I have noticed this trend picking up a small amount of steam over the last year or so. It's not widespread, and I can never see it becoming the "norm" or anything, but it is more noticeable now then it was a while ago. I even have a family member that does this. What is it that I am talking about? It's the conscious decision not to write out the name of God. They would, instead, write "G-d". Now, lets be fair - it's not that these people hate the letter "O" or anything - and I am sure the "O" key on their keyboard works just fine... it's just that, for some reason, they have decided that it is somehow more respectful and/or reverent to write "G-d" instead of "God."
....but is it?
Well, it is almost always traced back to the fact that the Jews in the Old Testament times would not write out the name of God when they were making copies of OT scrolls. Now, right here we run into an important point: the original writers had no such tradition. When Moses wrote the original scrolls of the Pentateuch, he wrote out the actual name of God. When Ezekiel wrote his original, he wrote out the name of God. It was a tradition that developed later that the Jews would not write out the name of God. Furthermore, it was the personal name of God that they refused to write. Eloheim, Adonai, etc, they had no problem with - they would simply not write out the personal name of God - and that is a very condensed version of how we ended up with Jehovah/Yaweh. Anyway, all that to point out that not writing out the name of God is a tradition of men. There is no such commandment from God.
The debate should end there - but it probably wont. We may need to point out that God gave lots of commands in the OT - and the Jews expanded greatly on these commands.... something that Jesus seemed to go out of His way to oppose. For instance In John 5, Jesus healed a man who could not walk. Jesus told him to pick up his bed and walk. Now the Jews got upset and told him that it was not lawful for him to be carrying his bed (this took place on the Sabbath). Now, the Jews were wrong... how do I know? Because Jesus told this man to do it, and in reality not doing it would have been disobeying God (since Jesus is God). Not carrying a bed on the Sabbath was a commandment of men. Commandments of men were things that Jesus seemed to greatly dislike: "Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: 'THESE PEOPLE DRAW NEAR TO ME WITH THEIR MOUTH, AND HONOR ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR FROM ME. AND IN VAIN THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE COMMANDMENTS OF MEN.' " (Mat 15:7-9). Once again, there is no command from God that says you can't write His name - and the original writers of the Bible did write Gods name. Throughout history, the great men of the Church (Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Whitfield, Edwards, Spurgeon, etc) all wrote out the name of God. We can write out the name of God.
To be honest, I tend to think writing "G-d" is a unconscious work of self-righteousness. I don't think these people are deliberately doing it as such - but the end result is the same. They are following a tradition of men in an attempt to be reverent - reverence pertains to righteousness.... and since this tradition is solely of men with absolutely no Biblical support, this ends up being at least close to self righteousness. I don't mean to sound harsh - and once again, I don't think they are deliberately being self-righteous.... I just think they need to honestly ask themselves why they feel the need to add this requirement to themselves when God gave them no such command.
One final thing - the three letter word "God" isn't nearly as important as the name "Jesus":
"let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. This is the 'STONE WHICH WAS REJECTED BY YOU BUILDERS, WHICH HAS BECOME THE CHIEF CORNERSTONE.' Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." (Act 4:10-12)
Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Php 2:9-11)
...and yet no one writes "J-s-s" It's ok to write "God" and it's ok to write "Jesus".
Thanks for readin!
Rob
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