Shalom, veteran.
veteran said:
So then, Christ Jesus was wrong with teaching 'parables' to the multitudes?
There's so many examples in God's Word of allegory, proverb, parable, symbolic metaphor, idioms and expressions, that to deny that part of God's Word would be omitting a good amount of God's Holy Writ. Allegory, metaphor, parable, etc. are all... part of language grammar too, and every language has its own uses for it. The Bible languages are no different. So you cannot claim grammar as a crutch with leaving out these things which are also part of grammar too.
Obviously God did not give everyone to understand His allegories and parables in His Word. But for His Church He did, and we especially are to understand those things, and then contrast them against direct type language in His Holy Writ. Because of this many often mistake direct literal meanings vs. allegorical meaning in God's Holy Writ. Many get the two backwards, to their own destruction, some even slapping secularist ideas of poetry onto It. This is how God protects His Word from the profane, for the profane cannot... tell the difference in those things.
No, not at all! Figurative speech is used all the time, even in normal literature, but it ALWAYS takes a backseat to the things which it symbolizes! There are many examples of metaphors and similes and teachable stories and fables even in today's literature, but they always have a purpose: to draw analogy with other more real, tangible, or pertinent things in life, breaking down the difficult-to-understand into terms that others might understand EASIER!
It's like in mathematics: Say there were 86,400 pieces to a puzzle and one wanted to know how much of the puzzle was left to do. He has already placed 45,226 of those pieces together. How might he be able to visualize how much of the puzzle is left to do? Well, he could make the analogy that the total number of puzzle pieces are like the total number of seconds in a day. By using this simple analogy, he can set up a ratio to discover that, out of the number of seconds in a day adding up to 24 hours, he has 11 hours, 26 minutes, and 14 seconds to go!
Yeshua` was not trying to hold back the truth to those who were interested and curious, those who had a hunger to see Yeshua` made King. But, for many in Isra'el, Yeshua`s presence was more like the Olympic games of Greece or the Gladiator games of Rome, just something interesting to entertain them! Yeshua` was not there to entertain; He was presenting Himself as their King Apparent! So, for those dullards who had no ambition to learn the truth about Him, He took no specific interest. HOWEVER, He did not leave them out! By hearing the parables He taught, they were designed to peak any little spark of interest that might be in them and drive them to understand more of His truth!
Let's use a little analogy here to explain: Just as students in high school will have certain subjects that they like because they can excel in those subjects and other subjects that they hate because those subjects are mysteries to them, so a person can like or hate the message of Yeshua` as the King Apparent (Messiah) of Isra'el. And yet, students who allow the mysteries to drive them, like a "splinter in one's mind," may one day discover the reason for a particular subject and how it applies to daily living. Then, like a late bloomer in a flower garden, he will spring to action and suddenly enjoy a subject that once he hated! In the same way, that "splinter in one's mind" may drive that individual to the point where one day he or she will CHANGE HIS OR HER MIND about the Messiah! The "seed has been planted!"
Most people are sheep, blindly following whoever comes along to lead them, but people can change! A few are "born leaders," but most leaders are DEVELOPED over time! People who have a spark of curiosity aren't just always good or always bad. They are not just always believers or always unbelievers; people are constantly in a state of flux, ever changing their minds and developing new thoughts or opinions on issues and "facts" they once held dear. Hopefully, they can be guided into a positive change, but without guidance, they have a 50-50 chance of getting worse, rather than better. Worse yet, there are teachers out there who are willing (or deluded) to guide them into getting worse! The "blind leading the blind" until "both fall in a ditch!"
However, it is this SPARK of interest, this POTENTIAL they have to change, and the CHANCE they have of finding a guide who is worthy that will enable them to change their minds for the better. Having been exposed to Yeshua`s teachings, these Isra'elites had the opportunity to change their minds about Him, both before His crucifixion and after His passion! So, Yeshua`s parables were not wasted on them; some of them became believers on the day of Pentecost or afterward. The groups of believers and unbelievers were NOT decisively and irrevocably separated prior to Yeshua`s death! The Messianic community (the "church") GREW! We (once we are already INSIDE the Messianic communities) understand that this is the working of the Ruach haQodesh Elohiym (the Holy Spirit of God), but those OUTSIDE only see the potential for change and the end results of that change.
The bottom line is this: Yeshua` DID use parables and the Bible DOES have many parables, metaphors, similes, analogies, and other forms of figurative speech, but NOT as much as some CLAIM it has! Furthermore, those analogies are NOT there for their own sake! They are there to GUIDE us into a better understanding of the things which they REPRESENT! Not everything in the Bible is "spiritual!" Often, the historical accounts must be developed FIRST
BEFORE they can be used as "our ensamples!"
Qayin (Cain), for instance, was not ALWAYS a murderer! There was a time in his history before he murdered his brother Hevel (Abel). Growing up in his household, he was once the older brother, looking out for his younger brother and sisters. We know this because he understood the concept of a "brother's KEEPER," a babysitter!
Then, one day, he presented his sacrifice of produce, but his sacrifice was rejected by God in favor of his younger brother's sacrifice, and he couldn't let it go, even after he was warned by God! (Where was his earthly leader - his guide? Where was his father, Adam, during all this? Why didn't he get his help? Why couldn't he feel that he go to him for help?) Qayin allowed the envy and bitterness he felt to well up within him until that fateful day when he rose up and slew his brother! It was not until THEN that his name became a by-word! It was not until THEN that his name became a metaphor for "murderer" to us!
