Did God invent Chinese characters ?

In a cyber gathering of my former school and classmates, some have expressed their memory of a missionary worker who, with his wife, regularly visited my high school on weekends. I found myself not remembering this "preacher" as fondly as did my former schoolmates.

This missionary worker spoke Mandarin Chinese. He would use a Chinese character (in its traditional form), "來 (come)" to describe the crucifixion. He likened the components in that character, i.e., one "十", and three "人 (men)" to Jesus and the two thieves on the cross, i.e. a big man in the middle, "木", with two little men, "人 人", on both sides.

Therefore, according to this preacher, the Chinese character for "come" was clearly a call to all to come to Christ. When I suggested that Jesus was not around when the Chinese character was first used, he assured me that God had a hand in the formation of that and other characters.

If that were the case, I asked, "Is it alright, by God, for a female to have sexual intercourse with other females, since the Chinese character for fornication (姦) is formed by stacking one woman (女) atop two women lying side by side (女女)?"

That question resulted in a public prayer for my soul.

I was not one of his favorites, and it was OK. I didn't buy that "come" argument, any more than I did my own "fornication" example. To me, the use of those Chinese characters was a simple matter of two men using two different Chinese characters to make they own (human) case. It had nothing to do with any divine design.

No offense to missionaries ...