{"id":218,"date":"2018-04-18T08:15:21","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T13:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/godsvoice\/?page_id=218"},"modified":"2018-09-09T11:50:33","modified_gmt":"2018-09-09T16:50:33","slug":"literal-or-symbolic-interpretation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/godsvoice\/interpret-the-written-law\/literal-or-symbolic-interpretation\/","title":{"rendered":"Literal or Symbolic Interpretation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>GOD ALWAYS SPEAKS IN PARABLES<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thearda.com\/MAWizard\/Concepts\/MW_22_CC.asp?SAM=-1&amp;GEO=-1&amp;MO=-1&amp;FR=-1&amp;YS=0&amp;YE=2600&amp;SC=34&amp;SC=35&amp;SC=36&amp;SC=37&amp;SC=39&amp;SC=41&amp;SC=42&amp;SC=38&amp;SC=40\" class=\"broken_link\">Many surveys have been conducted over the years to document what people of different religions believe about how the Bible should be interpreted. Most survey respondents believe that it is the actual, inspired word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word, while some will allow that not all of it should be taken literally.<\/a> These responses show how little religious people really understand about<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/kjv\/passage\/?q=matthew+13:34-35;+mark+4:33-34;+matthew+13:10-13;+hosea+12:10;+john+10:6;+john+16:24-31\"> parables in scripture, <\/a>about Symbols, Signs, Types, Copies, Shadows and Patterns and the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/website-03399378.phw.pfz.mybluehost.me\/study\/hidden-mysteries\/\">mystery<\/a> of the Bible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">For obvious reasons, it is beyond the scope of those surveys to identify which, if any, parts of the Bible should, or should not, be taken literally. This is not surprising given the volume, complexity and mystery of the Bible. As a practical matter, however, it can be said that those parts which do not easily lend themselves to literal interpretation are the parts which are parables. These are the parts that make no sense literally and are difficult or impossible for the average person of modest means to apply in a meaningful way. They are the parts that include parables, Symbols, Signs, Types, Copies, Shadows and Patterns and mystery, which are the substance of most of the Bible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The fact that God made the Bible so difficult to understand is hard for most people to accept. We might logically think that if God really wants people to love and obey him, and if he want people to learn about him from the written Bible, he would make Bible reading easy and simple. Simple and easy is how man would write a technical manual, but <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/isaiah\/55-8.html\">God does not think and do the way man does. <\/a>Therefore, if we are honest in our assessment of the Bible, we would be forced to admit that the Bible is very hard to understand and impossible to obey.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">When we look at the substance of religion, however, we find that the origins of Judaism and Christianity exist in those parts of the Bible that can be interpreted literally &#8212; even the parts which are in fact parables. In other words, the parts which should be interpreted as parables to teach spiritual truth are interpreted literally, or as close to literally as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Jews and Christians understand that the Bible contains much symbolism and do their best to adapt that symbolism to their religions. Consider the following examples:<\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td><\/td>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/breadfood-and-wine\">Biblical bread, food and wine are associated with natural bread, food and wine.<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/sacrifices-tithes-and-offerings\">Biblical tithes and offerings are associated with money<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/tabernacles-temples-altars-high-places-and-pilgrimages\">Biblical temples are associated with physical buildings<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">STUDY TIP: See <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\">Symbols, Signs, Types, Copies, Shadows and Patterns<\/a> and subordinate pages for for examples.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Association of natural objects found in the Bible with other natural\u00a0 objects is not what God wants his people to do. Associating natural things with other natural things results in religion &#8212; not righteousness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">God wants his people to learn how to interpret the spiritual content of natural things, people and events found in the Bible. He tells us this in scripture that discusses the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice\/literal-or-symbolic-interpretation-part-2\/3\">first the natural and then the spiritual<\/a>&#8221; principle. He also tells us this when he says that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/2-timothy\/passage\/?q=2-timothy+3:14-17\">all scripture useful for training in righteousness.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/lexicons\/greek\/nas\/dikaiosune.html\">Righteousness<\/a> is an inner, spiritual condition of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=1-kings+8:35-39;+jeremiah+17:10;+psalm+44:20-21;+proverbs+15:11;+1-samuel+16:7;+1-chronicles+28:9;+2-chronicles+6:28-31;+psalm+44:21;+acts+1:24\">heart that only God can see<\/a>. Righteousness is a matter of faith that cannot be seen. Interpretation of natural things found in the Bible as natural things in contemporary life contributes to religion which can be seen. Therefore, if we use the literal words of scripture as a source of rules for religious living, we have missed God&#8217;s purpose in giving us the Bible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">God is not unaware of the tendency of man to wrongly interpret the Bible. He accounts for that inclination when he tells us that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice\/the-law\/the-law-is-a-stumbling-block\">law is a stumbling block<\/a>. But God also provides a remedy for people who wrongly interpret the Bible literally: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=exodus+15:22-26;+exodus+23:21;+exodus+19:5;+jeremiah+7:23-26;+jeremiah+11:1-4;+matthew+4:1-4;+deuteronomy+8:1-3;+job+22:21-23;+psalm+119:9-13;+psalm+138:4;+isaiah+28:23;+jeremiah+11:1-7;+jeremiah+22:21;+psalm+106:25;+nehemiah+9:29;+jeremiah+11:10;+jeremiah+13:11;+zechariah+7:11;+isaiah+46:12;+matthew+13:15\">Listen to his voice<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">People who do not listen to God&#8217;s voice are stuck in religion. This is why God is so opposed to religion: It substitutes literal interpretation for listening to his voice. Thus, as religion focuses on natural things found in the Bible (e.g. rituals, places, artifacts), it successfully diverts people from listening to God voice and the spiritual truth which he <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+31:31-34;+1-thessalonians+4:9;+1-john+2:27;+john+14:11-17;+john+14:26;+1-corinthians+2:12;+hebrews+8:10-11\">speaks to their hearts<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Religion based on literal interpretations poses serious problems for religious people who sincerely desire to please God. They sincerely believe that by interpreting the Bible literally they have grasped what God expects of them. And then they work very hard to apply their literal interpretations to their religion. They have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice\/the-law\/the-law-is-a-stumbling-block\">stumbled over the written law<\/a>. They are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/death-resurrection-life\/2#lifedeathblesscurse\">under a curse<\/a> that condemns them to practicing religion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">People who have read\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/website-03399378.phw.pfz.mybluehost.me\/study\/all-scripture-is-relevant\/\"> All Scripture is Relevant<\/a> are hopefully convinced that their standing with God and their understanding of the Bible depends on their ability to accurately interpret and apply all scripture &#8212; including those parts which are difficult, and even impossible, to understand and apply when interpreted literally. This will not happen, of course, unless they first understand that there is generally a big difference between reading God&#8217;s written word and listening to his spoken voice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Disciples must therefore wrestle with the question of whether or not the Bible should be interpreted literally, or symbolically, or both. In this series of pages we will discuss the many ways that God informs us that symbolic interpretation is the only way to come to the spiritual understanding of all scripture. We will also review the many origins of religion found in literal interpretations of the Bible. These are found in scriptures that, with a little tweaking, have been easily converted to human rules (i.e. works of the flesh, religion) which are<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=isaiah+29:13;+matthew+15:8-9;+mark+7:6-7;+colossians+2:6-23\"> made up by men<\/a> whose rules are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=romans+8:1-2;+romans+7:1-5;+1+corinthians+15:50-56\">laws that lead to death.<\/a> And we will show how some of the mysterious scriptures should have been interpreted and applied.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The statement that literal interpretation of the Bible leads to death &#8212; and not to life &#8212; will be surprising, and even offensive, to people who base their religion on literal interpretations of the Bible. Such people must be informed that God equates religion based on literal interpretation of his word to being <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=romans+2:12;romans+7:6;1+corinthians+9:20;galatians+3:10;galatians+3:23;galatians+4:4-5;galatians+5:18\">under the law<\/a>. This truth will not be readily apparent to most readers, however, because they practice their religion according to religious laws that they think the Bible commands them to do. In their way of thinking, this is only reasonable because God&#8217;s word is truth. What they do not realize, however, that references to God&#8217;s word are to his spoken word &#8212; not to his literal word. Failure to make this important distinction is a stumbling block that has led both Jews and Christians astray for hundreds of generations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Readers who are willing to plow their way through this website will learn to depend more on God&#8217;s voice and less and less on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=isaiah+29:13-14;+matthew+15:1-9;+mark+7:1-13;+colossians+2:1-8;+colossians+2:20-23;+titus+1:5-16\">religious doctrines and traditions created and promoted by men<\/a> from their literal understanding of scripture. As that happens for each individual, they will end their wilderness wandering and enter the\u00a0Promised Land. They will pass through the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=matthew+27:45-51;+exodus+26:31-34;+mark+15:37-38;+luke+23:44-46;+hebrews+9:1-5\"> veil (i.e. religion) that separates Old\/First Covenant religionists from God<\/a>. In the language of the Bible, they will transition from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=john+5:24;+romans+5:17;+romans+5:20-21;+romans+6:4;+romans+8:2;+romans+8:6;+revelation+2:10-11\">spiritual death to spiritual life<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">God calls this process<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/lexicons\/greek\/nas\/hagiasmos.html\"> sanctification<\/a>. It is accomplished when <span class=\"verse-2\">we are no longer<\/span> <a title=\"Strong&#039;s Number: 4964\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs\/?t=nas&amp;ll=g&amp;sn=4964\" number=\"4964\" class=\"broken_link\">conformed<\/a> to <a title=\"Strong&#039;s Number: 3778\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs\/?t=nas&amp;ll=g&amp;sn=3778\" number=\"3778\" class=\"broken_link\">this<\/a> <a title=\"Strong&#039;s Number: 165\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs\/?t=nas&amp;ll=g&amp;sn=165\" number=\"165\" class=\"broken_link\">world <\/a>(i.e. World of Religion), but are <a title=\"Strong&#039;s Number: 3339\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs\/?t=nas&amp;ll=g&amp;sn=3339\" number=\"3339\" class=\"broken_link\">transformed<\/a> by the <a title=\"Strong&#039;s Number: 342\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs\/?t=nas&amp;ll=g&amp;sn=342\" number=\"342\" class=\"broken_link\">renewing<\/a> of our <a title=\"Strong&#039;s Number: 3563\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs\/?t=nas&amp;ll=g&amp;sn=3563\" number=\"3563\" class=\"broken_link\">minds<\/a>, so that we may correctly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/lexicons\/greek\/nas\/dokimazo.html\">examine and test<\/a> God&#8217;s<a title=\"Strong&#039;s Number: 2316\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs\/?t=nas&amp;ll=g&amp;sn=2316\" number=\"2316\" class=\"broken_link\"> will.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/romans\/passage\/?q=romans+12:1-2\">Romans 12:1-2: <\/a><span class=\"verse-1\">Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. <\/span><span class=\"verse-number\">2<\/span> <span class=\"verse-2\"> And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/ephesians\/passage\/?q=ephesians+4:22-25\">Ephesians 4:22-25: <\/a><span class=\"verse-22\">Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, <\/span><span class=\"verse-number\">23<\/span> <span class=\"verse-23\"> and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, <\/span><span class=\"verse-number\">24<\/span> <span class=\"verse-24\"> and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. <\/span><span class=\"verse-number\">25<\/span> <span class=\"verse-25\"> Therefore, putting away falsehood, let every one speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Examining and testing God&#8217;s will requires the ability to hear God&#8217;s spoken voice. It cannot be done by listening to the voices of human religious leaders. Therefore, it will not happen unless we first change our minds about listening to the voices of false prophets and about interpreting the Bible literally.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong><a id=\"heroesoffaith\"><\/a>HEROES OF FAITH HEARD GOD&#8217;S VOICE<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Most people would agree that the main reason they read the Bible is to acquire knowledge about God, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=exodus+33:13;+job+24:13;+psalm+25:1-4;+psalm+95:8-11;+isaiah+58:1-2;+hosea+14:9;+hebrews+3:10\">know his ways<\/a> and how he relates to his people. They do this because their cultures value and encourage reading and study for gaining knowledge of all kinds &#8212; including knowledge of religion and God. In general, it can be said, then, that reading and study are critical skills for acquiring knowledge in culture and religion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">When it comes to knowledge of God, however, we must look at the examples of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses who are considered to be God-followers and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Patriarchs_(Bible)\">patriarchs<\/a> of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=genesis+17:5;+matthew+3:9;+john+8:56;+romans+4:12-16\">Abraham in particular, is considered to be the father of Judaism and Christianity, <\/a>even though he nor his sons had anything written from which they could learn about God.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Given that these well-known God followers did not learn about God from any written documents (i.e. Bible), must ask the question: &#8220;How could these and other <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/hebrews\/11.html\">men and women of faith<\/a> learn about God and be held up as models of faith without the Bible or anything written to teach them?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The simple answer to the question is this: They had <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/religion\/religion-is-not-faith\">faith which is the substance of things not seen. <\/a>But, we must then ask, if they didn&#8217;t learn about God from something written that they could see, what did they have other than faith? The simple answer to the question is this: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=2-corinthians+5:1-7;+2-corinthians+4:15-18;+1-peter+1:1-5;+ephesians+2:1-8;+mark+5:34;+luke+7:50;+romans+10:8;+romans+10:17\">Faith is all that they needed<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">But the question still remains about the object of the faith of the heroes of faith in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/hebrews\/11.html\">Hebrews 11<\/a>. In other words, what exactly was it that they had faith in? Here are a few\u00a0 facts to consider:<\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Because they did not have written Bibles or manuscripts, we know that their faith was not in literal words written on pages.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Since they did not have pastors, priests or prophets, we know that their faith was not built on the teachings of religious leaders or prophets.