However, there are some teachers who can't end the story there and present the life's lesson alone. They are teachers with "itching ears" always ready to learn some "new thing" about this passage until it grows to monstrous, unmanageable sizes in the figurative things they try to "draw from" (actually, "FORCE INTO") the passage! When you've drawn the last drop of orange juice from the orange,
STOP TRYING TO EXTRACT MORE!
2 Timothy 4:1-4
1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables (Greek: muthous coming from muthos).
KJV
NT:3454 muthos (moo'-thos); perhaps from the same as NT:3453 (through the idea of tuition); a tale, i.e. fiction ("myth"):
KJV - fable.
(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2006 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.)
Don't be like the Athenians!
Acts 17:18-22
18 Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.
19 And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?
20 For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.
21 (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
KJV
There's a LIMIT to how much analogy one should glean from the Scriptures! And, one should GLEAN from the Scriptures, not harvest the whole field, the dirt, the rocks, and the bedrock, too!
Shalom, dragonfly.
dragonfly said:
...
Hi Retrobyter,
I take this point:
Luke 24:39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
The difficulty I and some others have with the word 'flesh' in this context, is that it is also used to describe the part of man which needs to die to sin, self, pride and rebellion to God as Father - the One who sacrificed His Son to redeem us from the kingdom of darkness.
Too many Christians skip over Romans 6, and don't deal properly (through embracing the cross) with the fleshly elements of their lives - the very elements which if they save to gain this world, will cause them to lose their souls in the end.
As some of us know, Paul explains this in some detail in 1 Corinthians 15. The key message there, is about the seed falling into the ground and dying, before it can be raised in a new 'body'.
Blessings.
...
Sure, I understand that, but what IS "flesh?" Well, literally and specifically, it is the "meat" of the body, the muscle that is formed from the proteins and minerals of the body - the muscle-fiber cells of the body, whether human or animal. This is the flesh to which Yeshua` was referring in the verse you quoted. The terms "flesh and bones" together refer collectively to the whole body of organs which work together to form our substance, how we interact with the physical earth God has given to us.
This is NOT the "flesh" to which passages like Romans 6 are referring! Those passages are talking about the propensity for sin that we have in our bodies!
Romans 6:3-14
3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
KJV
However, don't make the mistake of "throwing the baby out with the bath water!" Just because the Scriptures say we should avoid/get rid of the SIN in our mortal bodies does NOT mean that we must get rid of the bodies, as well! To the contrary, we are told that these mortal bodies will put on IMMORTALITY, that these corruptible bodies will put on INCORRUPTION! Yet, they will be like our Master's body of "flesh and bones!"
And, you are right about the analogy in 1 Corinthians 15. The seed, a physical seed of - say - a corn plant, a kernel of corn, will fall into the ground and decay. Then, out of the decay, the germ of the corn seed will sprout and grow into a young corn plant. Although the corn plant doesn't look anything like the kernel of corn that was planted, it nevertheless has the SAME GENETIC STRUCTURE! Only the FORM has changed! Furthermore, the seed is physical and the corn plant that grows from the seed is physical! It doesn't change into something else, not even a different STATE of matter, otherwise, Paul may have used a different analogy!
Don't get hung up by the terminology, either. The word "spiritual" in 1 Corinthians 15 is NOT the same as how many use the word "spiritual" today! The key to understanding 1 Corinthians 15 is in the COMPARISONS that Paul makes within the chapter! The word "spiritual" (Greek:
pneumatikos) is contrasted with the word "natural" (Greek:
psuchikos). The Greek word "
pneumatikos" comes from "
pneuma," usually translated "spirit," but the word "
psuchikos" comes from "
psuchee," usually translated as "SOUL!" So, how does one rectify THAT fact in terms of how "soul" and "spirit" are interpreted today? If one is truthful, he or she will admit it CAN'T be rectified in today's understanding of "soul" and "spirit!" How can the word "natural" or "soul-ish" be applied to a "body?" And yet, the phrase "
sooma psuchikon" (using "
oo" for omega and "
o" for omicron) is used in verse 44! But, however it applies, is how the word "spiritual" is applied to a body, for the same verse also uses the phrase "
sooma pneumatikon!" I've not seen a version yet that adequately translates this chapter!
If, however, we recognize that a "soul" is merely the combination of a body with its breath and that the "spirit" is the breath, then it all begins to make sense. It also matches what was said in verse 45, for the first man Adam WAS made a living "one-who-breathes" or a living "air-breather!" This equates terms between Greek and Hebrew because we can compare this Greek verse to its Hebrew counterpart, Genesis 2:7. Thus, "
psuchee" is equated to the Hebrew "
nefesh," and "
pneuma" is equated to the Hebrew "
ruach." And, in that is the key: a "soul-ish body" is the natural body that is an "air-breather." Then, by way of contrast, the "spirit-ish body" is the supernatural body that is an "air-BLASTER" like the "WIND" or a "FORCEFUL BREATH," for "
ruach" is also used for the "wind!"
I also should add that this is why the two bodies are contrasted in so many ways. The "air-breathing" body breathes air, is mortal - it can die, is corruptible - it can decay, is weak, and is undignified. The "air-BLASTING" body gives life, is immortal - it cannot die, is incorruptible - it cannot decay, is POWERFUL, and is GLORIOUS! And, THAT is the body that is likewise promised to us in the Resurrection, not off in some unknown "Heaven" somewhere, but RIGHT HERE ON THIS EARTH when our Lord returns!
1 Corinthians 15:51-54
51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
KJV