Expert: Pastor Don Carpenter - 11/12/2010

Question
QUESTION: If you believe the bible is to be taken LITERALITY, could you explain, " if your eye causes you to stumble pluck it out! If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off, or your hand, etc.etc...??

Mr.B .


ANSWER: Hi Barelohim,

Thanks for this great question.  It is more accurate to say that I take the Bible normally.  In other words, I take figures of speech and metaphors into account.  Certainly it would be better to lose an eye than go to Hell, but the idea of the passage is not to lose an eye, it is to do what it takes to control that eye.  Certainly when David said that he would swim in his tears, he was not having a very strange biological episode!  David was writing in poetry and therefore used imagery to get his point across.  Now having said that, when a passage in prose narrative, then I do not believe that it should be taken symbolically simply because the miracles spoken of are hard to believe.  This is where some would say that they take the Bible literally.  Once again, I take it normally, just as you would read any other literature, only I believe that every word has been breathed by God to man.

2 Timothy 3:16
16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.

I hope that this helps you.

In Christ
Pastor Don

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: When Jesus said, " destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up!" Would you place this under, (a) figure of speech? (b) metaphor? (c) or speaking spiritually? (d) or something else all together?

Mr B.

ANSWER: Hi

Thank you for this great question.  One of the best ways to determine such things is what the Bible actually says about the statement.  In the following passage we read that it is indeed a metaphor.

John 2:19-22
19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. 20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? 21 But he spake of the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.

I hope that this helps you.

In Christ
Pastor Don

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: the problem I see with your analogy of using mans wisdom, education, and deciphering the meaning of scriptures, is that is leaves no room for the Spirit to give the meaning, and not only the meaning of the Word, but making the Word *Life* In the believer. It is *milk* to the babe, *strong meat* the mature, and *living water* to the thirsty. But this only the Spirit can do, as Paul relates in 1Cor2...

The living and abiding Word of God, referred to as *seed* in 1 Peter 1:23, is translated as "spermazoa", meaning producing the character of the donor..

So the Word of God, is never alluded to, as to be interpreted by the act of human wisdom/knowledge, or understanding..

So you can see the problem I have with your analogy of placing the scripture under the microscope of human technology!

Thanks
Mr.B.

Answer
Hi Mr B.

Thank you for your input.  I agree that even though we are given specific rules of literature, the only way that anyone can understand the true meaning and life application of scriptures is that we have the aid the the Holy Ghost.

1 Corinthians 2:14
14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.

In Christ
Pastor Don