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Because there is no mention in scripture about expectations the heroes of faith might have had about going to heaven after they died, their faith was not in their eternal salvation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Since Jesus the man was not alive when any of them lived, their faith was not in Jesus.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Since all of the heroes of faith experienced much conflict and heartache, their faith was not in the expectation that God would give them an easy, prosperous life.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">If these heroes of faith didn&#8217;t have Bibles or teachers to teach them about faith, what is left for them to have faith in? Here is a brief summary of what we can learn from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/hebrews\/11.html\">Hebrews 11<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">They all believed that God rewards people who seek him (i.e. listen to his voice) by speaking to them and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/deuteronomy\/passage\/?q=deuteronomy+29:1-4\">giving them the ability to understand his voice.<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">They all obeyed what they heard God tell them to do.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">They were all <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/people\/true-prophets\/model-warriors\">warriors<\/a> who fought against <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/religion\/religion-is-the-enemy\">God&#8217;s enemies<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">They <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=hebrews+11:13;+hebrews+11:39\">did not see in their lifetimes the promises that God made to them.<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">When we boil these common traits down, what we are left with is this: The object of their faith was in the ability to hear the spoken word of God. Their faith was not in what they read, not in their religion, and not even in the person Jesus. It was all about hearing God&#8217;s voice and acting on what they heard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">If faith in the ability to hear God&#8217;s spoken voice was what made these models of faith heroes in God&#8217;s eyes, it is reasonable and logical to say that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=romans+10:8;+romans+10:17;+hebrews+4:1-2;+acts+6:7\">faith that we can hear God&#8217;s word (i.e. his spoken voice)<\/a> is all that we in these modern times need also.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>BIBLICAL HISTORICAL ACCURACY AND <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/inerrancy\">INERRANCY<\/a><\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The historical accuracy of the Bible is rarely in question or doubt within Judaism and Christianity. In fact, within most strains of both religions, anyone who expressed doubt that the Bible is an accurate, detailed account of history would probably be considered a heretic and soon disenfranchised from their religion. For sure, no religious leader who argued about historical accuracy or even expressed a little bit of doubt about the Bible&#8217;s complete <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/thesaurus\/factuality\">factuality <\/a>would soon lose his or her credibility as a Bible teacher.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">STUDY TIP: There is much study and dispute among Biblical scholars about its historical accuracy and inerrancy. The volume of such study is way beyond the scope of this website, but we offer the following links for readers who are inclined to do their own research:<\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 9px;\"><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 9px;\"><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 9px;\"><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 9px;\"><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 42px;\"><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 10px;\"><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 9px;\"><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 364px;\">\n<ul>\n<li id=\"firstHeading\" class=\"firstHeading\" lang=\"en\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Biblical_inerrancy\">Biblical Inerrancy (Wikipedia)<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"firstHeading\" lang=\"en\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Biblical_infallibility\">Biblical Infallibility (Wikipedia)<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li id=\"firstHeading\" class=\"firstHeading\" lang=\"en\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chicago_Statement_on_Biblical_Inerrancy\">Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"firstHeading\" lang=\"en\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Biblical_studies\">Biblical studies (Wikipedia)<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"firstHeading\" lang=\"en\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Biblical_studies\">Historicity of the Bible (Wikipedia)<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Anyone who is familiar with debates about Biblical history knows that there is disagreement about it. What scholars and theologians say about it all is unimportant, however, compared to what God says.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-md-12\">\n<div class=\"scripture\" lang=\"en\">\n<div id=\"v-9\" class=\"verse font-helvetica\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/jeremiah\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+8:1-9\"><span class=\"verse-number\">Jeremiah 8:1-9<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<span class=\"verse-1\">&#8220;At that time, says the LORD, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its princes, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs; <\/span><span class=\"verse-number\">2<\/span> <span class=\"verse-2\"> and they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshiped; and they shall not be gathered or buried; they shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. <\/span><span class=\"verse-number\">3<\/span> <span class=\"verse-3\"> Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family in all the places where I have driven them, says the LORD of hosts. <\/span><span class=\"verse-number\">4<\/span> <span class=\"verse-4\"> &#8220;You shall say to them, Thus says the LORD: When men fall, do they not rise again? If one turns away, does he not return? <\/span><span class=\"verse-number\">5<\/span> <span class=\"verse-5\"> Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit, they refuse to return. <\/span><span class=\"verse-number\">6<\/span> <span class=\"verse-6\"> I have given heed and listened, but they have not spoken aright; no man repents of his wickedness, saying, &#8216;What have I done?&#8217; Every one turns to his own course, like a horse plunging headlong into battle. <\/span><span class=\"verse-number\">7<\/span> <span class=\"verse-7\"> Even the stork in the heavens knows her times; and the turtledove, swallow, and crane keep the time of their coming; but my people know not the ordinance of the LORD. <\/span><span class=\"verse-number\">8<\/span> <span class=\"verse-8\"> &#8220;How can you say, &#8216;We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us&#8217;? But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has made it into a lie. <\/span><span class=\"verse-number\">9<\/span> <span class=\"verse-9\"> The wise men shall be put to shame, they shall be dismayed and taken; lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD, and what wisdom is in them? <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">This short passage about the sin and treachery of Judah applies to all of Judaism and Christianity. Essentially, it is an account of the descent into religion from faith. The main points of the scripture are found in verses 8 and 9 where we see the following:<\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Scribes (i.e. people who transcribe God&#8217;s spoken words into the Bible) have taken his spoken words (i.e. his laws) have made what God said into a lie.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Scribes are considered by people who value what they write to be wise. But, because <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=1-corinthians+1:18-27;+1-corinthians+3:18-21;+2-corinthians+1:12;+james+3:13-18;+1-corinthians+2:1-14;+jeremiah+4:19-22;+isaiah+5:20-21;+isaiah+29:14;+isaiah+47:10;+jeremiah+8:9;+proverbs+3:1-7;+romans+1:22\">they are only wise in their own eyes, and in the eyes of the people who believe what they write, they are foolish compared to those who have Godly wisdom<\/a>. The truth appears to individuals who become <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+31:31-34;+1-thessalonians+4:9;+1-john+2:27;+john+14:11-17;+john+14:26;+1-corinthians+2:12;+hebrews+8:10-11\">New Covenant disciples and begin listening to God&#8217;s voice instead of depending on someone else to teach them.<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The people who are <span class=\"verse-9\"><a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"Strong&#039;s Number: 02450\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs\/?t=nas&amp;ll=h&amp;sn=02450\" number=\"02450\">wise<\/a> <\/span> in their own eyes will be\u00a0<span class=\"verse-9\"><a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"Strong&#039;s Number: 02865\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs\/?t=nas&amp;ll=h&amp;sn=02865\" number=\"02865\">dismayed<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/lexicons\/hebrew\/nas\/lakad.html\">captured\/caught\/taken<\/a> because they have rejected <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice#howtoheargodsvoice\">God&#8217;s spoken word <\/a>in favor of the lying words of supposedly wise men<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice#howtoheargodsvoice\">.<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The lesson here for us is that we make a great error when we choose to interpret the Bible literally and\/or listen to or read what false prophets write or say. Instead, as New Covenant disciples, we should always listen for God&#8217;s voice to speak truth to us and never listen to what others, no matter how wise they may appear to be, write or say about their interpretations of the Bible. They are all liars &#8212; not because they intentionally set out to deceive others, but because they, themselves, have been deceived into believing that the literal Bible is the same thing as\u00a0 God&#8217;s spoken word.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>THE IMPORTANCE OF BIBLICAL SYMBOLISM<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It is beyond dispute that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/john\/4-24.html\">God is a spirit<\/a>. As a Spirit, there is no visible proof that he exists, but we can see where he has been and what he has done.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">We see this principle when <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/exodus\/passage\/?q=exodus+33:12-23\">Moses asked to see God&#8217;s glory, God placed him in the cleft of a rock and then basically showed Moses his back<\/a>. Instead of revealing himself tangibly or visibly, God merely <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/exodus\/33-19.html\">proclaimed his name.\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">STUDY TIP: See<a href=\"https:\/\/website-03399378.phw.pfz.mybluehost.me\/obey\/commandments\/third-commandment\/\"> Third Commandment<\/a> for discussion about the symbolic meaning of God&#8217;s name.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">This brief story about God&#8217;s glory is loaded with symbolic meaning that far exceeds the literal meaning. Here is a small sample:<\/span><\/p>\n<table border=\"1\" width=\"422\" align=\"center\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>LITERAL READING<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>SYMBOLIC INTERPRETATION<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/exodus\/33-13.html\">Moses asked that God would allow Moses to know him and his ways. But Moses did not just ask for himself, he also asked on behalf of the entire nation of Israel.<\/a><\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">These verses come directly after the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/exodus\/32.html\">golden calf incident in which God punished Israel<\/a> for creating <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/music-singing-and-dancing\/3#goldencalf1\">religion which is symbolized by the golden calf.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Moses already knew who God was but he did not know God&#8217;s ways. What he was asking for was a deeper kind of knowledge of God for himself and others. This concern for others will always be found in New Covenant disciples.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">God&#8217;s response was that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/exodus\/33-14.html\">his presence would go with Moses and the nation of Israel.<\/a><\/span><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/search\/?q=+pillar+cloud+fire&amp;c=&amp;t=niv&amp;ps=100&amp;s=Bibles\">God&#8217;s spiritual presence is symbolically represented as a cloud and fire. <\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Clouds are always found in the sky which is often referred to as the heavens.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Since the kingdom where God makes his home is in heaven, and since the kingdom of heaven is within people, God makes his home within people.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The place within people where God makes his home is in their hearts because the heart is the place where his laws are written.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+31:31-34;+jeremiah+32:40;+hebrews+8:10-11\">New Covenant disciples have God&#8217;s laws written on their hearts.<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Following this symbolic sequence we conclude that God&#8217;s presence is found in New Covenant disciples.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/search\/?s=bibles&amp;q=kingdom%2Bof%2Bgod&amp;t=nas&amp;c=all\">kingdom of God<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/search\/?s=bibles&amp;q=kingdom%2Bof%2Bheaven&amp;t=nas&amp;c=all\">kingdom of heaven are the same thing<\/a> because both terms symbolically represent the place where God makes his home and from which he rules the hearts of New Covenant disciples because his laws are written on their hearts.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">God said that<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/exodus\/33-14.html\"> he would give Israel rest.<\/a><\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">See Sabbath, Fasting and Rest and <a href=\"https:\/\/website-03399378.phw.pfz.mybluehost.me\/obey\/commandments\/fourth-commandment\/\">Fourth Commandment<\/a>.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">When talking about Moses being in the cleft of the rock, it is important to recognize that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/1-corinthians\/passage\/?q=1-corinthians+10:1-4\">rock is a symbolic reference to Christ<\/a>. And since Christ is the mediator of the New Covenant, Moses was symbolically established in the New Covenant. Thus, the New Covenant was the vantage point from which he could see God&#8217;s glory. That means he could hear God&#8217;s voice. This is a reminder to us that we also need to be established in the New Covenant so that we can hear God&#8217;s voice and see God&#8217;s glory passing by in our lives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">God also <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/1-kings\/passage\/?q=1-kings+19:1-13\">revealed himself to Elijah, but only with a small voice &#8212; not with anything tangible that could be seen or touched. <\/a>The small voice is symbolic of the Spirit. The smallness symbolically implies that what God revealed was a quiet revelation and not a loud and clear exclamation (i.e. literal, written words on a page of the Bible)<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/1-kings\/passage\/?q=1-kings+19:1-13\">. <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">If that was all that God was willing to reveal to Moses and Elijah, two of his greatest prophets, we should not expect to receive anything more from God in terms of revelation of his glory.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Another basic point to remember about symbolic interpretation is that it opens us up to the fullness of who God is. The written words on a page are finite. There are a fixed number of them and each word has its own literal meanings. God, on the other hand is not finite. He is much bigger than words can possibly describe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It is absurd to imagine that everything that can be known about God, or that everything he wants to teach his people can be contained in the written pages of the Bible or any collection of theological writings or sermons written and spoken by religious leaders. People who assume that all that can be known about God can be found in these creations of men have an exaggerated view of men and an underestimated view of a big God. These views discredit and devalue God.