For years, I’ve grappled with the question of the relation between the law and life under the new covenant. About six months ago, things began to come into focus. The paradox has been viewed as a theological one, with reformers lined up on one side and non-conformists on the other, each trying to set up a theological framework to disqualify the proof texts offered by the other side. Perhaps the paradox isn’t theological at all, but pastoral, growing out of some of the issues I’ve discussed in previous posts about Scripture as Food and Spiritual Growth. Here’s a paper that tries to pull it all together. If you read it, please share your comments.
Category: Scripture as Food
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How Shepherds Feed the Flock
In a previous post, I introduced the metaphor of food that Scripture uses for itself. One manifestation of this metaphor is the use of language appropriate to shepherds in describing teachers in the church.
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Have you eaten your Bible today?
The Bible uses many word pictures to describe itself. It is (among other things) God’s law, which tells us what he expects of us; his precepts, which guide us to prosperity; and his counsels, which teach us wisdom. A particularly common metaphor describes the word of God as food. This imagery sheds some important light on how we engage with it.
This topic is too large for a single post. In this one, we’ll look at summarize passages where the Bible calls itself food. Later posts will discuss the “shepherd” vocabulary that describes teachers in assemblies of the saints, how this metaphor explains the meaning of the phrase “sound doctrine,” and the “spiritual physiology” by which spiritual food leads to spiritual growth.