(remember, these are unedited/draft show notes, not a transcript — listening is always better…and if you listen AND follow along below, you’ll see why)
Focus Question:
Do you take the Bible literally?
Intro:
You’re sitting at a lunch table with your significant other’s extended family and nobody there, except for you and your significant other, is a Christian. Then one of them looks at you and says, “Do you take the Bible literally?” What do you say?
Well, that happened to me. Fortunately I had an answer, but it wasn’t as good an answer as I’m going to give you today in our Bottom Line segment.
And the thing we’ll riff on when we get there is when we hear Jesus say, “Feed my sheep.” I don’t expect any one of you smart people would hear Jesus saying that he expects you to tend a bunch of animals out on the back forty.
New Testament segment:
In our NT segment today, we wrap up the book of John…
Passage: John 21
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 25
Words: ~537
What an amazing last line — “I could go on and on and on.” But why did John choose to write about what he did? We heard that yesterday, because he was explicit about his purpose:
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Jn 20:30–31, CSB
Isn’t it interesting that he didn’t say so that we could experience God’s kingdom on earth, right all the injustices in the world, or so you would be happy. It’s so you’d have zoe — life. We’ll come back to this.
Old Testament segment:
Yesterday as I got to the end of the OT segment I realized I had to much material for our 22 minutes together. So here’s a recap of the big idea:
The essence of Ezekiel’s call was “You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen” (2:7).
Ironically, then God says not to speak to them…at least for now, and as you’ll hear, it’s because he was to present God’s message symbolically.
Passage: Ezekiel 4-5
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 34
Words: ~993
Wisdom segment:
Passage: Psalm 88
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 18
Words: ~295
The bottom line:
“Feed my sheep!” said Jesus, and you know that this is a metaphor —
…an association between two conceptual domains where one abstract concept (nonphysical, unfamiliar, or less structured) is presented in terms of some other concrete concept (physical, familiar, or more structured)…
Jesus’ command to Peter to “Feed my sheep” employs the structural metaphor TO SHEPHERD as TO CARE FOR. In particular, Peter’s responsibility to provide spiritual care for other believers is conceptualized in terms of a shepherd’s responsibility to feed his sheep.(1)
Let me ask you this…if you say something like, “You’re on the right path now,” are saying that you’re literally on a physical path? Not likely. But is it literally true (meaning life has many paths and you’re telling the person that they’re on the correct one)? Yes, of course.
The Bible does say some things literally…Micah prophesied that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Literal and literally true. But it also uses metaphors and hyperbole and euphemisms and idioms and other figures of speech.
Now here’s the kicker: so does all the other literature you come into contact with. And how would you identify someone who heard “feed my sheep” and interpreted it as “get a bucket and head out to the back 40?” Uh…you’d think they need a little help.
Not every issue is as simple as a metaphor, however. If someone raises the question, “Do you take the Bible literally?” it’s most likely they have an objection, and probably around something like, “What? You’re supposed to stone to death a wife caught in adultery?” No, no Christian thinks that.
So the first thing we should do is ask a clarifying question — what exactly are they thinking about?
So here’s an answer for you in two parts. The simpler answer is this.
“Do I think that the Bible is the word of God, meaning that when it speaks, God speaks? Yes. Did he choose to speak through people who used poems and stories and other forms of literature? Yes. Like the metaphor “I’m the vine, and you’re the branches,” we don’t take that to mean that Jesus is a plant.”
And IF they bring up something like stoning a woman caught in adultery, you might say something like this:
“Jesus clarified and finalized a bunch of things. There were many practices that happened long before him that were part of a historical period that Jesus put a final end to. We look at those pre-Jesus practices as descriptive, not prescriptive.”
One final thought. Clearly biblical interpretation can be complex, and it requires looking at the whole Bible in context. And what leads people awry is faulty method. Just remember that historical setting and examining the literary genre is important. There might be people who come up with different interpretations, but that doesn’t mean all interpretations are correct. And the fault is almost always in their methodology.
I love you. Amen? Amen.
ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
Sources and resources:
(1) “The Lexham Figurative Language of the New Testament Dataset,” in Lexham Figurative Language of the Bible Glossary, ed. Joshua R. Westbury et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).