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Symbolic interpretation, on the other hand allows for an open-ended understanding of an infinite God because openness to deep symbolism creates the ripe environment in which God&#8217;s spirit can break through all of our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=1+corinthians+2;+isaiah+64:1-4;+isaiah+65:17\">preexisting worldly wisdom to reveal his truth to us. <\/a>But, people who only accept the literal word of the Bible are not open to this expanded view of God. Thus they serve a very small god.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">How to move from literal to symbolic interpretation is simple, but hard. It begins with repentance for believing that we were able to learn what we needed to know by listening to others and by using our natural intellect to understand. After that, the appropriate strategy to follow is to assume that everything we read in the Bible is a parable for which God has not yet given us the ability to understand. We can read it with our natural eyes and ears, but\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=deuteronomy+29:1-4;+isaiah+6:8-10;+ezekiel+12:2;+matthew+13:14;+acts+28:23-28\">God has not yet given us\u00a0a mind to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear.\u00a0<\/a>Why\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=deuteronomy+29:1-4;isaiah+32:1-4;isaiah+48:8;jeremiah+5:21;ezekiel+12:2;matthew+13:15;acts+28:26-27;romans+11:1-8;ephesians+4:18\">God chooses to open our eyes to \u00a0the deep mysteries of some scripture and not to others is a matter of the hardness of our own hearts<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">What God reveals to whom and when he reveals it is a matter of him<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/deuteronomy\/passage\/?q=deuteronomy+8:1-3\"> testing us to reveal what is in our hearts<\/a>. \u00a0In our pride we think we love God deeply, and we do not know that hardness exists, but if we humbly acknowledge that\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=romans+3:10;psalm+143:2;psalm+14:3;ecclesiastes+7:20\">we are not righteous<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=psalm+139:23-24;job+13:23;psalm+26:2;1+chronicles+29:17;psalm+7:9;proverbs+17:3;jeremiah+11:20;revelation+2:23;deuteronomy+6:6;jeremiah+20:12;ezekiel+11:5\">ask him to allow us to see our hearts as he sees them,<\/a> he will reveal the truth to us. And when we are faithful to repent for our religious pride after God shows us our hearts, he will be faithful to open our eyes and ears to spiritual understanding of those difficult scriptures.\u00a0Then we can move on with expectations that he will open our spiritual eyes and ears to some greater degree thereafter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">In this process of stumbling and repenting we make some small or great progress in our transition from being Old\/First Covenant religionists to New Covenant disciples. It is not a momentary, all at once event, but it is a process that we go through little by little. Just as Israel passed through the wilderness little by little on its way to the promised land (i.e. New Covenant) while acquiring spiritual wealth and overcoming Old\/First Covenant religious enemies along the way, we make the same trip by overcoming our enemies on the way to the promised land where we will know God more deeply because he gives to us the ability to interpret the symbols and parables.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>KNOWING LITERAL SCRIPTURE IS NOT ENOUGH<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Disciples must always be careful in thinking that they know God just because they can quote the Bible. Knowing the stories and scriptures well enough to locate them and quote them does not equate with understanding them in your heart. It is true that a measure of intellectual understanding generally (but not always) precedes spiritual understanding, but mere intellectual understanding is not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to understand with the heart, and the scope of what that may mean is not limited to the meanings of words created by and used by men.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">God has designed a system in which he uses man\u2019s words to communicate spiritual truth, but the truth does not\u00a0 begin and end with the words. The words are only the vehicles through which God begins to reveal truths that can ultimately only be understood spiritually (i.e. with the heart). It all goes back to the fact that God is spirit and we are basically flesh. He is in the ongoing process of\u00a0 transforming us from flesh to Spirit. Since words are creations of men, they are creations of the flesh, and God is trying to wean us off the use of literal words (i.e. seeing with our eyes and hearing with our ears) as He trains us to see and hear with spiritual\u00a0 eyes and ears (i.e. our hearts). We can either work with God in this process or obstruct his efforts to train us. We obstruct when we proudly believe that we know what he is trying to say because we have a good intellectual understanding of the man-made words. That means we have an intellectual\u00a0knowledge of natural truth but that our hearts have become calloused to spiritual truth. We participate with God in the process of training us when we agree in advance\u00a0that symbolic interpretations exist, and then work (i.e. study, listen to his voice) until God reveals the spiritual understanding to us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Since God is spirit, and since <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=1+corinthians+15:49;romans+8:28-29;2+corinthians+3:18;philippians+3:20-21;1+john+3:2\">we are in the process of being re-created (i.e. transformed) into his image<\/a>, we should not want to be satisfied with natural truth alone.\u00a0 Therefore, we participate in the transformation process when we study the words with humility that allows that, in our fleshly nature, we do not really understand what God is trying to communicate to us, and then ask God to reveal the deeper spiritual truths (i.e. beyond the words) to us. If we do our part, he will be faithful to reveal those truths to us. But if we proudly stick to our intellectual knowledge, we inhibit gaining spiritual knowledge and limit our ability to know God more deeply. We can facilitate this transformation process by assuming that Jesus\u2019 principle of speaking in parables is not limited to those scriptures that are specifically labeled as parables in the Biblical text. In other words, it is helpful to think of everything in the Bible as being a parable with a meaning that transcends the literal meaning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It seems reasonable to us that God would apply that principle throughout the Bible and not just in New Covenant scriptures. It is no secret that many scriptures are obscure, confusing, contradictory, and otherwise impossible to understand when interpreted literally. And indeed they are obscure, confusing, contradictory, and downright impossible to understand \u2014 but we need to allow that this is true because we are limited by our understanding of the man-made words we read and by our natural intellect. But the real problem is that we do not know how to listen to God&#8217;s voice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Would we dare to conclude that\u00a0 God himself is also handicapped in his ability to explain what we find impossible to understand? Of course we would not think that, and yet we somehow resign ourselves to believing that understanding is beyond us, that we will never \u201cget it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The attitude that some scripture is over our heads is in blatant contradiction to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nrs\/passage\/?q=romans+12:1-3;ephesians+4:17-24;romans+6:4;colossians+3:5-10;2+corinthians+5:17;2+corinthians+3:18\">doctrine that we are being transformed into God\u2019s likeness.<\/a>\u00a0 If God can \u201cget it,\u201d we have the very real potential to \u201cget it.\u201d If we do not \u201cget it,\u201d the reason is that we have become so proud in our intellectual understanding of the man-made words that God has seen fit to harden our hearts to spiritual understanding. This is a very bad state to be in for many reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">One sad thing about this attitude is that it totally denies the truth that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/2-timothy\/passage\/?q=2-timothy+3:14-17\">\u201cAll scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.\u201d<\/a> If we hold to the lie that the meanings of some scriptures are way over our heads and that we will never understand them, we, in effect, call God a liar. When this attitude is at work we not only deprive ourselves of understanding, but we also offend God. This attitude is not at all conducive to spiritual growth. On the contrary, it is an attitude that will yield spiritual death \u2014 not life. That is the saddest outcome of all.It is not an easy process to go through.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>WHERE WE ARE IN THE TRANSFORMATION PROCESS<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">For our convenience, we think, God has simplified the transformation process into two steps. Step One is the Old\/First Covenant which is God&#8217;s initial introduction of himself to people. Step Two is the New Covenant which is where God wants us to be (i.e. his spirit resides in us). All Jews and Christians are somewhere in that two-step continuum. Everyone else is outside the continuum watching. Most of what the outsiders see is Old\/First Covenant religion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">We understand the human tendency to go with the literal interpretation and the attempts to explain mysterious concepts with natural phenomenon with which we are familiar. It is the easy way to go, and it seems to work &#8212; at least to a point. Religious leaders that came before Jesus <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/john\/passage\/?q=john+5:39-40#\">searched the scriptures<\/a> for their literal meanings out of the belief that they were<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/genesis\/passage\/?q=genesis+3:1-7\"> good for spiritual food. <\/a>Literal meanings do provide some nourishment for the flesh, but it is not the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/john\/passage\/?q=john+10:1-10\">abundant spiritual life<\/a> that is available to people who interpret the Bible symbolically. Moreover, because literal interpretation is how everyone we know interprets scripture, it seems like it must be acceptable to God if it is acceptable to all religious people. The problem is that it is not acceptable to God.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">How do we know that literal interpretation of scripture is not acceptable to God? He has told us in many ways that we are to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=2+corinthians+5:7;1+corinthians+13:12;2+corinthians+4:17-18;romans+8:24;hebrews+11:1;romans+8:1-4;galatians+5:16;galatians+5:25\">walk by the Spirit (i.e. being open to deep, symbolic interpretations of mysteries) and not by sight (i.e. what we can understand with our natural intellect). <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">What we need to do to experience the abundant life, therefore, is be transformed in our minds about the need to reject literal interpretation in favor of symbolic interpretation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>THE ESSENCE OF TRANSFORMATION<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The basic truth that must be grasped for anyone who hopes to be transformed is that the law is holy and spiritual as provided in these verses:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/romans\/passage\/?q=romans+7:12-14\">Romans 7:12-14<\/a>: <span id=\"ro7-12\" class=\"versetext\"> So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. <\/span> <span id=\"ro7-13\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">13<\/span> Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. <\/span> <span id=\"ro7-14\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">14<\/span> We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">What we learn here is that the law is good and holy. This makes sense to our logical minds, but we find an apparent contradiction in other scriptures that say we should not want to be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=romans+2:12;romans+7:6;1+corinthians+9:20;galatians+3:10;galatians+3:23;galatians+4:4-5;galatians+5:18\">under the law <\/a>because the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=romans+7:6;2+corinthians+3:5-8\">letter of the law brings death<\/a>. This apparent contradiction challenges us to discover what God means by &#8220;the law&#8221; because understanding appears to be the difference between life and death.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Putting it as simplistically as possible, the life and death issue hinges on whether the Bible is interpreted literally or symbolically. Or to put it another way, life and death depends on our ability to listen to God&#8217;s voice. We know that such a statement will offend both Jews and Christians because both religions have based their doctrines on literal interpretations of scripture. The way we see it, however, both religions have erred greatly in adopting such doctrines.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">That is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/study\/study-tips\/13\">the bad news. The good news,<\/a> however, is that the challenges of literal vs. symbolic interpretation are all part of God&#8217;s redemptive plan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The symbolic interpretations are hidden in the literal words of God as mysteries, but they are not found in the literal words themselves. The written word is but a shadow of the spiritual word that is revealed only to New Covenant disciples who can hear God&#8217;s voice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">From the prophets who first recorded God&#8217;s word to the interpreters who translated from Hebrew and Greek to English and other languages, all were unable to say adequately or competently in natural words written on paper what God can say with spiritual words spoken to and written on the hearts of people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The plain fact is that man&#8217;s ability to understand and communicate through the written and spoken word is limited. The plain fact is that God&#8217;s ability to communicate through his spirit is unlimited. The sooner people realize these facts the better off they will be.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">God knows these facts, of course, and that is why his preferred method of communication is directly with man through the spirit of man. People who are willing to settle for only a little bit of God will be satisfied with the written word of God and its interpretation by mortal men. People who want to know God as fully as possible will listen for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice\">God\u2019s voice<\/a> spoken to their hearts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It is impossible for literal translations to accurately and reliably represent truth because of the basic differences between flesh and spirit. Anything that is physical is limited in its ability to communicate. The translation will always be influenced by personal and cultural experiences and understandings. This fact opens up the very real possibility that God will be misunderstood and misrepresented. It also results in lack of agreement on what God means as mortal men use their natural languages, both written and spoken, to represent their personal views about God. This is why we have so many different versions of the Bible and so many different religions that claim to represent God. The broad disagreement on theology, liturgy and religious practices found on the religious landscape are evidence that literal interpretations will always be faulty in one way or another.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">God&#8217;s solution for overcoming all of the problems and limitations of the written word has always been to have his people <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=genesis+22:18;+exodus+23:21-22;+numbers+7:89;+numbers+14:22;+deuteronomy+4:12;+deuteronomy+4:30;+deuteronomy+4:36;+deuteronomy+5:22-26;+deuteronomy+8:20;+deuteronomy+9:23;+deuteronomy+13:4;+deuteronomy+13:18;+deuteronomy+15:5;+deuteronomy+26:14;+deuteronomy+26:17;+deuteronomy+30:20;+joshua+5:6;+joshua+10:14;+joshua+22:2;+joshua+24:24;+psalm+81:11;+psalm+95:7;+psalm+106:25;+jeremiah+3:13;+jeremiah+3:25;+jeremiah+7:23;+jeremiah+7:28;+jeremiah+9:13;+jeremiah+11:4;+jeremiah+11:7;+jeremiah+18:10;+jeremiah+22:20-21;+jeremiah+26:13;+jeremiah+32:23;+jeremiah+40:3;+jeremiah+42:6;+jeremiah+42:13-14;+jeremiah+43:1-7;+jeremiah+44:23;+isaiah+28:23;+isaiah+32:9;+isaiah+55:1-3\">listen to his voice<\/a>. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=galatians+3:23-24;+1-corinthians+4:15\">written words of the Bible are important introductions to God<\/a> but they cannot possibly reveal the depth of a very big, very complex God and his ways. That is why he uses stories (i.e. parables) which have meanings that open the mind and spirit to meanings that go way beyond literal words. People who are satisfied with literal interpretations grasp what they can understand by using their intellect and the intellect of others. But people who know that there are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=1-corinthians+2;+isaiah+64:1-4;+isaiah+65:17;+isaiah+43:18\">deeper, spiritual meanings and who listen for God&#8217;s voice to reveal those meanings will have their eyes opened to the fullness of God and no longer be satisfied with rigid, narrow, literal interpretations<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">In God&#8217;s language, literal interpretation is a key feature of Old\/First Covenant religion. His remedy is New Covenant discipleship in which people listen to his voice. A disciple is one who learns, and his primary source of knowledge is God&#8217;s voice &#8212; not the literal words of the Bible and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=ezekiel+14:1-11;+ezekiel+16:1-59;+ezekiel+25;+ezekiel+26:1-6;+ezekiel+28:24;+ezekiel+29:9;+ezekiel+29:21;+ezekiel+33:29;+ezekiel+30:26;+ezekiel+34:30;+ezekiel+39:28;+jeremiah+16:21\">not human teachers and writers.<\/a> That does not mean that a disciple never learns from another person, but is very discerning about who he\/she learns from. A disciple takes God&#8217;s word about not trusting other men for instruction about God.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The only reliable way to avoid the problems of literal interpretation is to hear from God directly. His spoken word contains pure truth unencumbered by all the untruths and misinterpretations that mortal men have woven into the literal words of God since they began to record what they heard God say. We find this principle in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+31:31-34;john+14:21-26;hebrews+5:1-14;1+john+2:27\">what God says about listening to teachers compared to listening to his Spirit. <\/a>Hearing God&#8217;s voice is the essence of the New Covenant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>RELIGIOUS RULES ABOUT BIBLE INTERPRETATION<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">There are several schools of thought about Bible interpretation. Review of these various principles is beyond the scope of this page. However, we think it is helpful to understand some of the basics so readers can identify them when religious leaders apply them to justify their teachings. We therefore refer readers to these links: <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Biblical_literalism\">Biblical literalism<\/a>; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hermeneutics\">Hermeneutics<\/a>; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Historical-grammatical_method\">Historical-grammatical method<\/a>; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Historical-critical_method\">Historical-critical method<\/a>; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pardes_(Jewish_exegesis)\">Pardes (Jewish exegesis).<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">AUTHORS&#8217; NOTE: Although these represent legalistic approaches to understanding God, we strongly recommend that readers make their own review of these and other techniques commonly applied to Bible study before continuing with this page.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Also see <a href=\"https:\/\/website-03399378.phw.pfz.mybluehost.me\/interpret-the-written-law\/two-sets-of-laws\/\">Two Sets of Laws <\/a>for discussion about religious legalism which is in direct opposition to the New Covenant relationship by which God and his laws are understood.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It is worth noting that only the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pardes_(Jewish_exegesis)\">Jewish exegesis<\/a> method makes real allowances for symbolic interpretations of scripture. The other methods typically applied by Christians are, in our opinion and in our experience, fundamentally intellectual exercises that leave little or no room for symbolic interpretations &#8212; except for a few obvious concepts (e.g. Jesus is the lamb of God); baptism symbolizes death and resurrection, etc).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">That symbols and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/dictionaries\/bakers-evangelical-dictionary\/allegory.html\">allegories<\/a> are generally discounted in favor of literal interpretations is best recognized in the fact that neither Christians nor Jews are seriously trained by religious leaders to develop the ability to interpret scripture in their personal Bible studies. The general attitude is that the religious professionals have a special anointing and training (i.e. calling) that equips them for the work of scripture interpretation. Thus, as the thinking goes, the spiritual heavy lifting should be left up to them so that the untrained laity will be spared the risk of making mistakes in interpretation. We find this attitude to be arrogant and self-serving on the part of the religious leaders. We also find it to be Biblically incorrect and costly to the spiritual well-being of both clergy and laity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>A SHORT HISTORY LESSON<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Anyone who <span id=\"2ti3-16\" class=\"versetext\">says that they trust that the Bible is God&#8217;s holy word, trusts that what he says there is true, and believes that it is in their best interests to obey what God says, must\u00a0<\/span> deal with the issue of whether or not the Bible should be interpreted literally, or symbolically, or both. This is a real challenge for everyone who claims to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/2-timothy\/3-16.html\">2 Timothy 3:16 <\/a>tells us that<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/2-timothy\/3-16.html\"> all scripture is <\/a><span id=\"2ti3-16\" class=\"versetext\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/2-timothy\/3-16.html\">inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.<\/a> Readers who believe that this is a true statement and truly desire training in righteousness, must come to an understanding about how they deal with all the scriptures that are difficult to understand.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">No one would argue that many parts of scripture are very difficult to understand. Even the staunch literalists would have to agree that it contains concepts that make no worldly sense. Here are a few examples of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of difficult scriptures that God expects people to understand.<\/span><\/p>\n<table border=\"0\">\n<colgroup>\n<col width=\"30\" \/>\n<col width=\"400\" \/>\n<col width=\"0\" \/><\/colgroup>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/search\/?q=cloud%20fire&amp;s=Bibles&amp;p=1\"> God lives in pillars of cloud and fire<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/search\/?q=stone+him&amp;c=le&amp;t=kjv&amp;ps=10&amp;s=Bibles\">People who sin are to be stoned<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">All <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=genesis+17:10-14;exodus+12:48;joshua+5:1-4\">males are to be circumcised<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Build a tabernacle out of animal skins, wood, and silver.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Regular animal sacrifices and ceremonial washings.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Differentiating between <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/breadfood-and-wine\/2#cleanuncleanfood\">clean and unclean<\/a> foods.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Make annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Jesus said that people who <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/john\/passage\/?q=john+6:53-54\">eat his flesh and drink his blood will have eternal life<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Jesus said that people with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/search\/?q=move+mountain\">faith could move mountains.<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">This is just a short list of scriptures for which the literal interpretation creates mind-bending confusion that leads to spiritual paralysis and exaggerated, uninformed, fleshly attempts to make physical sense of deep mysteries. Our thinking goes something like this:\u00a0 God can&#8217;t seriously intend that people take these scriptures literally can he? And if he does not intend for people to take these and other scriptures literally, why did he command them to do these weird things?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">These questions leave readers with the challenge of interpreting difficult and mysterious scriptures accurately so that whatever truth they contain can be applied to their lives in ways that will yield <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/lexicons\/greek\/kjv\/dikaiosune.html\">righteousness<\/a> (i.e. attitudes and behaviors approved by God).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Most people tackle this problem by using intellect and knowledge of natural facts to interpret the literal meanings of scripture. Such people are called <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Biblical_literalism\">Bible Literalists<\/a>. According to Wikipedia, Biblical literalism includes two basic approaches to Biblical interpretation: <span dir=\"auto\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Historical-grammatical_method\">Historical-grammatical method<\/a> and the <\/span><span dir=\"auto\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Historical-critical_method\">Historical-critical method<\/a>. Both methods employ their own preferred tools and techniques for Bible interpretation.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Regardless of the method followed, the disciplines of interpretation are very sophisticated (i.e. there are many rules to follow). That is why the methods have become the domain of trained clergy and theologians. <span dir=\"auto\"> Most people, however, are not familiar with these methods. Therefore, lacking any training in Bible interpretation methods, they read the Bible as they read the newspaper or a book: Literally; according to their common, cultural understanding of words. But, because of the many\u00a0 scriptures that are hard to understand, most people are willing to defer to the trained, professional clergy for instruction about God&#8217;s intended meaning for all scripture. That creates a business opportunity for professional clergy to<\/span> apply their training in religious institutions where people will trust in them for Bible interpretation because they are experts who know the answers to the Bible&#8217;s many mysteries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">This relationship has led to institutional religious systems that separate the elite, knowledgeable clergy from the relatively ignorant laity which lacks the skills and experience to conduct its own rigorous Bible studies. Because the clergy have the training and credentials for Bible interpretation, they have job security in institutional religious systems. That is why both the clergy and the institutions that employ them effectively discourage the laity from doing their own Bible interpretation except at the most superficial level.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Of course most clergy will encourage people to read their Bibles and memorize scripture because these are accepted religious disciplines in most religions, but rarely does the clergy teach people how to employ the tools they know to come to their own interpretations independently. And why should the clergy pass on the tools of their trade? If the people knew how to interpret the Bible themselves, they would not need the pastor or rabbi or prophet to teach them. And if these religious leaders are not needed anymore, they would be out of a job.So the system works for the professional clergy which has job security in the fact that people who do not know how to do their own study will keep coming back every week for an enlightened sermon from the expert.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">This system has its origins in the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Yeshiva\">Jewish Yeshiva<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Christian_monasticism\">Christian monasticism<\/a>, and it thrives today in an extensive system of Yeshivas, Bible schools and seminaries that are supported by their denominational networks who place their graduates in local synagogues and churches where Biblical truth acquired from the education system is dispensed to rank and file believers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">This system has been in place for so long that no one doubts that God has ordained it as the way for believers to gain Biblical knowledge. The way we see it, however, this system was allowed by God to develop but is not his ideal or preferred method for teaching people about him. Rather, this system is a remnant of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=hebrews+7:11-22;+hebrews+8\">Old\/First Covenant religious system that has been replaced by a better New Covenant <\/a>relationship with God. It emerged in a period when few people had access to scripture but persists today when most civilized nations around the world do have access.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The way we see it, the religious education system that preaches Biblical literalism continues to exist because, as we said, it is considered to be a system approved by God. And it is approved by God in the sense that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/lexicons\/greek\/kjv\/nomos.html\">law (i.e. a system of religious rules)<\/a> is a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/kjv\/galatians\/3-24.html\">schoolmaster allowed by God to lead people to Christ<\/a> (i.e. the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+31:31-34;1+john+2:26-27\">New Covenant where God writes the law on the hearts of people so that they will no longer need anyone to teach them<\/a>). Religious education by experts, therefore, is not the ideal way for people to learn about God. These experts are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/hebrews\/passage\/?q=hebrews+7:17-27\">remnants of the Old\/First Covenant priesthood<\/a> which is eventually <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=hebrews+7:11-22;+hebrews+8\">replaced by the better New Covenant<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">AUTHORS&#8217; NOTE: Christians interpret the coming of the New Covenant as an event which occurred globally upon Jesus&#8217; death and resurrection. Thus they believe that the New Covenant is manifest in all people who confess that they are followers of Jesus. This is wrong theology.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">New Covenant status occurs one believer at a time &#8212; not globally. It is the new status of believers who have graduated out of Old\/First Covenant status where they were taught by others (i.e. religious experts). After they quit all that, they are transformed into <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=john+14:21-26;john+16:13;1+john+2:20;1+john+2:27\">New Covenant disciples who are taught directly by God &#8212; without a trained teacher &#8212; through his Spirit<\/a> so that they will reflect his character in their everyday lives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Until individuals abandon their dependence on religious experts for teaching about God, they remain in Old\/First Covenant status. That means they are under the influence of the written law and not under the influence of the spirit.\u00a0 In God&#8217;s view, those religious leaders are the equivalent of &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/search\/?q=other+gods&amp;c=ot&amp;t=rsv&amp;ps=10&amp;s=Bibles\">other gods<\/a>&#8221; to whom people go for religious instruction. The relationship with these &#8220;other gods&#8221; is cemented in the fact that people who learn from them also<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/search\/?q=other+gods+serve+them&amp;c=ot&amp;t=rsv&amp;ps=10&amp;s=Bibles\"> serve them <\/a>(i.e. with their praise, admiration and money) because of what they know and teach about God.\u00a0 In God&#8217;s view this all constitutes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/search\/?q=worship+other+gods+&amp;c=ot&amp;t=rsv&amp;ps=10&amp;s=Bibles\">&#8220;worship&#8221; of &#8220;other gods.&#8221; <\/a>If this were not the case, God would not make <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/jeremiah\/31-34.html\">man teaching his neighbor about God <\/a>an issue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Unfortunately, people stuck in Old\/First Covenant religion do not know they are stuck. They see no alternative to the religious institutional system, and they have not been trained in any serious way to search out the deep, mysterious things of God for themselves. Unable to gain satisfactory answers about difficult Bible scripture, some people give up, and those who do not give up continue\u00a0 trusting what their pastor, rabbi, teacher or theologian says.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Going back to the early years after Christ, religious entrepreneurs saw opportunities to make names for themselves, gain political power and earn a living by creating religious institutions to mediate between God and man. The ability to teach convincingly about God from the Bible was, and continues to be, a key feature of these religious systems created by men for the benefit of men.