One of the most immature ideas I ever had about the Bible was that it must be both literally and figuratively true at the same time. Jesus made the prophecies literally true. Much that is literal can be found in the poetry of the Psalms. ‘The Song of Solomon,’ however, definitively disabuses one of that particular notion.
The literal in Scripture is often given short shrift. Plumbing the layer upon layer of wisdom in God’s Word calls loudly to our souls. Our hearts know of God and eternity.1 Our minds yearn to learn . . . what better than the mysteries of God? Being but dim shadows of the Being in whose likeness we were created, is the “vanity of vanities”2 believing that we understand God, His ways, and His design? Do we become wind chasers3 believing that His ancient words have been surpassed by our own knowledge and wisdom? It is the literal of God’s Word that is our hedge against such vanity.
The Bible is in a way our Garden of Eden. The garden of God’s Word is self-contained and filled with every shade, hue, and shape of revelation. We, like Adam and Eve, have been invited to partake of our garden’s glorious riches . . .with one caveat . . . do not add to nor subtract from what is written in Scripture—Scripture interprets Scripture. No matter the pen that wrote the words, God breathed those words—with more specificity than we currently credit Him. This makes the literal aspect of Scripture intrinsic to living the faith we profess. As the Apostles so often model for us, we’re dense when trying to explore the mystery and grace of God. We require the literal as the foundation—plain spoken unvarnished words—on which to build and fortify our faith.
We must “be infants in evil,” but mature in our thinking.4 The plain unvarnished words of Scripture are our assurance, and reassurance, in seasons of difficulty and seasons of plenty (when its so easy to forget). It is the literal of God’s Word that tethers us to the Cross.
Jesus’ parables are infused with the literal. He often tells His audience that He is speaking in parables—instructing them to look for the deeper meaning in His examples of ordinary life. The exact human activities described in most parables have been carried out, in some form or fashion, since Adam and Eve left the garden. Know of anyone who lost a job they thought they were performing correctly?5 Did they gnash their teeth? Ask a farmer if every seed germinates, if every seedling matures.6 Looking deeper tickles our spirit and ignites its quest for its Creator.
Jesus taught those who were blind and mute to the spiritual.7 The parables teach extrapolation, an excellent mental exercise, particularly necessary when trying to digest the hard literal teachings of Christ.8 God’s declarative sentences mean exactly what they say. Knowing and living the literal feeds the figurative; the figurative nourishes the spiritual.
“This is my beloved Son. With Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him.”9 [emphasis mine]
One is saved by professing Jesus is Lord.10 Our profession of faith, Jesus is my King, encompasses the glorious mystery of God and our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Words have yet to stop pouring forth from voices and pens to explain how that two-fer works. St. Paul and St. Peter both tell young churches—and growing Christians (us)—that mother’s milk is that which nourishes our ongoing revelation of professing that Jesus is Lord.11 He is the Lord of lords and the King of kings. He was crucified for the forgiveness of our sins. He rose from the dead that we may have eternal life. He is our Brother.
Have you ever noticed how many of the successful tout their lowly roots while behaving like the most important being in the room if not the world? (Have you ever noticed how many of them play fast and loose with the details?) The farther in the rearview mirror our trials and tribulations are the more they become dull shadows of the real time experience. The memory may be sharp but the distress is muted. Our gracious Father gives us this comfort. Fame and fortune have a way of replacing God’s comfort (relief amid thanksgiving) with know-it-all-ness and the presumption of wisdom.
The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews takes to task those of us in the Body of Christ who may take the unfortunate turn to the presumption of wisdom:
About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.12 [emphasis mine]
Most of us are able to accurately discern between what is evil and what is good in God’s sight. It is by constant practice that we become mature enough to discern between what is very nearly good and what is good in God’s sight. That distinguishing is a literal thing. Our grasp of the figurative and the spiritual, extrapolated from the literal, leads to the good judgment Jesus bids us to use.
Ever play the ‘literal game’? Kids play it all the time. ‘But mom, I didn’t have any cookies! I had crackers.’ Satan plays us with it all the time—ask Eve.13 Every teenage generation plays an off-shoot: developing its own language to disguise and hide their thoughts/actions from adults. Politicians, lobbyists, and activists play a ruthless version: camouflaging their intent in word salads, half-truths, and the twisted mumbo-jumbo of high dollar vocabulary. We play it with each other more often than we know . . .after all we can’t lie, can we? Jesus tells us to live the literal of the Word—not as game but as how we love our enemies and our neighbors as ourselves. He gives very simple and word by word instructions: “Let your ‘yes’ be yes and your ‘no’ be no.”14 Say what you mean and mean what you say, anything else is from evil.14
Saying what you mean and meaning what you say garners more and more repercussions in these days. Being doers of the Word15 comes with a higher and higher price tag. How does one live the literal of the Word?
