"The 'Implied' meaning should be obvious!" (A Dangerous Statement)

[amadeus]

Unfortunately, I have read right here, "The afflictions I suffer, prove how righteous I am." I'm serious, some people actually believe that bunk.

I believe I understand what you mean, but you should word it more carefully so that hopefully everyone does... understand that is. For the most part none of us have really suffered even simple hardship, much less actual severe persecution. My old pastor remembers going to a camp meeting about 2000 miles away in the 1930's as a teenaged boy riding with a car full of people in an old Hupmobile [without either heat or air conditioning]. After a long uncomfortable ride from Washington State to Kentucky they arrived at the camp meeting where they set up their little pup tents for sleeping during the 10 continuous days of the meeting. There were services three times daily for the entire 10 days held in a large tent with a dirt floor covered with straw. For seating there were long unfinished wooden planks balanced on large concrete bricks. But despite the physical discomfort people came from all over the United States filling the tent to overflowing for every service to be richly blessed by God... And that included only physical discomfort.

My pastor would be the first one to say most of the almost 3000 people who attend the camp meetings nowadays for the shortened 5 day duration in a large air-conditioned [AC] building with cushioned seats would not attend if the AC were not working. And this is with no real persecution at all. Also, no one sleeps in a tent anymore. After all, it might rain!

 

[Davy]

I have to agree with Episkopos, there's a lot more to understanding God's Word than the suggested rules in the OP.

Take the idea of Allegory (or Analogy) for example. Every language uses the idea of allegory, idioms, and expressions. Hebrew is no lesser than any other. And God definitely uses it a LOT... in His written Word. When Paul was comparing the 'milk' vs. the 'strong meat' in Hebrews 5, he certainly was not speaking about literal milk and meat.

Heb 5:12-14
12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
KJV

What does Paul mean above by the 'milk' and 'strong meat' then? It ought to be simple to understand for anyone who has taken of both milk and strong meat. Milk goes down easy, is a food for infants. But strong meat is for those older, matured. So now you've got not only a contrast between 'milk' and 'strong meat', you've also got a contrast between one who is a spiritual infant vs. one who is spiritually mature.

So the allegory says a lot more doesn't it? Yes, and that's why allegories or analogies are good teaching tools. God uses them in His Word too, especially using subjects common to the peoples.

 

[Willie T]

I have to agree with Episkopos, there's a lot more to understanding God's Word than the suggested rules in the OP.

Take the idea of Allegory (or Analogy) for example. Every language uses the idea of allegory, idioms, and expressions. Hebrew is no lesser than any other. And God definitely uses it a LOT... in His written Word. When Paul was comparing the 'milk' vs. the 'strong meat' in Hebrews 5, he certainly was not speaking about literal milk and meat.

Heb 5:12-14
12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
KJV

What does Paul mean above by the 'milk' and 'strong meat' then? It ought to be simple to understand for anyone who has taken of both milk and strong meat. Milk goes down easy, is a food for infants. But strong meat is for those older, matured. So now you've got not only a contrast between 'milk' and 'strong meat', you've also got a contrast between one who is a spiritual infant vs. one who is spiritually mature.

So the allegory says a lot more doesn't it? Yes, and that's why allegories or analogies are good teaching tools. God uses them in His Word too, especially using subjects common to the peoples.

The OP has nothing to do with "Allegories." It is totally and strictly addressing narratives. In fact, that word is used 15 times in the tiny excerpt I posted.

 

[Davy]

What's this then...

"1. Allegorizing. Instead of concentrating on the clear meaning, people relegate the text to merely reflecting another meaning beyond the text. There are allegorical portions of Scripture (e.g., Ezekiel 23 or parts of Revelation) but none of the scriptural allegories is simple narrative."

A narrative is simply about a description of events; it's just a method of explaining things.

With Jesus' parable of the new wine and bottles, a narrative about 'why' you don't put newly fermenting wine into old wine skins would be a narrative some would consider a meaning 'beyond the text', when it's truly not.

Same thing with the Isaiah 54:1 example of the barren womb being blessed with more children than the married wife. You can't get around the subject of woman's womb in that parable. And since Apostle Paul referred to it in 2 Cor.11 with the idea of staying in Christ as "a chaste virgin", the analogy also involves the idea of a spiritual virgin vs. having played the harlot. So the analogy says a lot more than written, and can contain various narratives all explaining to the same effect in understanding.

 

[Willie T]

Narratives are not explanations or examples. A Narrative is the plain telling of a story. "Jesus walked up a hill and sat down on a rock." is a narrative. Speculating as to "Why" He did that is not. Neither is claiming that because He did that, all of us also have to do so.

 

[Willie T]

Good grief! This is third grade stuff. People shouldn't have to be taught these elementary things all over again.

 

[Episkopos]

Narratives are not explanations or examples. A Narrative is the plain telling of a story. "Jesus walked up a hill and sat down on a rock." is a narrative. Speculating as to "Why" He did that is not. Neither is claiming that because He did that, all of us also have to do so.

Exactly. And the OP mainly makes this point. We can't expect the story to inform everything about us....because the application of that story to our own lives needs to be applied with wisdom...and the Spirit. We are not God...and neither are we Paul...although so many read Paul with such a religious dogmatism that they claim to be dead in Christ and seated in heavenly places because Paul says that he is.