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">A casual reading of history would indicate that it all began in the early church with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bishop\">Bishops (i.e. Apostolic Fathers)<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_the_Catholic_Church\">Constantine and the Catholic Church.<\/a> A closer look reveals that Jewish pharisees and other religious leaders of the day had developed their own profitable system of teaching and providing religious services to the masses. It was also a common Greek practice for learned men to make a living speaking in public places on a wide variety of topics. These\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Narrative_preaching\">philosophers were the historical model for the preaching clergy<\/a> that have occupied churches since the reformation.\u00a0 The ability to preach and teach on religious topics has flourished into the array of thousands of religious organizations that exist around the world today. The result of this history is man-made religion in its many denominational forms.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">When we use the word &#8220;religion&#8221; to describe the religious institutional structures that have morphed into today&#8217;s church and synagogue system, we do not mean that these are good things approved by God. Rather, they are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice\/the-law\/two-covenantspart1\/5#puredefiledreligion\">false things that should be replaced by the New Covenant\u00a0 in the heart of every believer.<br \/>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"historyofreligion\"><\/a><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Here is our non-scientific view of how religion as we see it today has been able to flourish:<\/span><\/p>\n<table border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">People who could read and had access to the Bible found much of it confusing and impossible to understand.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Religious leaders tried to remove the mystery from the Bible by interpreting it literally. They used these literal interpretations to create a few simple doctrines that explained God and his relationship to people. In doing this, they effectively reduced and simplified God to a god that can be understood and managed through codified religious traditions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Religious entrepreneurs created religions that packaged the dumbed down God and the Bible into doctrines and sacred traditions that were acceptable to people who would pay for the teaching and administration of the traditions.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The main point in this brief summary is to introduce the history of how and why religion emerged:<\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/exodus\/passage\/?q=exodus+20:1-20\">People chose to listen to prophets (e.g. Moses and others) instead of listening to God&#8217;s voice themselves.<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Symbolically, when Israel made this choice, it prophetically set the attitude and habit of all religious people throughout the entire history of Judaism and Christianity who demonstrate their preference for learning about God through the writings and teachings of human mediators (e.g. Moses and others) who speak with voices of authority as False Prophets even though they could only report about the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/hebrews\/passage\/?q=hebrews+8:1-6\">copy and shadow of God<\/a> that they could glean from the literal Bible.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Generations of so-called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/jeremiah\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+8:1-8\">prophets (i.e. scribes) have misrepresented God through writings and teachings <\/a>that people accepted as legitimate substitutes for God because they are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/ezekiel\/passage\/?q=ezekiel+14:1-11\">deceived into believing that listening to human mediators is the same thing as listening to the voice of God<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">By ascribing to human mediators (e.g. rabbis, pastors, priests, evangelists, teachers, writers, etc.) the ability and authority to speak for God, generations of Jews and Christians have practiced idolatry.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Man-made religion (i.e. the law) exists, therefore, by God&#8217;s will, to introduce people to God and keep them safe (i.e.<span id=\"ga3-23\" class=\"versetext\">under restraint) <\/span> until he writes his spiritual laws on their hearts. At that time God will teach his people directly by his spirit without the aid of religious entrepreneurs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">We know that such a summary will offend most, if not all, Jews and Christians.\u00a0 For us, however, this is the only way to explain how all strains of Judaism and Christianity have strayed so far from Biblical truth. They have reduced God to literal words on paper without allowing that he is much bigger and more complex than human words can describe. And it all happened because no one, religious leaders or followers, was able to understand the spiritual meaning behind the difficult scriptures because they did not and could not listen to God&#8217;s voice. Because they could not understand those deeper meanings, they adopted a policy that accepted the literal meanings (more or less) as God&#8217;s intended meanings. The result is shallow religion perpetrated by shallow religious leaders who know the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=romans+7:1-6;2+corinthians+3:1-6;john+6:63\">letter of the law but not the spirit of it<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Lacking insight about the spirit of the law, these religious experts do their best to make sense out of the written letter of the law. They are trained to do this and they know how to represent (i.e. preach) what they think they know convincingly. And it all sounds good to the religionists who admire (i.e. worship) their teaching.\u00a0 That is why clergy will always find a place to dispense their shallow, Old\/First Covenant wisdom to people who don&#8217;t know that they could teach themselves if they would stop serving their &#8220;other gods&#8221; and study the Bible themselves. Unfortunately for them and God, they do not realize that this alternative exists, so they continue using the written letter of the Bible taught by professional clergy as the accepted way to gain knowledge about God. They do this, however, by putting their spiritual lives at risk. They do not know that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=romans+7:1-6;2+corinthians+3:1-6;john+6:63\">letter of the law produces spiritual death, not spiritual life<\/a>. They do no know that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/jeremiah\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+31:33-34\">New Covenant provides that they do not need anyone to teach them about God because God will write knowledge of himself on their hearts.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">So we might wonder what is it about the Bible that is incomplete or deficient?Everyone says it is God&#8217;s holy word, so why is a literal interpretation inadequate?\u00a0 The main reason, we think, has to do with God&#8217;s infinite character and power.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=2+chronicles+2:6;2+chronicles+6:18;1+kings+8:27\"> God himself warned about trying to contain him in a physical temple,<\/a> so why would he allow himself to be contained in a physical book &#8212; even a book that he authored? If he did allow himself to be fully understood by the written word, it would be like someone making a judgment about us by reading our grocery list or a birthday card in which we have written a personal note. Even if we wrote an entire book to describe ourselves, we could not do it adequately. There would be some nuance about our character that would be overlooked. The Bible has the same limitations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Missing a character point or two might not be important to us, but it is very important to God that people understand him as fully as possible. Their lives depend on knowing God accurately and intimately. Thus he needs to provide a way for people to know everything about him. This is important to God so that his character will be accurately represented to the world. And scripture tells us that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/john\/21-25.html\">Jesus did so many things that the world would not have room for all the books to tell about them<\/a>. Why then would God concede that one single book would be adequate to convey to people everything that can be known about him?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Taking this point of view, it is hard to argue that one volume of content could contain everything that can be known about God. We also need to consider how man&#8217;s influence over the content of the Bible influences how people see God. We agree that it was divinely inspired, but we also know that since the original inspiration, translators and publishers have exercised considerable control over Biblical content by applying their religious biases. We only need to look at the hundreds of different editions of the Bible that have been published in the past five hundred years to see man&#8217;s influence on the Bible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">We would be so naive to believe that each version has fully retained the spiritual content of the original writings. Throughout the history of religion, religious people with religious agendas have advanced their agendas through Bibles that reflect their religious biases &#8212; of which there are many. God is well aware of man&#8217;s motivations and he has provided a sure-fire solution for getting the pure, unadulterated message to people: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=genesis+22:18;+exodus+23:21-22;+numbers+7:89;+numbers+14:22;+deuteronomy+4:12;+deuteronomy+4:30;+deuteronomy+4:36;+deuteronomy+5:22-26;+deuteronomy+8:20;+deuteronomy+9:23;+deuteronomy+13:4;+deuteronomy+13:18;+deuteronomy+15:5;+deuteronomy+26:14;+deuteronomy+26:17;+deuteronomy+30:20;+joshua+5:6;+joshua+10:14;+joshua+22:2;+joshua+24:24;+psalm+81:11;+psalm+95:7;+psalm+106:25;+jeremiah+3:13;+jeremiah+3:25;+jeremiah+7:23;+jeremiah+7:28;+jeremiah+9:13;+jeremiah+11:4;+jeremiah+11:7;+jeremiah+18:10;+jeremiah+22:20-21;+jeremiah+26:13;+jeremiah+32:23;+jeremiah+40:3;+jeremiah+42:6;+jeremiah+42:13-14;+jeremiah+43:1-7;+jeremiah+44:23;+isaiah+28:23;+isaiah+32:9;+isaiah+55:1-3\">Listening to his voice.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">In fact, the Spirit has always been the primary means of communication with man. All we need to do is look at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/hebrews\/11.html\">Spiritual heroes of faith mentioned in Hebrews 11<\/a> to find examples of men and women who demonstrated their faith but did not have Bible resources like we have today from which they could learn about God. In particular, people like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and others who are mentioned in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/hebrews\/11.html\">Hebrews 11<\/a> spiritual hall of fame, did not have a religious leader like a pastor or rabbi to teach them. And most of them did not have any of God&#8217;s words written down either. They learned everything they needed to know by listening to God&#8217;s voice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The point here is that the Bible is important, but it is not the most important criteria for learning about God and serving him. The faith to believe that they could hear and understand God&#8217;s voice was what qualified the Hebrews 11 heroes as models of faith to emulate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The Bible, therefore, is a written introduction to God but is is not the final word. It was never meant to be a complete report about God. It is at best, an introduction and a supplement &#8212; not a substitute &#8212; for faith. That is why God says that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/galatians\/3-23.html\">written law was given so that we might be <\/a><span id=\"ga3-23\" class=\"versetext\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/galatians\/3-23.html\">confined and kept under restraint by it until faith should be revealed in us as individuals <\/a>at God&#8217;s appointed times. In fact, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/galatians\/3-22.html\">Galatians 3:22<\/a> surprisingly says that we are all kept <\/span><span id=\"ga3-23\" class=\"versetext\"><span id=\"ga3-22\" class=\"versetext\"><a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"4788\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=4788\">shut up<\/a> (i.e. prisoners) <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"5259\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=5259\">under<\/a> <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"266\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=266\">sin,<\/a> <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"2443\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=2443\">so that<\/a> the <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"1860\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=1860\">promise<\/a> of faith (i.e. New Covenant) might be <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"1325\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=1325\">given<\/a> to those who <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"4100\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=4100\">believe.\u00a0<\/a> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">God considered Abraham and the others to have faith even though their kind of faith looks nothing like what passes for faith in these modern times. They had faith in what they heard God say to them.\u00a0 They had no written words to study and no religious leaders to consult. All they had was<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/hebrews\/passage\/?q=hebrews+11:1-2\"> faith in what they hoped for and certainty in what they could not see.<\/a> Even if they had Bibles, they would still put their faith in what God said rather than in what they could read in the Bible. Whatever they read would need to be confirmed by God&#8217;s voice speaking to their hearts in his still\u00a0 small voice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Because there is too much opportunity for misunderstanding in the writing and interpretation of words, God&#8217;s ideal method of teaching his people directly, by his Spirit &#8212; not through intermediary teachers. We see this ideal clearly in the New Covenant. This ideal provides that complete, unbiased, intimate knowledge about God comes through his Spirit which is not limited by man&#8217;s words, interpretations of words, or man&#8217;s various religious motives behind translating and publishing those words.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The main feature of the New Covenant is faith. When it comes to faith, it is just us and God. There is no mediator except the Messiah who knows the father perfectly and is therefore able to always correctly interpret what the father says.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">And yet, the written Bible with all its flaws is a reliable and necessary doorway for learning about God. We need to learn how to use it responsibly so that we are not mislead about his character or his ways with men. Failure to use it responsibly is a matter of life and death.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>GOD&#8217;S STRATEGY FOR TRANSFORMATION***<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">To be fair to both Jews and Christians, we must point out that, in a sense, God set them up for failure. We know, for example, that the <a href=\"https:\/\/website-03399378.phw.pfz.mybluehost.me\/hear\/the-law\/law-is-a-stumbling-block\/\">Law is a Stumbling Block<\/a> because God made it so. In part it was, and still is, a stumbling block because of the natural limitations of the written word to describe a spiritual God as we discussed above. As we said, the words are our introduction to God, but his spirit must be involved to bring full knowledge of God to people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Another aspect of the Bible as a stumbling block is found in God&#8217;s admission that the Bible is full of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\">mystery, parables and other confusing speech<\/a>. But, in God&#8217;s defense, we must allow that God knows what he is doing so we can&#8217;t blame him for being so confusing and hard to understand. He made it difficult for people to understand him, but not impossible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Our take on all this is that God knows how complex he is and he knows how simple we are by comparison. Therefore, he has his own problem to solve which is to transform simple, fleshly people into his complex, spiritual image.