Begin at the beginning.
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”16 [emphasis mine]
God is spirit.17
God is Three-in-One.
The Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are unique to themselves at the same time meld into one distinct being, the Spirit that is God.
Our persons: mind, heart, and soul are unique to themselves at the same time meld into one distinct being—our spirit.
Do you grasp your passions warring within you?18 Can you separate the differences between what your heart tells you, what your mind tells you, and what you know in your soul? Getting the three to agree on something is not always easy and it’s usually two against one. Yet, your spirit finds the peace and freedom of Christ in the agreement of the three.
OK . . . but much of what our faith calls us to live is in the figurative (carrying our cross) and the spiritual (following Him).19 It is the how, that’s done literally. Sooo . . . extrapolating . . . would that mean being ‘poor in spirit’20 is to be lived literally, figuratively, and spiritually all at the same time?
Wait, what? There cannot be a literal aspect to this statement of Jesus! Has any teaching of this Beatitude ever reached your ears that says being poor in spirit is about imitating a low socio-economic status?!? This can’t be the figurative like being there in spirit though not physically. Are we not created in the likeness of God who is Spirit? This is clearly a spiritual statement.
Yet . . . there are copious teachings: about the first being last, about serving rather than being served, about being perfect as our Father is. Jesus asks us to pick up our cross daily and follow Him, imitating His life, being holy as God is holy.21 I submit to you that to be a do-er of the Word requires one to literally adopt the mindset of a low socio-economic status towards resources and creature comforts.
Fusing the figurative with the literal, we are not called, as St. Francis of Assisi was, to complete destitution. Assuming this mindset accomplishes two of St. Paul’s teachings. “Therefore be imitators of God.” a and “…in humility count others as more significant than yourselves.”b In this frame of heart, thanksgiving for the Father’s incredible blessings is generated, setting our souls free to thoroughly enjoy God’s blessings amid that thanksgiving. Our spirits are able to soar with joy spilling over with every grace-filled swoop causing us to share Christ—His grace, His mercy, His suffering that saves.
What about those of us who don’t have to imitate poverty or devastation but survive it? Fighting for survival rages against considering anyone’s plight being worse than ours—or frankly, to care beyond the critical immediate needs for our existence.
Every one of us called upon to be ‘poor in spirit.’ Can you fathom how difficult it is to follow His command: do not covet, when your need is substantial?22 Can you fathom how difficult it is to be a competent steward, ever-treating all we have as His? The difficulties may be diametrically opposed in type, but who are we to judge the weight of another’s burden when the shirking of it carries the same consequences we would face should we shirk ours?
An imitation, though, is not is not an original and Jesus is asking for the authentic. That literal mind-set (to be more humble than our station in life) though, is what matures into the spirituality that recognizes that God is SPIRIT and we are spirit. Submission blossoms into the attitude of our souls and the direction of our thoughts and the tenderness of our hearts woven into the essence of our being.
Which is necessary when Jesus calls us . . .“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in midst of wolves, so be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves.”23 Here Jesus speaks in the figurative . . . and the literal is necessary to accomplish our common task: testifying to this world.
Shrewd as vipers? We get that, some of us may even relish it—until we understand that Jesus was not talking about the ‘shrewd’ that we apply to business predators, con artists, and jealous revenge. We, as Christian individuals, need to have a clever discerning awareness that can recognize strategies that non-believers use to avoid or tarnish our testimonies. We, as His Church, need to be shrewd enough to avoid the stumbling blocks that those in power may use to shut the lips and doors of our congregations. (Think John the Baptist and Herod/Jesus and the Sanhedrin.) We must to be able to discern right from the not-quite-right. It’s the not-quite-right stuff, the teensiest bit off stuff, that snares us and mushrooms into deviations from Jesus’ teaching. (Think the Serpent’s initial question to Eve and its aftermath.)
