Skip to main content

History or Allegory

Do you treat the bible as history or allegory?  Take for instance the prophecy of Jonah.  You will no doubt be unsurprised to hear that I treat it as history. However I have made an interesting and important discovery about allegory; in order to get the most out of an allegory you have to treat it as literal.  Do you remember your drama teacher telling you that in order to fully appreciate a play you have to "suspend your disbelief"? If you go to watch Hamlet it is no good saying to yourself,"This man is not called Hamlet at all.  He isn't even in a real castle, and that woman certainly isn't his mother and in the programme notes it says Ophelia has appeared in "Casualty" and "East Enders" so she's much too smart to drown herself." No, when watching this play you have to "suspend your disbelief" and then you will be able to see what Shakespeare had to say about life and tragedy.  And so it is with Jonah.  If you don't do this you will miss the several examples of God's prevenient grace, that is His undeserved favour which He prepares before-hand to shower on His children.  Here is the first example.  God commands Jonah to go to Nineveh to tell its people that He will bring disaster on them if they don't repent.  Jonah foolishly runs in the other direction and boards a ship.  God is never taken by surprise and has a plan even in this disobedient behaviour.  There is a catastrophic storm and the pagan mariners discover Jonah is the reason.  They ask him where he comes from and who his God is.  When they hear Jonah's God is the God of Earth and sky, unlike their gods who are limited to geographical regions, they are alarmed.  Jonah tells them to throw him overboard, which they do and then they worship Jonah's God and so God has brought His grace to these foreign sailors through Jonah's disobedience.
   Jonah is swallowed by a big fish/whale.  Here again God's prevenient grace is seen as the whale we hear "had been prepared." I like to think of God preparing that fish right back at the beginning of creation when God built its DNA into the first two whales.  This fish was special and designed specifically to house Jonah.

To be continued.....

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life after death

When we lose a loved one it is natural to wonder how they are faring in the next life. I would warn against going to a medium to find out. At worst these people are charlatans after your money, the rest misguided or worse. We are told in the Bible not to try to reach the dead. The best person to call on in this situation is Jesus. That's right, go to the top. He is always available through prayer and doesn't make a charge. All he requires is that you look for him with all your heart. He has the answers to all of life's difficult questions.
6 comments
Read more

Constructive criticism

First of all thanks to Fat Prophet for your interest. I see from your blog you are having trouble commenting. To get back to my assessed service. Criticism albeit constructive is harder for some to take than others. I felt a little crushed after my assessed service but then remembered I had recorded it on my dictaphone. I listened to it all through and although my assessors were quite right about me speaking a little quickly and rushing from item to item, I was actually very pleased with the content of my sermon and how I presented it. So I have decided to take heart. I highly recommend other trainees to record your services. You can hear your good points and your bad and there is no argument about it, it is all caught on the recorder.
8 comments
Read more

Section A

I've posted off my work for section A. Now to get on with B. Onward and upward as they say. It does feel good to have completed A, progress is being made.I think my tutor is more nervous than I as to the outcome, but then I am his first student. We are learning from each other.But then that should always be the case. It's an adventure we go on together.The course seems to be suiting me alright but I feel there are a lot of potentially excellent local preachers out there who are put off by the study. Something should be devised to include these good people, we can ill afford to do without them, especially as the numbers of ministers is dropping. What did Wesley do? You don't need a degree, or even A levels to preach. You need a call, and a close relationship with God.
6 comments
Read more