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">This transformation process is not a simple task. It would be like trying to stuff a giant balloon the size of the earth into a thimble. It can&#8217;t be done using logic or any worldly, intellectual, physical means. The tools that people know and use so well will not work nor are they<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/search\/?q=not+power+might+spirit\"> the tools that God would use<\/a> since <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/john\/8-23.html\">he is not of this world<\/a> and he is not limited by time or space in what he can do. Not using worldly tools that man would use is one of the applications God had in mind when he said<span id=\"zec4-6\" class=\"versetext highlightThenFade\">: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/zechariah\/4-6.html\">&#8220;Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit.&#8221;\u00a0 <\/a>In other words, knowing God and becoming like him cannot be accomplished by applying man&#8217;s fleshly, intellectual efforts. It is a spiritual phenomenon that God accomplishes by his Spirit. Here is why learning about God must be a spiritual process:<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">God is spirit.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">As spirit, he cannot be seen, heard, or understand by using human, physical abilities (e.g. eyes, ears, mind, emotions).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">So it can be said that finite people have a problem learning about and becoming like an infinite God because he has a problem communicating truth to them in ways they can understand and apply. He could do it directly by his Spirit, and probably still does it by his Spirit just as he did before the written Bible\u00a0 became available to most people. So, in these modern times, the Bible would appear to be God&#8217;s most visible tool for teaching people about himself so that he can transform them from earth-bound, fleshly humans to spiritual beings like him. That transformation is ultimately spiritual, but it begins in the mind and that is where the Bible is important to the process. His strategy, as we see it, goes something like this:<\/span><\/p>\n<table border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">First he revealed a little bit of himself through the written Law of Moses, the prophets and New Testament writers.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">He knew that the written law was limited in its ability to represent himself to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/cognitive\">cognitive<\/a>, intellectual minds of humans. He knew that because he is spirit, it is impossible for humans to grasp spiritual things by employing human, cognitive, intellectual abilities<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Then, to make the process complete, he also provided a way for his Holy Spirit to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=numbers+5:3;+revelation+21:1-6;+exodus+25:8;+exodus+29:45-46\">make a home for himself in the hearts of his people<\/a>, rule his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=isaiah+66:1;+1-kings+8:27;+psalm+11:4;+matthew+5:34-35\">kingdom in the hearts of his people<\/a> through his Spirit, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=psalm+37:31;+psalm+40:8;+exodus+13:9;+deuteronomy+30;+deuteronomy+32:45-46;+ezekiel+3:10;+isaiah+51:7;+jeremiah+31:33;+deuteronomy+30:14;+psalm+119:11;+proverbs+4:1-4;+proverbs+23:12;+deuteronomy+6:1-8;+deuteronomy+11:13-18;+deuteronomy+13:1-3;+mark+12:29-30;+luke+10:26-27;+job+22:21-26;+psalm+119:34;+psalm+119:161;+jeremiah+15:16;+jeremiah+11:8;+luke+8:12;+luke+8:15;+romans+10:8;+hebrews+4:12;+matthew+22:35-40;+joshua+22:5;+ezra+7:10\">reveal more of himself by speaking directly to the hearts of people<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">We readily admit that this is a terribly simplified explanation of an exceedingly long and complex process. We are compelled to present this history in such a way, however, to make the following points:<\/span><\/p>\n<table border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It would be utterly impossible for God to reveal everything about himself to people through written words.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">God is so very big and mysterious that it would be impossible to contain everything that can known about him in volumes of books &#8212; much less one book.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The only effective way for God to communicate his mind and character to people is to overcome the limitations of the written word by planting his Spirit in people so that they would know him spiritually.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It would be the height of arrogance and pride for anyone to claim that he or she can know God intimately only by reading the words of the Bible.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">God&#8217;s solution to his problem is the New Covenant where the law is written on the hearts of men:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/jeremiah\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+31:31-34\">Jeremiah 31:31-34<\/a>: <span id=\"jer31-31\" class=\"versetext\">&#8220;Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, <\/span> <span id=\"jer31-32\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">32<\/span> not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. <\/span> <span id=\"jer31-33\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">33<\/span> But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. <\/span> <span id=\"jer31-34\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">34<\/span> And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, &#8216;Know the LORD,&#8217; for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.&#8221; <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">There is no way the significance of this scripture can be overstated. It is the nutshell summary of the Bible. It tells us what God is doing and how he does it. It mentions the law which relates to the mind and intelligence, and it mentions the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=1+samuel+16:7;psalm+44:21;psalm+139:23;revelation+2:23;1+kings+8:39;1+chronicles+28:9\">heart which is what God uses to measure people<\/a> and is the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=mark+12:28-34;luke+10:25-29;deuteronomy+6:1-10;deuteronomy+4:29;deuteronomy+10:12;joshua+22:5\">standard of a New Covenant relationship with God. <\/a>This standard is confirmed in scriptures about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=acts+13:22;1+samuel+13:14;jeremiah+3:15;1+kings+9:4;1+kings+11:4;1+kings+14:8;1+kings+15:3;2+chronicles+6:7-8\">King David and other shepherds who are men after God&#8217;s own heart.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Another very important truth in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/jeremiah\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+31:31-34\">Jeremiah 31:31-34<\/a> is the principle of God teaching us directly by his Spirit. This principle is confirmed in the following scripture:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><span id=\"1jo2-26\" class=\"versetext\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/1-john\/passage\/?q=1-john+2:26-27\">1 John 2:26-27<\/a>:\u00a0 I write this to you about those who would deceive you; <\/span> <span id=\"1jo2-27\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">27<\/span> but the anointing which you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that any one should teach you; as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">These promises tell us that New Covenant disciples will no longer need anyone to teach them about God. They will be able to learn about God directly from God through the anointing of his<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=psalm+143:10;luke+12:11-12;john+14:21-26;john+16:5-15;1+john+2:15-25;1+john+2:15-27;1+corinthians+2:12\"> Spirit which teaches spiritually, unencumbered by words mistranslated by people who publish Bibles and misinterpreted by people who try to teach about God<\/a> from their intellectual interpretations of the Bible. This spiritual teaching they receive from God directly, without a human mediator, might also be called a heart-to-heart connection where the stuff of the world and flesh do not interfere with communication between God and man.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">AUTHORS&#8217; NOTE: The way we see it, the main obstacles to communication between God and man are religious leaders and religious institutions that have an appearance of godliness and authority that they use for their own benefit. We have discussed these issues in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/religion\">RELIGION<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">There are some religionists who have the attitude that having access to heart-to-heart, or spirit to spirit communication with God somehow overrides the need to read the Bible. These people focus on spiritual manifestations discussed in Baptism of Holy Spirit and Tongues, Signs and Wonders and Music, Singing and Dancing. For them, the &#8220;touch of the spirit&#8221; is\u00a0 what religion is all about. As long as their can get their spiritual &#8220;fix&#8221; they see little or no reason to read the Bible &#8212; except as a religious duty.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Not knowing what God might be doing to communicate directly with people by his Spirit, we assume that the Bible is still the first and best source of knowledge about God for most people. But that knowledge does not come through the\u00a0 written words on the pages, it comes through the teaching of the Holy Spirit that illuminates the written word with spiritual understanding to our hearts.\u00a0 When that illumination comes to by the power of God&#8217;s Spirit, we are no longer limited by the understanding that the written words impose on us. God discussed these limitations in the following scriptures:<\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a id=\"\" title=\"Go to Romans 7:6 (Standard View)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/kjv\/romans\/7-6.html\">Romans 7:6 <\/a><span id=\"ro7-6\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"strongs\">But<\/span> <span class=\"strongs\">now<\/span> we are <span class=\"strongs\">delivered<\/span> <span class=\"strongs\">from<\/span> the <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"3551\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=3551\">law,<\/a> that being <span class=\"strongs\">dead<\/span> <span class=\"strongs\">wherein<\/span> <span class=\"strongs\">we<\/span> were <span class=\"strongs\">held<\/span> ; <span class=\"strongs\">that<\/span> <span class=\"strongs\">we<\/span> should <span class=\"strongs\">serve<\/span> <span class=\"strongs\">in<\/span> <span class=\"strongs\">newness<\/span> of <span class=\"strongs\">spirit,<\/span> <span class=\"strongs\">and<\/span> <span class=\"strongs\">not<\/span> in the <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"3821\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=3821\">oldness<\/a> of the <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"1121\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=1121\">letter.<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a id=\"\" title=\"Go to 2 Corinthians 3:6 (Standard View)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/kjv\/2-corinthians\/3-6.html\">2 Corinthians 3:6 <\/a><span id=\"2co3-6\" class=\"versetext highlightThenFade\"><span class=\"strongs\">Who<\/span> <span class=\"strongs\">also<\/span> hath <span class=\"strongs\">made<\/span> <span class=\"strongs\">us<\/span> <span class=\"strongs\">able<\/span> <span class=\"strongs\">ministers<\/span> of the <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"2537\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=2537\">new<\/a> <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"1242\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=1242\">testament;<\/a> <span class=\"strongs\">not<\/span> of the <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"1121\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=1121\">letter,<\/a> <span class=\"strongs\">but<\/span> of the <span class=\"strongs\">spirit:<\/span> <span class=\"strongs\">for<\/span> the <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"1121\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=1121\">letter<\/a> <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"615\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=615\">killeth,<\/a> <span class=\"strongs\">but<\/span> the <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"4151\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=4151\">spirit<\/a> giveth <a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"2227\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=2227\">life<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">These confusing scriptures cry out for interpretation:<\/span><\/p>\n<table border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/lexicons\/greek\/kjv\/nomos.html\">law<\/a>,&#8221; and the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/lexicons\/greek\/kjv\/gramma.html\">letter<\/a>&#8221; do not refer only to the written Law of Moses.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">They refer to anything written &#8212; including the Bible &#8212; and used as a guide for life &#8212; especially religious life.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">This definition includes any writing created by any person or religious organization &#8212; including theologians with degrees, pastors with titles, and religious institutions that have existed for hundreds of years.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">These are all old, outdated writings that &#8220;<span id=\"2co3-6\" class=\"versetext highlightThenFade\"><a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"615\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=615\">killeth<\/a>&#8221; when compared to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/lexicons\/greek\/kjv\/zoopoieo.html\">life-giving power<\/a> of the <\/span><span class=\"versetext highlightThenFade\"><a class=\"strongs broken_link\" title=\"4151\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/interlinear-bible\/strongs.ashx?ll=g&amp;t=kjv&amp;sn=4151\">spirit<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Scriptures do not imply that there is no value in the written letter of the Bible. They do say, however, that when the written, literal letter of the Bible is compared to the spiritual understanding of what is written in the Bible, the written letter is nothing.\u00a0 The following scripture communicates this truth best.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><span id=\"2co3-1\" class=\"versetext\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/2-corinthians\/passage\/?q=2-corinthians+3:1-11\">2-Corinthians 3:1-11<\/a> Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? <\/span> <span id=\"2co3-2\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">2<\/span> You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on your hearts, to be known and read by all men; <\/span> <span id=\"2co3-3\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">3<\/span> and you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. <\/span> <span id=\"2co3-4\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">4<\/span> Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. <\/span> <span id=\"2co3-5\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">5<\/span> Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, <\/span> <span id=\"2co3-6\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">6<\/span> who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code but in the Spirit; for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life. <\/span> <span id=\"2co3-7\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">7<\/span> Now if the dispensation of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such splendor that the Israelites could not look at Moses&#8217; face because of its brightness, fading as this was, <\/span> <span id=\"2co3-8\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">8<\/span> will not the dispensation of the Spirit be attended with greater splendor? <\/span> <span id=\"2co3-9\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">9<\/span> For if there was splendor in the dispensation of condemnation, the dispensation of righteousness must far exceed it in splendor. <\/span> <span id=\"2co3-10\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">10<\/span> Indeed, in this case, what once had splendor has come to have no splendor at all, because of the splendor that surpasses it. <\/span> <span id=\"2co3-11\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">11<\/span> For if what faded away came with splendor, what is permanent must have much more splendor.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">COMMENTARY: This scripture says clearly that we have no inherent competency in our flesh which is equated here to tablets of stone. Thus it can be said that whatever we try to store up in our fleshly, intellectual minds is of no more value than words written on stone. Even God&#8217;s words are not life-giving if they are written on stone.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">In other words, scripture read and memorized as a mental activity is of no spiritual value. The written code kills regardless of where it is written, whether on paper or in the mind. The ability to quote scripture does have value to men, of course, because fleshly people place high value on whatever can be done with the mind and body. In God&#8217;s view, however, these are fleshly works without lasting spiritual value.