Sometimes, God graciously reveals to you
some of the lengths He has gone to teach you needful things. At this stage of
my life and ministry, I am grateful to God for reminding me of His patience. This
is but one example.
If my memory serves me correctly (and
memory is never a catalog of events and facts in the order in which they
occurred or were experienced, but a series of impressions and images), He first
began to teach me about the importance of metaphors when I was a student at
Madras High School in Madras, Oregon.
If memory serves me correctly, it was a
speech class taught by Miss Farrar. I did not enjoy the class very much; I only
remembered one classmate who is, to this day, a Facebook friend. I certainly
did not learn much, overwhelmed by pride and insecurities that were the norm
for most boys my age. Had I paid attention, I might have learned about figures
of speech, specifically metaphors and similes. Sadly, I did not.
The next opportunity given to me to learn
how to communicate more effectively was in the United States Air Force Academy
and an English class using the Scribner Handbook of English, written
by Albert H. Marquardt and Frederick G. Cassidy. It is a wonderful tool that is
well-suited for those who must communicate effectively without much interest in
the actual structure and use of the English language. Again, I learned nothing
about metaphors and similes while using them in everyday conversation.
The 3rd and 4th opportunities
given to me were while enrolled in hearing school at Oregon State University,
Corvallis, Oregon. Not much appreciated by engineering students, it is crucial
for those enrolled in STEM courses to learn how to communicate effectively to a
broader audience of non-technical people. The two English courses I was
required to take were taught by men who did not take their topic seriously.
Both courses were tragically missed opportunities; the professors told us
during the initial class session that attendance was not required until the day
of the final exam. Since attendance was not required, I attended no classes and
learned nothing. For both courses, I showed up on the day of the final exam to
inform the professor what grade I wanted them to give me, with one professor
demanding a reason why he should give me an A for the course. “Because my
parents pressure me to get good grades,” I told him. “That’s good enough for me,”
he said, and I received an A in the course for doing nothing.
The 5th opportunity given to me
occurred after I had come to Christ and was enrolled in Bible college, taking a
course from a missionary named Rosalie Hooge. She was a brilliant communicator,
a well-prepared teacher, and a gracious Christian woman with much to offer. In
retrospect, I deeply regret not seizing upon the opportunity afforded by such an
excellent instructor.
I am an inveterate reader, which enabled me
to gain valuable insight into the usefulness of similes and metaphors when
communicating. I all my appetite for reading to growing up in the home of a
mother and father who were readers, with my dad having a voracious appetite for
books. His example was more caught by me than taught to me.
I wonder what might have been had I any
appreciation for God’s plan for my life, to be called into the Gospel ministry,
to spend a half-century declaring the unsearchable riches of Christ, to writing
books, tracts, and brochures. How many wasted opportunities do you have to
become a more effective and practical Christian?
Not that I have no appreciation for
metaphors and similes, but that my facility with them might have been far more
well-developed, and I seized upon the many opportunities God gave me. So, what
is a metaphor? The Webster’s New
Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines metaphor as “a transferring to
one-word the sins of another. A figure of speech in which one thing is likened
to another, different thing by being spoken of as if it were that other;
implied comparison, in which a word or phrase ordinarily and primarily used of
one thing is applied to another.”[1]
Not that I did not appreciate the
significance of metaphors in New Testament interpretation. But there are times when
someone who has been as neglectful as I was fails to appreciate the importance
and relevance of language tools God gave us to help us understand significant
truths. Such is the case with the body metaphor used by the apostle Paul in the
New Testament.
I write all this to impress upon you what
has been impressed upon me. There are certain truths found in God’s Word that
will not be adequately understood or appreciated apart from recognizing and
applying an understanding of figures of speech. We claim to speak and interpret
the Bible literally, but we know that the literal sense makes nonsense, so we
should seek another sense.
I close with a recommendation that I urge you
to obtain from me at no cost and read carefully. It is a carefully researched
and expertly crafted brochure by a pastor friend I have never met face-to-face.
Charles L. Hunt has written The Body of Christ: Separating Myth From Metaphor.
Author Hunt correctly asserts, in my
opinion, that a failure to recognize and understand the body of Christ metaphor
used by the apostle Paul makes it almost impossible to grasp God’s truth about
the church of Jesus Christ. After reading his book, I agree with him.
[1] Webster’s
New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, (New York: Barnes & Noble
Books, 1996), page 1132.