The innocence of doves. . .echoes of Nicodemus24. . . how does one reacquire innocence? Logic argues that, unlike sin forgiven and forgotten by God, our experiences can’t be wiped away. Wouldn’t reason argue that our learning moments and life lessons are part and parcel of Wisdom? Yet, God asks, “How long will they be incapable of innocence?”25
Ever wonder why the episodes of Daniel in the lion’s den27 and the prophet’s three friends28 in the furnace are taught so often to children? These are not prophecies or poetry; these are literal and true events—graphic and gruesome and cruel. The innocence of our youngest protects them from the heinous literal reality of the lions’ den and the furnace. It is by that very same innocence, which is hidden from the wise,29 that our littlest ones grasp the saving grace of God in their spirits.
Our innocence is not born of naiveté nor attained by orderliness of mind. Beyond being innocent of sin (who is?), to be capable of innocence requires godliness of spirit. Our innocence abhors what God hates. It is vocal and active when God’s Name is defamed. Our innocence is aghast each and every time violence and debauchery intrude upon our lives—never ever becoming numb to it. Until, and unless, the almighty and living God reigns in our spirits—our hearts, our minds, and our souls—we remain incapable of innocence. We are only capable of innocence through forgiveness and redemption—through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.
The teachings of Paul, Peter, and the writer of Hebrews guide us back to the mother’s milk of faith—the Gospel. When Jesus Christ sits on the throne of our hearts, when the Godhead reigns in our minds, when our souls yearn to please the Lamb, then our spirit is able to revel in the innocence God desires. In that innocence, we do not participate in that which can taint our testimony; that can blemish and mar the praise we raise in His Name.
From a practical aspect, the literal suffusing God’s Word is exactly why anyone, of any age, of any place, can pick up His Word and connect to Him. A thirteen year-old will come to the Psalms recognizing them as poetry. That same thirteen-year-old does not have the innocence of a toddler. Any innocence that teenager may have left could well be tattered and shredded. Inexperience, naiveté, hurts, and uncertainty demand the salve of the literal and the definitive over the figurative to heal and build trust. An empty vessel or one alight with Pentecostal flame, the very words of Scripture cultivate spirituality and nurture the spirit of every seeker.
From a particularly human point of view, slogging through some of the lists of names and tribes and numbers in the Old Testament26 might test the legitimacy of putting such emphasis on the literal within the Bible. Learning the foundational history of the Christian church is certainly of value, but available from any number of other sources. Yet, our knowing these people’s names is of enough worth to God that He breathed their names into the ear of His chosen scribe. Why? These are people we will never know more about . . . from so far away (in time and place) . . . never to meet on this side of Heaven . . .
Yet, there are those of us who drop everything in our lives to spend weeks and months rebuilding towns destroyed by tornadoes and floods and earthquakes. There are those folks who work food lines anywhere . . . down the street or in Calcutta. They serve those whose names we will never know . . . those whom we will never know more about . . . from so far away . . . never to meet on this side of Heaven . . .
Without living the literal of Scripture, the spiritual—our regained innocence—escapes our grasp and leaves us unprotected. Jesus, the Epistle writers, and authors through the ages exhort us to be intensely diligent to test, to question so that we do not stray from the Truth. Why must we be so concerned?
Because God will send “a strong delusion”c to those who take pleasure in unrighteousness—and they will swear to it—again and again—until some of us join them in their delusion. That delusion is going to sound good, look good, be powerful, and used as hammer. That delusion will condemn many.
It is the literal that saves us. The Cross—and every strike of the hammer nailing Jesus to it—has purchased our forgiveness. It is the literally empty tomb that grants us eternal life.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit as was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen.
1. Ecclesiastes 3:11/Romans 2:14-15/Jeremiah 31:32; 2. Ecclesiastes 1:2; 3. Ecclesiastes 1:14; 4. 1Corithians 14:20; 5. Matthew 25:14-30; 6. Mark 4:3-9; 7. Matthew 13:13-15; 8. for instance Matthew 26:11; 9. Matthew 17:5; 10. Matthew 10:32-33; 11. 1Coritnthians 3:2/1Peter 2:2; 12. Hebrews 5:12-14 ; 13. Genesis 3:1; 14. Matthew 5:37; 15. James 1:22-25; 16. Genesis 1:26; 17. John 4:24; 18. James 4:1; 19. Luke 9:23; 20. Matthew 5:3; 21. Ephesians 5:1; 22. Exodus 20:17; 23. Matthew 10:16 (NIV); 24. John 3:4; 25. Hosea 8:5b; 26. The Books of Numbers, Kings (1 and 2), and Chronicles(1 and 2), among others, are filled with lists. 27. Daniel 6:16; 28. Daniel 3:17 29. Luke 10:21 a. Ephesians 5:1 b. Philippians 2:3 c. 2Thessalonians 2:10-11
Scattered Verses 