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">What has lasting spiritual value for God is whatever is spoken by God and written on the hearts of men by God. This is consistent with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/jeremiah\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+31:31-34\">Jeremiah&#8217;s prophecy about the law being written on man&#8217;s hearts by God himself without the aide of a human teacher <\/a>&#8212; even when man tries to teach himself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/1-corinthians\/2.html\">1-Corinthians 2: <\/a><span id=\"1co2-1\" class=\"versetext\">When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. <\/span> <span id=\"1co2-2\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">2<\/span> For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. <\/span> <span id=\"1co2-3\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">3<\/span> And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; <\/span> <span id=\"1co2-4\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">4<\/span> and my speech and my message were not in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/lexicons\/greek\/kjv\/huperoche.html\">plausible words<\/a> of<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/lexicons\/greek\/kjv\/sophia.html\"> wisdom<\/a>, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, <\/span> <span id=\"1co2-5\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">5<\/span> that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. <\/span> <span id=\"1co2-6\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">6<\/span> Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. <\/span> <span id=\"1co2-7\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">7<\/span> But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. <\/span> <span id=\"1co2-8\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">8<\/span> None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. <\/span> <span id=\"1co2-9\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">9<\/span> But, as it is written, &#8220;What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,&#8221; <\/span> <span id=\"1co2-10\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">10<\/span> God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. <\/span> <span id=\"1co2-11\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">11<\/span> For what person knows a man&#8217;s thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. <\/span> <span id=\"1co2-12\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">12<\/span> Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. <\/span> <span id=\"1co2-13\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">13<\/span> And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit. <\/span> <span id=\"1co2-14\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">14<\/span> The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. <\/span> <span id=\"1co2-15\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">15<\/span> The spiritual man judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. <\/span> <span id=\"1co2-16\" class=\"versetext\"><span class=\"versenum\">16<\/span> &#8220;For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?&#8221; But we have the mind of Christ. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">COMMENTARY: The Apostle Paul confirms that learning about God does not happen as a result of intellectual wisdom and fine-sounding speech. He understood full well that whatever he had to convey came directly from God through his Spirit and not the kind of wisdom that other religious teachers were using to gain followers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Paul does not cringe from revealing that God&#8217;s wisdom is secret and has always been hidden from religious rulers. When he says Paul is not referring only to future, public,\u00a0 miraculous events on earth and in heaven such as man is likely to imagine that God would do. He says that these are present things (i.e. gifts) that God has revealed (i.e. given) through the Spirit. These are the deep thoughts of God that are particular and appropriate for each person &#8212; not general and universal words that pass for human wisdom and are\u00a0 taught to the masses through religious leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">These spiritual truths are all spiritually received\u00a0 and discerned by those who possess the Spirit. Those who do not possess the Spirit are unspiritual. Since the Spirit is associated with the New Covenant, discernment is available only to New Covenant disciples. Old\/First Covenant religionists are unspiritual\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=deuteronomy+29:1-4;isaiah+32:1-4;isaiah+48:8;jeremiah+5:21;ezekiel+12:2;matthew+13:15;acts+28:26-27;romans+11:1-8;ephesians+4:18\">rebels who only discern with their natural eyes and ears.<\/a> They do not have spiritual eyes to see and ears to hear the deep things of God because they only read and interpret the Bible literally &#8212; not symbolically.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Those who have the mind of Christ understand that they cannot even teach themselves through rigorous Bible study, devotions and memorization because they understand that knowing God is not an intellectual exercise and that religious leaders cannot competently teach through human words what God&#8217;s teaches through the Spirit. They say they have faith, but the faith they have does not extend so far as to trust that God would teach them directly, by his Spirit. Instead their faith is in their own ability to teach themselves or in the ability of a religious leader who represents himself\/herself as one competent to teach. This is not New Covenant faith. It is Old\/First Covenant religion. And it is <a href=\" http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/religion\/religion-is-sin\/religion-is-idolatry\">idolatry<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Those who do not have the mind of Christ continue to work at teaching themselves and learning from religious leaders. They are in the great population of religionists who are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/kjv\/2-timothy\/passage\/?q=2-timothy+3:1-7\">ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. <\/a>They <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/lexicons\/greek\/kjv\/ginosko.html\">know about God<\/a> but do not <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/lexicons\/greek\/kjv\/epiginosko.html\">know him intimately.<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>JESUS HAD MUCH TO SAY ABOUT SYMBOLIC INTERPRETATION<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Jesus had important words of instruction about taking what He said literally or symbolically when the disciples asked him about speaking in parables (i.e. symbolically). Basically, what Jesus said was that only true <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/lexicons\/greek\/kjv\/mathetes.html\">disciples (learners)<\/a> will understand parables. Here is what he said in<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=matthew+13:11;luke+8:10\"> Matthew 3: 11 and Luke 8:10:<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables.&#8221;<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">These words were addressed to Jesus&#8217; disciples who would, after Pentecost, become new New Covenant disciples. When the Holy Spirit came, the law would be written on their hearts and they would no longer be subject to the rules and regulations of the Old\/First Covenant. They would be spiritually transformed from the Old\/First Covenant wineskin to the New Covenant wineskin. And only then would they be able to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice#howtoheargodsvoice\">hear God&#8217;s spoken voice<\/a> that would explain the secrets of the kingdom of God to them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">In the meantime, they were in an awkward period of transition from Old\/First Covenant to New Covenant. They recognized that Jesus was the Messiah. They followed him for three years to watch and learn how to understand parables. They had moments of insight, but they did not yet have full understanding. And when they did not understand the literal parables, they asked for understanding of the spiritual meaning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Just as Jesus had come to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=matthew+5:17;romans+3:31\">fulfill\/complete the law in his physical body<\/a>, his disciples were also meant to fulfill and complete the law in their physical bodies. Thus, the &#8220;knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God&#8221; is nothing less than the law written on their hearts. That meant that they could eventually (i.e. after the Holy Spirit teaches them) see beyond the literal interpretation of Jesus&#8217; parables to the underlying, spiritual meaning of his words. And because they can do this, they are simultaneously coming to spiritual understanding of God&#8217;s laws and his character which would be revealed in their lives. This is how they become &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/isaiah\/passage\/?q=isaiah+42:6;isaiah+49:5-6;isaiah+60:1-4\">lights to the nations,<\/a>&#8221; which is the ultimate purpose of the New Covenant:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/jeremiah\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+31:31-34\">Jeremiah 31:31-34<\/a>: &#8220;Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, &#8216;Know the LORD,&#8217; for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">COMMENTARY: Before the day comes when the New Covenant will be established, the existing Old\/First Covenant religious system would need to be demolished. We tend to assume that this prophecy, along with other prophecies, will happen on a global scale at a unique point in time that affects everyone. This is a totally wrong assumption. Making this assumption is one of the errors that Old\/First Covenant religionists commonly make when they interpret scripture literally. Indeed, the literal interpretation does forecast a unique event in time that appears to affect the whole of Israel. The correct, symbolic interpretation, however, is that this prophecy and other prophecies are directed to individual Israelites &#8212; not to the entire nation &#8212; and that it will happen person by person over a period of time as God determines in a way that is consistent with what God said in this famous scripture:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/jeremiah\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+29:11-14\">Jeremiah 29:11-14<\/a>: For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, 14 I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">COMMENTARY: Applying a little common sense to this scripture we would clearly understand that this is a prophecy that applies first to individuals and eventually to all, or most, of Israel. And if we take a broad view of Israel, which we should do, we will interpret this prophecy to apply to spiritual Israel (i.e. the Gentile church) not just to ethnic Israel. If this was not the proper interpretation, the coming of the Messiah would not make any sense because he is the mediator of the New Covenant (i.e. the one who makes it spiritually possible for everyone to transition from Old\/First Covenant to the New Covenant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">MORE COMMENTARY ON <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/jeremiah\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+29:11-14\">Jeremiah 29:11-14<\/a>: Application of this scripture to the New Covenant, the main theme of Jeremiah, is evident in verse 13. In the Bible, &#8220;heart&#8221; is always a code word for the New Covenant. Seeking with the heart is contrasted with seeking with the natural mind which is what we do when we try to make some sense out of the literal words of the Bible. Similarly, we do not seek with all our heart when we seek to learn about God from a religious leader. In God&#8217;s view, it is <a href=\" http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/religion\/religion-is-sin\/religion-is-idolatry\">idolatry<\/a> when we go to a human mediator (i.e. false prophet) for something (e.g. wisdom, teaching, understanding, etc.) that God wants to give to us through his spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>LITERAL INTERPRETATIONS ARE THE INSPIRATION FOR OLD\/FIRST COVENANT RELIGION<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">In many denominations it is a settled\u00a0fact that for every scripture there is only one, literal meaning. There are several problems with this thinking:<\/span><\/p>\n<table border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It severely limits what God may want to reveal to anyone.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It discourages individual disciples from\u00a0doing their own spiritual digging\u00a0to discover meanings different from those that religious leaders have already taught.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It contradicts what the Bible says about mystery and parables and other deep sayings about symbolism.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It grossly simplifies God&#8217;s character and his ways.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It reinforces the position and control of spiritual leaders in an Old\/First Covenant religious system, and<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Effectively constrains individual disciples from maturing into New Covenant disciples.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Even though we may believe that there is more to understand than the literal word of the Bible, we are sure to stumble over difficult scriptures. If we did not stumble, we would pridefully think we know the full mind and character of God. Nevertheless, knowing God is part of the New Covenant promise:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/jeremiah\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+31:33-34\">Jeremiah 31:33-34<\/a>: But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.\u00a034\u00a0And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, &#8216;Know the LORD,&#8217; for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">And we do have<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=isaiah+11:9;john+6:45;hebrews+8:10-11;isaiah+54:13;1+corinthians+2:13;1+thessalonians+4:9;hebrews+10:16;1+john+2:27\">\u00a0God&#8217;s word elsewhere that knowing him is possible and that he himself will teach us.<\/a>\u00a0In the meantime, when we do fail to understand difficult scriptures, we should always look for the symbolic meaning because we know it exists &#8212; even when we do not see it &#8212; because Jesus and God always spoke in parables. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/matthew\/passage\/?q=matthew+13:44-46\">search for the pearl of great price never ends <\/a>for New Covenant disciples.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Coming to understanding of Biblical symbolism is partly an intellectual process and part spiritual. The intellectual part is in searching for related scriptures that give us clues to the meaning of the current scripture. This always involves going down many rabbit trails, some of which lead somewhere and some do not. Nevertheless, we do the digging with the expectation that we will eventually find that<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/matthew\/passage\/?q=matthew+13:44-48\">\u00a0pearl of great value or the good fish<\/a>. When we do this by faith that God will sooner or later open our spiritual eyes and ears, we have entered into that spiritual realm where we\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=matthew+7:7-11;luke+11:5-13;proverbs+8:17;jeremiah+29:12-13\">ask, seek and knock with all our heart<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">When we find a scripture that is hard to understand in its literal form, we assume that it is a parable and then ask God what it means. We read with our natural eyes and ears until <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/deuteronomy\/passage\/?q=deuteronomy+29:1-4\">God gives us\u00a0a mind to understand, spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear.\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Why\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=deuteronomy+29:1-4;isaiah+32:1-4;isaiah+48:8;jeremiah+5:21;ezekiel+12:2;matthew+13:15;acts+28:26-27;romans+11:1-8;ephesians+4:18\">God chooses to open our eyes to some scripture and not to others is a matter of the hardness of our own hearts<\/a>. In our pride we do not know yet exactly where that hardness exists, but if we humbly acknowledge that\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=romans+3:10;psalm+143:2;psalm+14:3;ecclesiastes+7:20\">we are not righteous<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=psalm+139:23-24;job+13:23;psalm+26:2;1+chronicles+29:17;psalm+7:9;proverbs+17:3;jeremiah+11:20;revelation+2:23;deuteronomy+6:6;jeremiah+20:12;ezekiel+11:5\">ask him to show us where the hardness exists<\/a>, he will eventually reveal it to us. And when we are faithful to repent for\u00a0 our hard hearts after God reveals them to us, he will be faithful to open our eyes and ears to spiritual understanding of those difficult scriptures.