (Mi’kmaq), Mahican, Narragansett, and others.

Hello, Macau!

你好，澳门！从126其他国家谁也访问这个博客欢迎各位读者群。我希望你找到一些有用的文章或有意义的。

“翻译此页”的小工具上方的“总浏览量”计数器有翻译本博客的英文文本直接进入中国，葡萄牙，和许多其他语言的能力。

一百二十六个国家：阿尔巴尼亚，阿尔及利亚，安哥拉，安提瓜和巴布达，阿根廷，亚美尼亚，阿鲁巴，澳大利亚，奥地利，阿塞拜疆，巴林，孟加拉国，白俄罗斯，比利时，伯利兹，博茨瓦纳，巴西，文莱，保加利亚，柬埔寨，加拿大，开曼群岛，智利，中国，哥伦比亚，刚果，哥斯达黎加，克罗地亚，塞浦路斯，捷克共和国，丹麦，多明尼加共和国，厄瓜多尔，埃及，萨尔瓦多，爱沙尼亚，埃塞俄比亚，芬兰，法国，格鲁吉亚，德国，加蓬，加纳，希腊，关岛，香港，匈牙利，冰岛，印度，印度尼西亚，伊朗，伊拉克，爱尔兰，以色列，意大利，象牙海岸，牙买加，日本，约旦，柬埔寨，哈萨克斯坦，肯尼亚，科威特，吉尔吉斯斯坦，老挝，拉脱维亚，黎巴嫩，莱索托，利比亚，立陶宛，卢森堡，澳门，马其顿，马达加斯加，马来西亚，马里，马耳他，墨西哥，摩尔多瓦，蒙古，摩洛哥，缅甸，纳米比亚，荷兰，新喀里多尼亚，新西兰，尼日利亚，挪威，巴基斯坦，巴拿马，巴拉圭，秘鲁，菲律宾，波兰，葡萄牙，卡塔尔，留尼旺岛，罗马尼亚，俄罗斯，圣基茨和尼维斯，沙特阿拉伯，塞内加尔，塞尔维亚，新加坡，斯洛伐克，斯洛文尼亚，南非，韩国，西班牙，斯里兰卡，苏丹，苏里南，瑞典，瑞士，台湾，坦桑尼亚，泰国，特立尼达和多巴哥，突尼斯，土耳其，乌干达，乌克兰，阿拉伯联合酋长国，英国，美国，委内瑞拉，越南，也门，津巴布韦美国。

Olá, Macau ! Bem-vindo ao grupo de leitores 120-6 outros países que também visitam este blog. Espero que você encontre alguns dos posts úteis ou significativos.

O " Traduzir esta página " aparelho diretamente acima do " Total de Vistas " Contador tem a capacidade de traduzir o texto em Inglês deste blog diretamente em chinês, português e vários outros idiomas.

Cento e vinte e seis países : Albânia, Argélia, Angola, Antígua e Barbuda , Argentina , Armênia , Aruba , Austrália, Áustria , Azerbaijão, Bahrain , Bangladesh, Belarus , Bélgica, Belize , Botsuana, Brasil , Brunei, Bulgária , Camboja, Canadá , Ilhas Cayman, Chile , China , Colômbia, Congo , Costa Rica, Croácia, Chipre, República Checa , Dinamarca, República Dominicana, Equador, Egito , El Salvador, Estônia , Etiópia, Finlândia, França, Geórgia , Alemanha, Gabão, Gana , Grécia, Guam , Hong Kong , Hungria, Islândia , Índia, Indonésia , Irã, Iraque , Irlanda, Israel , Itália , Costa do Marfim , Jamaica, Japão , Jordânia, Kampuchea , Cazaquistão, Quênia , Kuwait, Quirguistão , Laos, Letônia , Líbano , Lesoto, Líbia , Lituânia, Luxemburgo , Macau, Macedónia, Madagascar , Malásia, Mali , Malta , México, Moldávia , Mongólia , Marrocos, Myanmar, Namíbia , Holanda, Nova Caledônia , Nova Zelândia, Nigéria, Noruega , Paquistão , Panamá, Paraguai , Peru, Filipinas, Polônia, Portugal , Qatar, Reunião, Romênia, Rússia, São Cristóvão e Nevis , Arábia Saudita , Senegal, Sérvia , Singapura, Eslováquia, Eslovénia, África do Sul, Coreia do Sul, Espanha , Sri Lanka, Sudão , Suriname, Suécia, Suíça , Taiwan, Tanzânia, Tailândia , Trinidad e Tobago , Tunísia, Turquia , Uganda, Ucrânia, Emirados Árabes Unidos, Reino Unido, Estados Unidos da América, Venezuela , Vietnã , Iêmen, Zimbábue.

