A Pattern

In the days of my youth, when students were learning to use a typewriter, there was one special sentence that they had to practise: 'A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog'. This sentence had the merit of containing all 26 letters of the alphabet, so typing it over and over again made the student's fingers familiar with the whereabouts of every alphabetic key on the machine. I do not know if this sentence is ever used nowadays. The layout of a computer keyboard is much the same as the old typewriters, but there must be some more sophisticated method of learning to use it. 'Quick brown foxes' do not sound very much in keeping with the requirements of technology.

The ancient Greeks of New Testament times had a more basic system. A boy learning to write would be given a shallow tray spread with soft wax, and a stylus, pointed at one end to write his letters in the wax, flat at the other end to smooth away what he had written so that he could use the space again. His teacher would mark the wax in the tray with lines, to help him keep straight, and across the top would be written the sentence he had to copy. This might be any sentence, but there did exist sentences, not necessarily meaningful, which contained all the letters of the Greek alphabet. Such as: m a r p t e s ph i g x

k l O ps z b u ch th E d o n The name for this sentence written across the top and to be copied was the hupogrammos.

This word is used only once in the New Testament, by Peter in 1 Peter 2.21, meaning an example, a pattern to be copied. Jesus left us a hupogrammos that we should follow in his steps. 'Just as the schoolboy learns to write by following the perfect copper-plate example, so we are scholars in the school of life, and we can only learn by copying the perfect pattern of life which Jesus gave to us.' (Barclay) This explanation is very good, and covers every aspect of Christian life, but what was it that prompted Peter to speak of Jesus as our pattern?

He had been saying, 'Respect everyone, love your fellow-believers, honour God and respect the Emperor (v.17 GNB). Then he went on to deal with the particular case of house servants. He told them they should submit to their masters and show them complete respect, 'in all fear'. There was a possibility they might not do so - Peter was probably concerned for the reputation of Christian servants. They might get beaten for nothing. They might tell lies, answer their masters back, threaten revenge. Peter said they were to show proper respect even to masters who were not kind and considerate, even when they were punished for doing what was right. In this they would be following the pattern that Jesus set.

Jesus did not sin, told no lies, did not give back insult for insult. When treated wrongfully, his hope was in God, the righteous judge. (Peter knew, he had been there.) He carried our sins in his body onto the cross with the purpose that our sins might wither away and leave us living rightly. We were like straying animals, on the loose. What He did was to round us up, and put us back in the care of the Shepherd who would take charge of us.

There is a further analogy in thinking of Jesus as our hupogrammos. The Greek teacher might not simply set the student work to copy. He would place his hand over the student's hand as he worked, and guide his stylus in the right direction. When the letters had been formed in this way, then the student on his own could trace the shapes that they jointly had cut. "Jesus does not give us an example and leave it at that; an example can be the most discouraging thing on earth.... He does more.... as the master's hand guided the scholar's first fumbling efforts, so he guides us... he left us not only a dauntingly perfect hupogrammos - He constantly helps us to follow it." (Barclay)

And his hupogrammos covers every letter in the alphabet of life.

GC

With acknowledgment to William Barclay, New Testament Words