Prodigal Son Distorted by FB Pastor

[Maximilian]

I should clarify what an allegory is. An allegory is a story that uses an extensive amount of symbolism. It is similar to a parable but generally has an even greater degree of correspondence -- that is, most or many of the details in the story represent something or carry some specific nuance of meaning. One author defined it as "an extended metaphor -- that is, a number of elements in a story make up a string of metaphors which have a deeper unified meaning."

It's a literary technique. Some books can employ the technique to convey it's message (think: Pilgrim's Progress), so when one reads one of these books, they must read it as an allegory, not as history or as a historical novel.

The Bible uses allegory occasionally. Isa 5:1-7, for example. So allegory is not a bad thing. It's another literary device used occasionally in the Bible to convey a message in a colorful way. However, allegorical interpretation as an interpretive method is quite different from allegory, and it can mislead us completely if we use it to interpret a nonallegorical text. FEW texts in the Bible are allegorical.

[Maximilian]

Originally Posted by jfrog

Actually I think that song is the perfect example of what Maximillian was talking about. That song was written to be meaningless and then because people assumed it must have some deeper meaning they would project a meaning into it.

And there you have it.

People can take liberty with these arts, can't they?

What do you suppose the danger is if we apply that loosely to interpreting the Bible?

[Maximilian]

Originally Posted by RandyWayne

I know the story behind it is that John Lennon got sick of people reading way way way too much into their songs.

I wonder if our Heavenly Father doesn't feel that way sometimes. Or the Apostle Paul, sitting in Heavenly Places scratching his head of how we use his epistles, wishing he could come back and make a few clarifications, I'm sure

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by Maximilian

Allegories

Battles between spiritual and literal go bak to the first few centuries after Christ. Numerous early Christian scholars felt that the OT would only be relevant if it spoke directly of Christ. To those developed a system of interpretation that acknowledged a "literal" meaning of the text, but then encouraged the interpreter to look for the deeper, fuller, spiritual meaning below the surface of the text. Some settled for a two-level system (literal and spiritual), some multi-leveled into three (corresponding to body, soul, spirit), some four (literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical).

For example, the fourfold system would see four levels of meaning for the city of Jerusalem: 1) Literal: the actual Israelite city, 2) allegorical: the Church of Christ, 3)moral: the soul of a person and 4) anagogical: the heavenly city of God. By the 4th Century this interpretative approach was popular among the many writers of the church, and allegorical interpretation, as this approach is now known, became the normal way of approaching the OT. It remained popular until the Reformation, when Calvin/Luther (primarily) led the the Church away form the allegorical approach.

The Reformers still occasionally used allegorical interpretation, in general though they returned the church to the literary context of the Bible for the determination of meaning. Contemporary Evangelical scholarship has since followed in the Reformed's steps, and has cautioned the Church against using fanciful allegorical interpretations that are often based more on imagination than on the text itself. However, allegorical was still used by some popular preachers in the 20th Century, and is still around in various forms, and more predominately in some groups.

The apostles and other writers of the NT used an allegorical approach to their interpretation of the OT Scriptures. Often times we find that the "literary meaning" was intended to have been allegorical all along.

[Maximilian]

Originally Posted by pelathais

The apostles and other writers of the NT used an allegorical approach to their interpretation of the OT Scriptures. Often times we find that the "literary meaning" was intended to have been allegorical all along.

Good point.

And Jesus himself disobeyed every hermeneutical rules we have (Paul too on occasion, using a different hermeneutical school). The problem if we give everyone else the same liberty Paul and Jesus have, is that we can't really know what is true, or at least we will have a really hard time determining how we should understand what is written.

We must give that authority to Jesus (sounds weird to say), and we should come in as observers with certain rules in place.

Most of those passages, by the way, are not really allegorical, but really prophetic or typological. Something different.

As you probably know, a basic hermeneutic law is "an Old Testament passage usually cannot be confirmed as typological unless the NT identifies it as such."

[Maximilian]

This is where this goes (it doesn't stop with allegorical approach). It goes into Bible Codes, Gematria, Equidistant Letter Sequencing, Numerology, etc... We end up with gnostic movies like Davinci Code.

[Maximilian]

My personal opinion: Much about the tabernacle has NT parallels, but this does not give us license to make imaginative connections between Christ and every minute detail of the tabernacle (as has been recycled around the Church world for years).

[jfrog]

Originally Posted by Maximilian

And there you have it.

People can take liberty with these arts, can't they?

What do you suppose the danger is if we apply that loosely to interpreting the Bible?

I would think the danger would be in people projecting a view of God on the scriptures that is far superior to the view of God intended. Or maybe people would project a better moral system on the text than the intended moral system found within it's pages. JKJK...

[Maximilian]

To also clarify, application is not interpreting meaning. Application happens after we've determined what the intended meaning is (or have made that effort). Until then, application can't be too reliable.

Application should consider:

Understand what the text meant to the biblical audience
Understand and identify the differences between the biblical audience and us (this is often overlooked, and I'm not sure we truly understand how different our time is today)
Understand the theological principles first
Then... Understand how the individual should apply the principle to their own life.

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by tstew

Once again, I am not one for reading wild interpretations into scripture. However, back to the original post, I have no problem with what was written by Rob and consider it in keeping with the context of the story. I stated this before I knew who the pastor was or what organization he was affiliated with. (Of course, in the interest of full disclosure, given that this IS AFF I kinda had a hunch )

Quote:
The prodigal didn't leave the father's house because of the provision. He left because of the rules. It took a famine for him to realize that it's "the rules" of the Father's house that create provision...and those rules aren't so bad. (PASTOR'S NAME OMITTED)


He took his provision and the Bible is clear that he immediately engaged in riotous, wild, and lawless living. The son's desire is clear in context. Does that ultimately make it a story about rules and only rules...no. At the end of the day, is it a story about Grace and only Grace?...no. It's a story about grace and forgiveness and repentance and humility and jealousy and false piety and Pharisaical hypocrisy and Agape love and perhaps a few other things.

I don't think that seeing these elements in context is adding anything to this beautiful story.