-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
D
This is one of my favorite topics.
God wrote the bible and the stories in it are real stories. Hidden inside some stories are deeper meanings that are there to teach us about Jesus.
Jesus said: ""You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life ; it is these that testify about Me.."
Jesus is saying that the Old Testament testifies about Him, but how so? Here is an example. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up". Here Jesus is refering to an event which really happened but it also has a deeper meaning. The jews were bit by serpents and were dying from the bite. However, if they looked to the sepent on the pole they would be saved. This is saying something to us, even today.
Here is one God showed me. Sampson found a dead lion and in it he found honey. (Judges 14:9) God showed me the Lion is a type of Christ and thru His death we have eternal life and peace with God. Jesus is called the Lion of Judah. There are books and web pages devoted to understanding these things. Study them and it will give you a deeper understanding of Scripture.
God wrote the bible and the stories in it are real stories. Hidden inside some stories are deeper meanings that are there to teach us about Jesus.
Jesus said: ""You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life ; it is these that testify about Me.."
Jesus is saying that the Old Testament testifies about Him, but how so? Here is an example. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up". Here Jesus is refering to an event which really happened but it also has a deeper meaning. The jews were bit by serpents and were dying from the bite. However, if they looked to the sepent on the pole they would be saved. This is saying something to us, even today.
Here is one God showed me. Sampson found a dead lion and in it he found honey. (Judges 14:9) God showed me the Lion is a type of Christ and thru His death we have eternal life and peace with God. Jesus is called the Lion of Judah. There are books and web pages devoted to understanding these things. Study them and it will give you a deeper understanding of Scripture.
K
God is one person, but He interacts with many things. We can see how He expresses Himself in one thing, and that tells us how He will express Himself in another. The first thing is then a type of the second. Moses is a type of Christ, because both expressed God's desire to set slaves free, for example. (Moses free from Egypt, Christ free from sin.)
We do the same thing every day. We reason "his desk is in order, so his mind must be in order". You are one person, so everything you do is in some way a symbol of other things you do.
The connection is always through the assumption of an underlying single cause for both. Once the connection is noted, it tells something of the personality of God (or of the person with the clean desk).
We do the same thing every day. We reason "his desk is in order, so his mind must be in order". You are one person, so everything you do is in some way a symbol of other things you do.
The connection is always through the assumption of an underlying single cause for both. Once the connection is noted, it tells something of the personality of God (or of the person with the clean desk).
There are such wonderful explanations of symbolism posted. I wonder if I can really add to them.
The entire bible is a book explaining God to us, who understands and works in a way that is different than our understanding and ways. We are human in flesh. God is in spirit. So God uses what we know of our world to explain the part of our world it is harder for us to understand. Other posters have given you examples of this.
Our whole world is a reflection of God. The stars show the order, and there are mystical symbols there that we don't understand. What we do, day to day, even is a reflection or symbol. For thousands of years, for instance, before Christ came, God set up a system of blood sacrifice for atonement. This was a symbol of Christ, although the people using the blood for sacrifice had no idea what it was all about. We have known for these 2,000 years, because we are know about Christ.
You will probably never understand all the symbols that God uses to explain the spiritual to us, but it will tell you how obedience to what God says often has a deeper meaning spiritually than we understand.
The entire bible is a book explaining God to us, who understands and works in a way that is different than our understanding and ways. We are human in flesh. God is in spirit. So God uses what we know of our world to explain the part of our world it is harder for us to understand. Other posters have given you examples of this.
Our whole world is a reflection of God. The stars show the order, and there are mystical symbols there that we don't understand. What we do, day to day, even is a reflection or symbol. For thousands of years, for instance, before Christ came, God set up a system of blood sacrifice for atonement. This was a symbol of Christ, although the people using the blood for sacrifice had no idea what it was all about. We have known for these 2,000 years, because we are know about Christ.
You will probably never understand all the symbols that God uses to explain the spiritual to us, but it will tell you how obedience to what God says often has a deeper meaning spiritually than we understand.
D
I posted this once before. Some liked it and some didn't.
I had been praying that God would remove any false beliefs I had. I had just finished reading the book of Jonah a few days earlier. I was on site about religion and I saw the title of a skeptic which was :"Jonah could never of stayed alive in a whale, which proves the story false." (or it was something similar)
Then inside me I heard God saw very clearly "Jonah died" and instantly was reminded of the scripture where Jesus said "as Jonah was three says and nights inside the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of man be". It made perfect sense to me.
Jonah was a type of Christ. Jesus and Jonah both were dead for three days and nights. Both were brought to life by God.
Jonah was willing to sacrifice himself for his shipmates.
Jesus was willing to die for the world.
Jonah went to Nineveh (gentiles) and preached a messages of salvation and repentance.
After Jesus died His message of salvation and repentance went to the world.
After Jonas' resurrection he preached for 40 days.
After Jesus' resurrection he preached for 40 days.
I had been praying that God would remove any false beliefs I had. I had just finished reading the book of Jonah a few days earlier. I was on site about religion and I saw the title of a skeptic which was :"Jonah could never of stayed alive in a whale, which proves the story false." (or it was something similar)
Then inside me I heard God saw very clearly "Jonah died" and instantly was reminded of the scripture where Jesus said "as Jonah was three says and nights inside the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of man be". It made perfect sense to me.
Jonah was a type of Christ. Jesus and Jonah both were dead for three days and nights. Both were brought to life by God.
Jonah was willing to sacrifice himself for his shipmates.
Jesus was willing to die for the world.
Jonah went to Nineveh (gentiles) and preached a messages of salvation and repentance.
After Jesus died His message of salvation and repentance went to the world.
After Jonas' resurrection he preached for 40 days.
After Jesus' resurrection he preached for 40 days.
G
Noooooooooo.....
Jonah did not die in the belly of the whale.
Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. ~ Jonah 1:17
"Not your average whale..."
Read the second chapter of Jonah. Do you think this is describing the experience of a "dead" Jonah?
Jonah did not die in the belly of the whale.
Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. ~ Jonah 1:17
"Not your average whale..."
Read the second chapter of Jonah. Do you think this is describing the experience of a "dead" Jonah?
When there is a type often the bible elsewhere reveals it as so.
The danger is when we start taking nearly anything in the bible and turn it into a type or allegory when there is no precedence in Scripture. Many early Church Father e.g. Origin took from Philo who took from Plato and set a dangerous trend (allegorizing and finding types everywhere) in hermeneutics which seems to be enjoying a comeback in our post-modern age.
The danger is when we start taking nearly anything in the bible and turn it into a type or allegory when there is no precedence in Scripture. Many early Church Father e.g. Origin took from Philo who took from Plato and set a dangerous trend (allegorizing and finding types everywhere) in hermeneutics which seems to be enjoying a comeback in our post-modern age.