Predictive Text Technology Threatens Chinese Ideography

An recent article in the USA Today newspaper talks about how the use of cell phones and computers with predictive text technology is causing a degradation in the ability of Chinese users to write the traditional Chinese language ideographic symbols. Many say that the technology causes the user to become fast but inaccurate.

Modern cell phones and word processors use predictive text technology in which one key or button represents many letters or characters. When the user enters a key or button, the program chooses the most likely next letter or character (a “prediction”). The next entry results in a smaller set of possible letters or characters based on the first two entries. As more keys or buttons are entered, the predicted text becomes increasingly likely. (Google and other search engines use predictive algorithms of words instead of letters to hone in on your desired search subject as you type in your request).

Predictive text technology as applied to the Chinese language makes use of the pinyin writing system. Written Chinese is an ideographic system rather than an alphabetic system. Alphabetic writing systems  represent sounds by using a set of distinct letter symbols. Ideographic writing systems use symbols to represent ideas or concepts. Alphabetic writing systems are much more compact and flexible than ideographic systems and are able to incorporate foreign or “loan” words much more easily.

Alphabetic writing systems (and the number of letters used by each) include English (26), German (26), French (26), Italian (21), Arabic (28), Urdu (38), Korean (24), Spanish (29), Russian (33), Greek (24), Vietnamese (30), and Hindi (46). In contrast, knowledge of 4000 characters is necessary to achieve functional literacy in written Chinese.

Chinese predictive text programs used in cell phones and word processors make use of the pinyin system which they “translate” into Chinese characters. Pinyin is the official phonetic system for transcribing the sound of Chinese characters into Latin script in China, Taiwan, and Singapore. An example: 北京 is represented in pinyin as Běijīng, which, in English is rendered as Beijing. In the older Wade-Giles system this was presented as Peking.

Some Chinese have become concerned that as the digital predictive text technology proliferates, traditional Chinese calligraphic script will fade away. That process has probably already begun with pinyin eventually being the victor. This is a sad phenomenon because written Chinese is visually beautiful, but it is probably inevitable at some time in the future

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/november/chinese-typewriter-historian-112812.html

http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2013/01/04/5218/

To demonstrate the beauty and the complexity of the written Chinese, see the following quotation from Acts 28:31, the verse from which this blog takes its theme.

“Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.”

In the Greek, the final word of this verse is ἀκωλύτως, “unhindered,” hence, “Saints On the Loose!”

Acts 28:31 in the Simplified Chinese characters:

宣布神的国度，并教导有关主耶稣基督 - 所有的他勇气和！不受阻碍

Acts 28:31 in the Traditional Chinese characters:

他宣布神的國度，並教導有關主耶穌基督 - 所有的勇氣和不受阻礙

Acts 28:31 in Pinyin transliteration:

fang4dan3 chuan2/zhuan4 jiang3 shen2 guo2 de* dao4 , jiang1/4/qiang1 ye1su1 ji1du1 de* shi4 jiao4dao3 ren2 , bing1/4 mei2you3 ren2 jin4zhi3