Got that...and agreed.

But there is more to the story than we are reading on first glance. We are so often reading about what we are NOT experiencing. And that is fundamentally because of the mystery of the truth. The bible speaks a lot about mystery. And if all is so obvious and easy to understand....there is no mystery.

Evangelicalism has often been accused of destroying the depth of the mysteries of God by reducing them to nice sounding sound-bites that just need a superficial recognition to become our own.

The genius of God is that there can be layers of meanings in a seemingly straightforward story. The folly of man is that because we agree with something we think we have apprehended it.

 

[Willie T]

Exactly. And the OP mainly makes this point. We can't expect the story to inform everything about us....because the application of that story to our own lives needs to be applied with wisdom...and the Spirit. We are not God...and neither are we Paul...although so many read Paul with such a religious dogmatism that they claim to be dead in Christ and seated in heavenly places because Paul says that he is.

Got that...and agreed.

But there is more to the story than we are reading on first glance. We are so often reading about what we are NOT experiencing. And that is fundamentally because of the mystery of the truth. The bible speaks a lot about mystery. And if all is so obvious and easy to understand....there is no mystery.

Evangelicalism has often been accused of destroying the depth of the mysteries of God by reducing them to nice sounding sound-bites that just need a superficial recognition to become our own.

The genius of God is that there can be layers of meanings in a seemingly straightforward story. The folly of man is that because we agree with something we think we have apprehended it.

With that last sentence, it appears you may have gotten the point of that tiny, tiny, tiny section of a MUCH larger book that went on to address the many other multiple types of delivery contained within the Bible..... and how each different style of writing used should be read and understood.

 

[Episkopos]

With that last sentence, it appears you may have gotten the point of that tiny, tiny, tiny section of a MUCH larger book that went on to address the many other multiple types of delivery contained within the Bible..... and how each different style of writing used should be read and understood.

We all need to work out...iron out...live out...our own contradictions. Then we can be non-conflicted in our lives and views.

Jung said...Paradoxical views that are not made conscious will be played out in the world as fate.

I can't respond to more than how much you presented in the OP. But that is enough to discuss things as presented. And that also shows that the person you cited, while he may have a very valid point, also has a little internal conflict going on. So he's not perfect. Is that not ok?

 

[VictoryinJesus]

I do this as well, but lately it's been bothering me because I can see how I'm really no different than that Pharisee in the temple comparing himself to the lowly sinner in the back who can't lift his head up.

Saw a post on Facebook where a young child was leaning over the toilet while the older sibling was comforting and providing support. The ill child was skin and bones ...battling cancer. The text read when(paraphrasing) whenever you are down realize someone has it worse than you. It was disturbing, how a sick child’s battle with cancer turned into a meme to make me feel better and blessed. Still disturbing.

 

[shnarkle]

Saw a post on Facebook where a young child was leaning over the toilet while the older sibling was comforting and providing support. The ill child was skin and bones ...battling cancer. The text read when(paraphrasing) whenever you are down realize someone has it worse than you. It was disturbing, how a sick child’s battle with cancer turned into a meme to make me feel better and blessed. Still disturbing.

There are a lot of disturbing memes out there now. We do this all the time without ever stopping to think about what we're really doing. That Pharisee is so grateful for everything he's been blessed with, and looks over at the self loathing tax collector, or whoever it was, and it fills him with even more gratitude. How come we can see how disturbing it is in the Pharisee, but we can't see it in ourselves?

I seriously don't understand why it took me so long to see this in myself. It's not just disturbing, but quite a revelation. The more I look into God's word, the more I can see that my "heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked". I suspect that God mercifully spares me from knowing just how horrific it really is.

 

[Davy]

Narratives are not explanations or examples. A Narrative is the plain telling of a story. "Jesus walked up a hill and sat down on a rock." is a narrative. Speculating as to "Why" He did that is not. Neither is claiming that because He did that, all of us also have to do so.

"There are allegorical portions of Scripture (e.g., Ezekiel 23 or parts of Revelation) but none of the scriptural allegories is simple narrative"

I don't know where you pulled the above from, but it certainly doesn't apply with our Lord's parables, which give both a narrative (telling a story) and... allegory at the same time. The parable of the sower is one such simple example.

 

[Willie T]

"There are allegorical portions of Scripture (e.g., Ezekiel 23 or parts of Revelation) but none of the scriptural allegories is simple narrative"

I don't know where you pulled the above from, but it certainly doesn't apply with our Lord's parables, which give both a narrative (telling a story) and... allegory at the same time. The parable of the sower is one such simple example.

"No," you wouldn't know by simply "flash reading". But, if that is to remain your habit in reading, there are going to be a lot of things you are never going to know. I gave the title, authors, and location just a little farther down in Post#6, after *Marks* showed an intrest in knowing.

 

[Davy]

"No," you wouldn't know by simply "flash reading". But, if that is to remain your habit in reading, there are going to be a lot of things you are never going to know. I gave the title, authors, and location just a little farther down in Post#6, after *Marks* showed an intrest in knowing.

What you posted disagrees with itself, so it doesn't take a lot of 'common sense' to know when something is just anal.