I was over at church the other day and saw some of the decorations that are being created. Many of the banners have rows of what look like pictures on them. They are called hieroglyphics. While we use an alphabet to write words, Ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphics to convey information. A few of them look like people or animals, but other of the ‘pictures’ I have no idea what they are or mean! Trying to help, I traced a few on a banner and found out later that maybe I had some of them upside down or backwards. No one thought it was a big deal as most of us won’t know the difference, but it made me think how hard it can be to communicate with others.
For example, can you guess what my ‘hieroglyphics’ say?
I am guessing all my friends at FHBC will say “I love Jesus” or “I love God”. Someone who doesn’t know about Jesus, though, might not understand that the picture of the cross stands for Him. They might also see the picture of the eye and not realize it means ‘I’. They may even think it means ‘see’. What about the heart? Do you think everyone all over world would know that it stands for ‘love’? Suddenly my pictures might not mean the same thing and say something totally different!
Let’s try one more. Look at the following images. What do you think they mean?
The first thing that comes to my mind with them all in a row is arrows, but if you just had the first one, what else could it be? I think it could stand for a house or home. What if you lived someplace where everyone lived in caves and had never seen the kinds of houses we have here? If you didn’t speak the same language or come from the same place, how could you make sure that they understood that it means the place you live in? I think it would be really hard!
Why don’t you try it? Make your own sentence out of your very own ‘hieroglyphics’ and see if your friends or family know what you are saying. Or, more fun yet, play a game of Pictionary with them! Later talk about how hard it was or wasn’t to figure things out. Then imagine being a missionary in another place where they speak a different language and where they don’t know about Jesus. How hard do you think it is to help them understand about God, sin, forgiveness, and salvation?
I would love to hear about your fun with hieroglyphics and about how you could tell someone about Jesus who doesn’t know Him! (With or without hieroglyphics, as there are lots of ways to tell/show people about Jesus!) Ask your parents if you can share your ideas below.
Does anyone know what the hieroglyphics on our logo stand for? I don’t!