Blogging in Christ — Issue 4

Name the Thing Truly

Before any man reads a piece, he reads its name. The title stands at the door, and it makes a promise about what lies behind it. Will the name tell the truth about the thing, or will it only gather a crowd?

The common craft answers the second way. It teaches the writer to name his piece for the search, not for the text: choose the words men are already typing, shape the title to the query, put the popular phrase first whether or not it says what the piece says. The measure of a good title, on that reckoning, is how many it draws. The title is a net, and the piece is the catch.

That telos must be reversed at the root. A title is not a net. A title is a name. And a name tells what a thing is.

The anchor stands in Athens. "He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons and the boundaries of their dwellings, that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us." (Acts 17:26-27) Mark the order. God set the boundaries first, and the seeking follows. The seeking man is not a market to be captured. He is a neighbor placed within reach, reaching for a Lord who is not far from him. The writer's work is not to manufacture seekers. It is to set a true name where a seeker can find the thing itself.

Naming, in Scripture, begins as receiving, not inventing. "Out of the ground Yahweh God formed every animal of the field, and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature became its name." (Gen 2:19) God brought the creatures, and the man named what was brought. He looked at the thing given, and called it by a name that fit it. The name became its name because it told the truth about the creature standing before him.

Therefore the writer names his piece the same way: after he knows what it is, not before. A title chosen before the text is written is a net cast in advance, and the text will be bent to fill it. A title given after the text is known is a name laid on a thing already seen. If the title comes first, the crowd's appetite governs the piece. If the text comes first, the truth governs the title.

Against this stands the other naming, the one that built a city to escape scattering. "Come, let's build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let's make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad on the surface of the whole earth." (Gen 11:4) There is the whole of the search-craft's telos in one sentence: make a name for ourselves, gather lest we be scattered. The tower was not built to tell the truth about anything. It was built to make its builders known and to hold a crowd together. A title built that way does the same work at smaller scale. Eden named the creature. Babel named itself.

God's own naming shows what true naming is. "He counts the number of the stars. He calls them all by their names." (Ps 147:4) He calls each by its own name, because he knows each. The Shepherd does the same with his sheep. "The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out." (John 10:3) A name, in God's mouth, is knowledge made exact. The writer's title partakes of that stewardship in miniature: to call the piece by its own name, so that the man who seeks that thing finds it, and not another thing dressed in its clothes.

That is why a false title is not a small fault of craft. It is false witness. "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor." (Ex 20:16) A title that promises what the piece does not deliver testifies falsely twice over: against the reader, who came seeking one thing and was handed another, and against the text, which is made to seem to say what it does not say. "Don't you add to his words, lest he reprove you, and you be found a liar." (Prov 30:6) A title adds to the word when it claims more than the piece proves, and takes away from the word when it hides what the piece actually says behind a brighter phrase.

The reckoning is not light, because words are not light. "I tell you that every idle word that men speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." (Matt 12:36-37) The title is a word, and it will be weighed with the rest. A writer who treats his title as mere bait has decided that his words are instruments for gathering, not testimony to be answered for.

What, then, makes a title true? Fit. "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver." (Prov 25:11) Fitly spoken means spoken to fit the thing, as a setting fits the jewel it holds. A fit title does the same: it holds the piece, shows its shape, and promises nothing beyond it. It is the phrase that a reader, having finished the piece, would recognize as its name. If the title would still be true in an empty room, with no reader at all, it is a name. If it is only true when a crowd arrives, it is a net.

The prophet's charge guards the same line. "The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the straw to the wheat?" says Yahweh. (Jer 23:28) Tell a dream as a dream, and speak the word as the word. A title that calls a meditation a proof, a question an answer, or a guess a certainty has dressed straw in wheat's name, and the reader who came hungry will find chaff. Faithful speech begins at the door: the name on the piece must match the substance within it.

Nor does the writer need to fear that a true name will hide the piece from the seeker. The seeker in Athens was found because God had set his dwelling within reach, and because the Lord he sought was not far from him. The writer's part is the smaller, steadier work: to set the piece where it can be found, under its own name, in plain order, and to leave the finding to the God who draws men to what is true. The honesty of the name is itself a service to the seeker.

All naming at last runs toward one Name. "Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth." (Phil 2:9-10) "He is clothed in a garment sprinkled with blood. His name is called 'The Word of God.'" (Rev 19:13) Every true name stands under that Name, and is judged by it. The writer who names his piece truly does not make his own name great. He sets his small name beneath the one Name that is above every name.

So name the thing truly. Write the piece first, and know what it says. Then look at it as Adam looked at the creature brought before him, and call it by the name that fits it. Do not borrow a crowd's phrase to fill an empty room. Do not dress straw as wheat. Let the title promise only what the text delivers, and deliver all that the title promises. If no man comes, the name is still true, and the work is still faithful. If a seeking man comes, he will find the thing he sought, because the door told him the truth. And the increase, as ever, belongs not to the namer, but to God.