Prodigal Son Distorted by FB Pastor

[Socialite]

Originally Posted by OldPaths

The disrespect shown to Pastor McKee here in this conversation is disturbing. Keep preaching it, brother! Keep standing for uncompromised truth!!

Which part exactly?

[OldPathsII]

Originally Posted by MissBrattified

Well put; I agree. In this case, the story teller/author was Jesus-not Luke. Luke only transcribed it.

The problem is, even when we closely examine such stories using responsible exegesis and try to figure out the author's intent, we still come up with as many interpretations as belly buttons.

I see that your an Administrator here. I'm a little new, but I've heard a lot of things about this forum that aren't so good. But if your viewpoints that I've read are the kind that are leading this forum, it's in safe hands! Thank God for people who aren't afraid to realize the rules are not there to hurt us but to help us.

Some people view the fence as something that holds us in. But in reality, it's something that keeps out the things that can destroy us!

[Cindy]

Originally Posted by OldPaths

I see that your an Administrator here. I'm a little new, but I've heard a lot of things about this forum that aren't so good. But if your viewpoints that I've read are the kind that are leading this forum, it's in safe hands! Thank God for people who aren't afraid to realize the rules are not there to hurt us but to help us.

Some people view the fence as something that holds us in. But in reality, it's something that keeps out the things that can destroy us!

[OldPathsII]

Originally Posted by Socialite

Which part exactly?

Brother, it's all there for you to see and you've been one of the main contributures of it. I've seen more mockery in this thread than I could stomach without speaking up for a man of God. To begin with, you point him out as a Facebook pastor who quotes himself, obviously mocking him. You didn't have to do that. All you needed to do was say, "I was reading something today that I found interesting" and then it could be discussed. But you need first to make him look foolish. It's not right and I had to speak up.

[Dagwood]

Originally Posted by OldPaths

Brother, it's all there for you to see and you've been one of the main contributures of it. I've seen more mockery in this thread than I could stomach without speaking up for a man of God. To begin with, you point him out as a Facebook pastor who quotes himself, obviously mocking him. You didn't have to do that. All you needed to do was say, "I was reading something today that I found interesting" and then it could be discussed. But you need first to make him look foolish. It's not right and I had to speak up.

Welcome to AFF, OP! I'll just comment on your part mentioning fences. I feel fences are highly recommended for all of us, though I think many of us feel our "room to roam" should be left up to the individual and God. If you think about it, we can have the fence so close to us we have no room for grace and stand a chance of falling over the top completely. I'd rather have an expanded territory where I know grace can catch me if/when I fall and still be inside the fence. Just my thoughts...

[Jason B]

Originally Posted by CC1

The amazing thing to me is when preachers take biblical texts out of context or twist them into "saying" things they clearly do not see but still get tons of amens and high fives from the congregations listening to the travesty.

I'm convinced that people will amen and high five anything.

[missourimary]

Originally Posted by Jason Badejo

I'm convinced that people will amen and high five anything.

Some people feel they have to, to keep the peace.

[Maximilian]

If I may agree with several of the posters on this thread and post some citations that I feel address the heart of the matter:

The Wizard of Oz, a story written by L. Frank Baum, later became a movie. To Danny's young children (the made-up reader of the story) this delightful tale was about a young girl named Dorothy and her cute dog, Toto, who overcome the odds and defeated the powerful and scary bad guys with some help from Dorothy's nice new friends. To the young children the story had this simple meaning.

If we observe the story closely, however, and if we start to poke around into the historical background of the time Baum wrote the book, a different meaning surfaces. One of the hottest political debates going on in America when Baum wrote this story was over the issue of whether American should continue to use the gold standard as the basis for the U.S. dollar or whether she should switch to silver. This historical context suggests that the main line of the book ("follow the yellow brick road") may be a reference to the central political issue of the day. Remember that although the yellow brick road led to the great wizard of Oz, once Dorothy arrived there, she discovered he was a fraud. Dorothy's real hope lay in her shoes. In Baum's book the shoes are silver. Hollywood changed them to ruby so they would how up better in color for the movie. So, perhaps the book falls into the classification of political satire. Note, also that that gold is measured by the ounce, abbreviated by oz.

According to this line of interpretation, the characters in the story then probably represent different segments of American society. The Scarecrow represents the farmers (supposedly no brains). Who would the Tin Man represent? The factory workers (no heart). The cowardly lion perhaps represent the political leadership of the country. We also meet the wicked witch of the east (East Coast establishment?) and of the west (West Coast establishment?) -- and who is the heroine? Middle America 00 Dorothy from Kansas.

So who is right? Are Danny's kids wrong to interpret the story as a simple tale of good triumphing over evil? Did not the author intend it to be read as political satire? Are we wrong if we understand it otherwise? What is the meaning of the story? And who determines that meaning?

[Maximilian]

The questions I concluded with have prompted a lively and sometimes heated debate, not only secular literary circles, but also among students and scholars of the Bible. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the traditional approach to interpreting literature, biblical or secular, was to assume that the author determines the meaning and the reader's job is to find that meaning. Within the world of secular literary criticism, however, this approach came under attack through the latter half of the 20th century, and many literary critics today argue that is is the reader, and not the author, who determines what a text means.

So biblical scholars began asking: What is meaning? They concluded that the term meaning only applies as a reader interacts with the Text -- that is takes both the reader and the text to produce meaning. The author, they argued, is no longer involved.

[Socialite]

Originally Posted by Maximilian

The questions I concluded with have prompted a lively and sometimes heated debate, not only secular literary circles, but also among students and scholars of the Bible. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the traditional approach to interpreting literature, biblical or secular, was to assume that the author determines the meaning and the reader's job is to find that meaning. Within the world of secular literary criticism, however, this approach came under attack through the latter half of the 20th century, and many literary critics today argue that is is the reader, and not the author, who determines what a text means.

So biblical scholars began asking: What is meaning? They concluded that the term meaning only applies as a reader interacts with the Text -- that is takes both the reader and the text to produce meaning. The author, they argued, is no longer involved.

Hitting the nail on the head.
We do not create the meaning. Rather, we seek to discover the meaning that has been placed there by the author.