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Helpful Background: Ashwood’s Style


As will be quickly apparent, Ashwood uses commerce as a metaphor for much of the Christian life. In his day, small shops and independent tradesmen were far more common than today, though there were, of course, major merchants trading worldwide. Still, these were nothing like the massive multinational corporations of today; the Industrial Revolution was yet a good ways in the future. In translating, there is thus a tension between preserving the historical context and using modern business and commercial terminology with which the reader will be familiar, even at the risk of some anachronisms.


Let not the use of commerce as a metaphor mislead the reader, however. All Christians are required to labor according to their God-given abilities and opportunities, even those who have no paying jobs, such as volunteers, retirees, homemakers, and children. There is also a sense in which everybody in the world is a laborer, even if it is to “labor” in being entertained, in idleness, in drunkenness, and the like. Thus, the metaphor and theme of laboring only for ourselves or earthly things and pleasures, versus laboring for eternal profit, is applicable to everyone. In modern use, trade tends to refer only to skilled or semi-skilled jobs; the editor has thus often translated trade as commerce or a similar term when referring to earthly commerce. Commerce, as used here, includes all commercial activity, including working for a paycheck and investing.


In light of this, there are two things the reader should keep in mind. First, except for relatively short passages regarding honesty and charity to others in the conduct of commerce, mention of then-current economic conditions in England, and so on, references to commerce, trading, and so on are speaking metaphorically of spiritual things. If this is forgotten, much will not make sense. Second, there are some words and phrases that are sometimes retained without translation whose meanings are still included in contemporary definitions, which definitions are uncommon, however. Thus the descriptions given in the next six paragraphs should be borne in mind while reading Ashwood’s book.


When Ashwood used servant, he referred not only to domestic servants, but also to apprentices and those we would now designate as employees of small businesses. Many of these lived with the master/employer and most had far less freedom than modern employees.


The word interest is commonly used, and often translated, but sometimes not translated simply because no other word really fits. In these cases, interest is used in the sense of one’s concerns, assets, estate, earthly goods, situation, and so on. For example, “Financial advisers are legally required to operate in their client’s best interest.” It does not refer to having one’s attention attracted to something.


Ashwood often uses soul and person or life (of a person) interchangeably. This is biblical. Indeed, the Hebrew נַפְשׁ7 can mean either life or soul, and the Greek ψυχη8 can mean either life or soul (and heart, spirit, and others). Instead of using person, man, or life, perhaps Ashwood uses soul so often to remind us that our souls are eternal, a theme in keeping with the Heavenly Trade.


Somewhat related to soul is spirit. All names referring to the Holy Spirit are capitalized; all other references to spirit are in lowercase except at the beginning of a sentence. At the beginning of a sentence, if the Holy Spirit is meant, Holy is added, even if Ashwood did not include that divine adjective. Ashwood, similarly to the Bible, uses spirit in a variety of ways,9 such as:


The word gracious is most commonly used today with respect to manners or aesthetics. But Ashwood uses it to refer to God’s grace, a word that refers to any undeserved gift, material or spiritual, from God. Since we are all sinners, we all receive even the air we breathe as an undeserved gift from God. But in this book, grace almost always refers to spiritual grace, and of those uses, almost always to the saving grace that is the work of the Holy Spirit for justification, sanctification, and all of the gifts that are part of salvation.


Thus, Ashwood’s common use of gracious souls simply refers to people who, by God’s free grace, are redeemed from their sins and brought into Christ’s kingdom by the work of the Holy Spirit and Christ’s sole merit.


With respect to Ashwood’s style, his identity as a preacher comes out in his writing style. He addresses his readers personally and frequently switches from speaking to the second person singular (“you”) to speaking to the second person plural (“y’all”) and vice versa. While these shifts have little effect on Ashwood’s meaning, the reader should nonetheless be aware of why verbs and nouns change number.


Ashwood frequently cites other authors; in many cases, the exact identity of the quoted author, much less the work being quoted, is uncertain or unknown. Since what is important is the text of the quotation relative to Ashwood’s arguments, in most cases this editor has not attempted to research and provide source information. Also, such quotations are translated, just as is Ashwood’s prose. Finally, merely because Ashwood quotes a certain author, it does not mean the author is orthodox; Ashwood picks and chooses to suit his literary needs.


Ashwood (and many Bible translations) use way to mean a road or path, a method, course of life, manner of life, and so on. These usages are familiar to most modern readers, but this editor has noticed a tendency in some Bible translations to use path or road instead of way, thus prompting this paragraph. Scripture frequently compares a person’s course and manner of life to a path or road, and uses way metaphorically in this sense. The sense of way as meaning a road has not entirely vanished from contemporary usage as shown by highway and the many names of streets that end in way. Since way has such richness of meaning, the editor has retained the word.


There are many cases when Ashwood uses here with no apparent context; such uses almost always refer to earth as opposed to Heaven. Similarly, for Heaven, Ashwood commonly uses in the end, hereafter, and so forth.


7[neh´-fesh] Here, as elsewhere, the editor does not transliterate (convert Hebrew or Greek letters to English letters), but provides the pronunciation of the word as given by Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance. Where absent from the text, the editor provides a translation relevant to the context.

8[psoo-khay´]

9Merrill C. Tenny, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: The Zondervan Corporation, 1982), ISBN 0310331889, Vol. 5, 503-5.

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