metaphor – Three Minute Bible

December 26, 2024December 26, 2024

Colossians 2:12b – The Workings of God

… in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Summary: Understanding Paul’s language requires understanding the reality of the spiritual realm.

If being “buried with him in baptism” is a metaphor for spiritual things, how much more is the rest of Paul’s sentence?

Actually, Paul’s sentence is more of a “mixed metaphor.”

The last part, where he writes “the working of God, who raised him [Jesus] from the dead,” is literal and true. God did raise Jesus from the dead. This same Jesus whom God raised to life two thousand years ago is alive today.

April 30, 2024May 1, 2024

Galatians 4:6b – Daddy

… the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”

Summary: Paul keeps working at his metaphor, adding layers of detail that help us understand how deep the Father’s love for us is.

August 22, 2023August 22, 2023

Ephesians 5:13b – Flipping the Switch

— and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.

Summary: Understanding the metaphor of light and dark opens up a world of understanding about the spiritual realm.

May 1, 2023May 2, 2023

Ephesians 2:22 – The Impossible

And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Summary: Following Paul through the twists and turns of his metaphor can be exhausting. With his building metaphor Christ is the reason for the building, the cornerstone of the building, and the place where the building resides.

April 27, 2023April 27, 2023

Ephesians 2:20a – An Excellent Metaphor

... built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets …

Summary: Looking closely at Paul’s use of language helps us understand the concept behind the words.

March 8, 2019March 7, 2019

Mega-Metaphor – John 11: 43-44

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, ‘’Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, ‘’Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

Please forgive me if I am reading too much into this passage, but I think that there might be a living metaphor here for us. Lazarus has gone where no man wants to go. He is dead and buried, decaying in the flesh. He has become a perfect symbol for the effects of sin on the human condition.

Into the darkness where his body lies, decaying, comes Jesus’ voice: “Lazarus, come out!” At the command of Jesus, the corrupted flesh of the dead becomes new again. The heart starts beating again, the brain functions again, and the body moves. In coming back to life, Lazarus becomes the symbol or metaphor of what Jesus wants for all people: to come back to life in Him.