Friday, April 18, 2008

IDEA: The viewpoint of the author and the original recipients has to control the interpretation.

PURPOSE: To help listeners understand the use of figurative language in the Bible.

If I said, "My heart stopped," what assumptions might you make? Fill in the rest of the story. Literally, you'd say I needed to be rushed to the hospital.

If I say, "Suddenly my deepest friend whom I hadn't seen in a dozen years walked into the room, and my heart stopped." Would you treat that statement in the same way?

The Bible uses language in the same way.

I. The general rule is that you take it literally unless there is good reason to treat it otherwise.

II. The context may show that language is figurative.

Something taken in isolation may be interpreted literally, but in the context the author is clear that he does not mean it literally.

Jude speaks of "spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear . . ., clouds without water , carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever." The context shows a piling up of images on what began as literal. You might think Jude really meant spots until you read the context.

III. Interpretation.

When Christ said we are the salt of the earth (Matthew 5), we're not free to choose what we would like it to mean. The same thing is true in Matthew 18:1-5: Jesus takes a little child, "Unless you become as these, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven." We cannot read all kinds of things about children into this passage. It is not a passage for or about child evangelism.

Isaiah 53:6-7: The author can change his point of comparison. So we can't ask the question "What does sheep mean" in Isaiah 53.