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>THE DIFFICULTY OF THE PROPHETIC BOOKS<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The tendency when reading the prophetic books of the Bible is to interpret them as future, global events that will happen at a specific time and affect everyone living at that time. Applying this thinking, some people believe that some prophecies have already been fulfilled and others think that they are yet to be fulfilled. This is a wrong way to interpret any prophecy. It leaves a gap in time between past and future which makes application of the prophecy to our here and now lives difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Prophecies should be interpreted to apply to individuals at different times according to God&#8217;s plan for each person. This attitude creates room for any prophecy to be applied to each individual on a more or less daily basis. This attitude is the only one that creates anticipation for timely <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/2-timothy\/passage\/?q=2+timothy+3:16-17\">application of all scripture to personal righteousness.<\/a> We should expect no less from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/hebrews\/4-12.html\">God&#8217;s living word that is able to judge between the thoughts and intentions of our hearts<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">This happened prophetically when\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/religion\/religion-is-not-faith\/religion-is-commerce\/jesus-and-the-money-changers-in-the-temple-2\">Jesus chased the money changers out of the temple<\/a>. It happened\u00a0spiritually\u00a0through Jesus death and resurrection. It happened for real\u00a0when God sent Rome to demolish the Temple during\u00a0the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Before that would happen, however, the existing Old\/First Covenant religious system would need to be demolished. This happened prophetically when\u00a0Jesus chased the money changers out of the temple. It happened\u00a0spiritually\u00a0through Jesus death and resurrection. It happened for real\u00a0when God sent Rome to demolish the Temple during\u00a0the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">There is an important spiritual lesson in these events for individual disciples: The old must die before the new can be established. We find this principle in this scripture:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/jeremiah\/1-10.html\">Jeremiah 1:10<\/a>: See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">While this word was given to the prophet Jeremiah, it is also an exhortation to contemporary disciples that they too must pluck up, break down,\u00a0 destroy and overthrow spiritual\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/nations\">nations and kingdoms<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0(i.e. religious beliefs, practices and institutions) to which they have given authority to rule over their personal spiritual lives. This <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice\/literal-or-symbolic-interpretation-part-2\/3\">first the natural and then the spiritual principle<\/a> is that religionists must destroy and overthrow (i.e. it must die) Old\/First Covenant religion in their own lives\u00a0 before the New Covenant (i.e. where the law is written on their hearts) can be built and planted in their hearts (i.e. new life). This principle found throughout the Bible is represented as the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/death-resurrection-life\">death,resurrection and new life<\/a> process by which Old\/First Covenant religionists <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/deuteronomy\/passage\/?q=deuteronomy+30:15-20\">choose <\/a>to keep practicing religion or New Covenant life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">A unique example of this principle is found in the parable of the patched clothing and wineskins;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=matthew+9:16-17;mark+2:21-22\">Matthew 9:16-17 and Mark 2:21-22<\/a>: And no one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wine skins; if it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wine skins, and so both are preserved.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">COMMENTARY: Here unshrunk cloth and new wine symbolically refer to God&#8217;s spoken voice. The old garment and old wineskin symbolically refer to the human mind of Old\/First Covenant religionists. A new garment and fresh wineskin symbolically refer to New Covenant disciples.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The parable teaches that God&#8217;s spoken word can only be heard by New Covenant disciples and cannot be received by Old\/First Covenant religionists.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The human mind cannot <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/romans\/passage\/?q=romans+12:1-2\">understand God&#8217;s perfect will unless it is transformed <\/a>from its human tendency (i.e. old nature) to interpret the Bible literally. This transformation is also called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=john+3:1-8;+1-peter+1:23-25\">being born again<\/a>, a process through which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=deuteronomy+29:1-4;+isaiah+6:8-10;+ezekiel+12:2;+matthew+13:14;+acts+28:23-28\">God opens the heart (i.e. eyes)<\/a> of New Covenant disciples so that they stop trying to understand the literal Bible with their minds and instead listen to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=hebrews+4:1-13;+jeremiah+23:29;+ephesians+5:26;+hebrews+6:5\">God&#8217;s living and active spoken word (i.e. voice) <\/a>which is spoken to the heart.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The point of application for this study is that the ability to understand the deep symbolic meanings of scripture is possible only after rejection of the religious systems and doctrines that limit understanding to one literal interpretation. This is especially true for Biblical prophecy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Because of the tendency to interpret the Bible literally, there is also a tendency to see prophecies as events that are out there in the future somewhere with little or no personal application for us as individuals today. This attitude disagrees with what God has said about the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/2-timothy\/passage\/?q=2-timothy+3:13-17\">timely, personal application of all scripture for everyone.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It must be said, therefore, that anyone who aspires to be a New Covenant disciple must consider all prophecies as applicable to them in the present time. Since Judaism and Christianity insist on interpreting prophecies according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theopedia.com\/dispensationalism\">dispensations of time<\/a>, it is imperative that New Covenant aspirants disengage from religious systems that do not teach personal application of prophecy of God speaking in real time to their hearts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Continued submission to teaching that is contrary to what God wants people to hear and apply today, not in some future time, is idolatry &#8212; no matter how persuasive or reasonable the teaching might be. It is like this: Either you depend on God alone to teach you, or you depend on someone else to teach you. It is the &#8220;two masters&#8221; principle:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/kjv\/passage\/?q=matthew+6:24;luke+16:12-13\">Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:12-13:\u00a0<\/a> And\u00a0 if\u00a0 ye have\u00a0\u00a0 not\u00a0 been\u00a0\u00a0 faithful\u00a0 in\u00a0 that which is another man&#8217;s, who shall give you\u00a0 that which is your own? 13 No\u00a0 servant\u00a0 can serve two masters: for either he will hate\u00a0 the one,\u00a0 and\u00a0 love the other; or else\u00a0 he will hold to the one,\u00a0 and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">COMMENTARY: Religious leaders find the basis of their teachings in the literal words of the Bible. Their credibility is based on their skill in reading, interpreting and reporting what the Bible says to them. The Bible, therefore, becomes\u00a0 the master of the religion that they preach.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">This seems reasonable and right until we recognize that what God ultimately wants is for each of people to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=genesis+22:18;+exodus+23:21-22;+numbers+7:89;+numbers+14:22;+deuteronomy+4:12;+deuteronomy+4:30;+deuteronomy+4:36;+deuteronomy+5:22-26;+deuteronomy+8:20;+deuteronomy+9:23;+deuteronomy+13:4;+deuteronomy+13:18;+deuteronomy+15:5;+deuteronomy+26:14;+deuteronomy+26:17;+deuteronomy+30:20;+joshua+5:6;+joshua+10:14;+joshua+22:2;+joshua+24:24;+psalm+81:11;+psalm+95:7;+psalm+106:25;+jeremiah+3:13;+jeremiah+3:25;+jeremiah+7:23;+jeremiah+7:28;+jeremiah+9:13;+jeremiah+11:4;+jeremiah+11:7;+jeremiah+18:10;+jeremiah+22:20-21;+jeremiah+26:13;+jeremiah+32:23;+jeremiah+40:3;+jeremiah+42:6;+jeremiah+42:13-14;+jeremiah+43:1-7;+jeremiah+44:23;+isaiah+28:23;+isaiah+32:9;+isaiah+55:1-3\">listen to and obey his voice on their own <\/a>without the assistance of human mediators whom God calls false prophets. Although people love to read their Bibles and listen to and read the teachings of religious leaders, these activities are not the same as listening to God&#8217;s spoken voice. In God&#8217;s view, people who listen to religious leaders practice<a href=\" http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/religion\/religion-is-sin\/religion-is-idolatry\"> idolatry<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Prophecies about the New Covenant are particular examples of those which should be applied personally in real time. Christians tend to put all the emphasis of the New Covenant on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+31:31-34;+1-thessalonians+4:9;+1-john+2:27;+john+14:11-17;+john+14:26;+1-corinthians+2:12;+hebrews+8:10-11;+john+6:45\">forgiving iniquity and remembering sin no\u00a0 more<\/a>. While these are not unimportant features of the New Covenant, this emphasis also tends to ignore the rest of the prophecy about the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+31:31-34;+1-thessalonians+4:9;+1-john+2:27;+john+14:11-17;+john+14:26;+1-corinthians+2:12;+hebrews+8:10-11;+john+6:45\">law written on hearts, teaching and knowing God.<\/a> In plain terms, God wants to teach his people himself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">When we read the Bible, its many <a href=\"https:\/\/infidels.org\/library\/modern\/donald_morgan\/contradictions.html\">inconsistencies and contradictions<\/a> will lead us to wrong conclusions if we interpret them literally. This is what happens when we depend on written or spoken human words for understanding instead of listening to God&#8217;s voice. When we understand that we absolutely need to listen to God&#8217;s voice, we can understand why God says that<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">We will always err in our understanding of scripture if we use only our natural intellect and cultural understanding of words because it is impossible to represent spiritual truth with natural, human words. Because there is so much depth to God and how he works, understanding is impossible unless<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=john+14:26;+1-john+2:27;+john+6:45;+1-corinthians+2:12\"> God&#8217;s spirit does the teaching. <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">In the above process, there is one gap in the process that we did not attempt to include because it is so complex &#8212; so spiritual. It is the\u00a0 beginning of the process where conviction of sin and repentance occurs. This phase of spiritual growth is impossible to represent in detail because it is personal for each person. Nevertheless, there are several things that we can say about the process\u00a0because God has outlined them in the Bible.The significance of this process in establishing the New Covenant in Jews and Christians\u00a0is\u00a0immense. With respect to Literal or Symbolic Interpretation, however, we must first make a few key points.<\/span><\/p>\n<table class=\" aligncenter\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">If the written law was adequate to accomplish God&#8217;s purposes, there would have been no need to write it on the hearts of God&#8217;s people.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">If the Old\/First Covenant was able to bring salvation, there would have been no need for the New Covenant.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">If the Old\/First Covenant was able to bring salvation, there would have been no need for a savior.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The written law is finite. That means it has limitations on how much is written and on the meanings of written words. But <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=job+36:26;psalm+147:5;psalm+145:3;isaiah+40:28;job+5:9;romans+11:33;revelation+1:8;revelation+21:6;revelation+22:13;job+26:14;malachi+3:6;james+1:17\">God is\u00a0a big God; he does not change; his ways are not our ways<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">In<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/luke\/passage\/?q=luke+8:9-18\">\u00a0Luke 8:9-18<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/matthew\/passage\/?q=matthew+13:16-23\">\u00a0Matthew 13:16-23, <\/a>in response to his disciples&#8217; inquiry, Jesus explains to his disciples the spiritual meaning of the parables.\u00a0\u00a0The blessing to which Jesus refers in these scriptures is the blessing associated with being in a New Covenant relationship where the meaning of the law and the parables is written on their hearts. This is the common experience for all who are in a New Covenant relationship with God. Those who have the law written on their hearts effectively have the mind of Christ, which is a mind that is able to interpret the spiritual meanings of difficult scriptures. These hidden meanings are the secrets of the kingdom of God.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">This &#8220;knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God&#8221; comes as a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice#howtoheargodsvoice\">quiet revelation by the Spirit of God to the heart of a New Covenant believer who hears God&#8217;s voice<\/a>. This revelation only came to the disciples after they asked Jesus about the meaning of the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=matthew+13:1-9;luke+8:4-10\">parable about the sower he had just told a large crowd<\/a>. Many heard the story, but only the disciples asked Jesus to tell them the meaning. Everyone else in the crowd was satisfied with the obscure, even confusing, meanings of the parables, but the disciples were discerning enough to know that there was more to the story than the literal facts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">They were curious about the true meaning, but they also had humility and courage to ask Jesus to explain the meaning to them. And Jesus satisfied their curiosity. As Jesus puts it, they had &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=matthew+13:9;luke+8:10\">ears to hear<\/a>.&#8221; And when he said, &#8220;let them hear&#8221; he was affirming<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=luke+8:17;matthew+10:26;mark+4:22;luke+12:2\">\u00a0God&#8217;s guarantee that hidden spiritual truths would be revealed to those who ask..<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">A clear and critical lesson in this whole story is that we need to ask for the spiritual meaning. In the story, the disciples asked Jesus for insight. In these modern times we cannot go to the physical Jesus, but we can go to God with a prayer that humbly confesses that we do not understand the literal Bible. Sooner or later, God will provide\u00a0 the answer. However, if we are satisfied with the literal meaning, that is all that we will get.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Since the ability to discern deep spiritual meanings is a function of having the law written on your heart (i.e. New Covenant), failure to obtain deep spiritual meanings is a clear indicator that you are still in an Old\/First Covenant relationship with God. And if that is where you are, you don&#8217;t even know enough to ask for spiritual meanings. For you, there is nothing more to the Bible than the literal meaning. You\u00a0may have read through the Bible many times, and you may know all the important stories by heart, and you may know some doctrines, and you may have memorized a lot of scripture, but if you don&#8217;t ask for and receive spiritual meanings of scripture, it is all intellectual exercise to gain intellectual knowledge. You are not pursuing spiritual life found in spiritual knowledge that comes from hearing God&#8217;s spoken word in your heart.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Jesus gave his disciples several<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=luke+8:17-18;matthew+13:11-12;matthew+25:24-29;luke+19:11-26\">\u00a0stern warnings about how they (i.e. we) should seek for hidden secrets and apply what we learn<\/a>. What he said is that<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=luke+8:18;matthew+13:12;matthew+25:29;luke+19:26\">\u00a0what you think you have in terms of knowledge\u00a0will be taken away from you\u00a0<\/a>if you continue to assume that there is no deeper meaning than the one that comes to you intellectually as\u00a0you read or listen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">However, if you assume, as true New Covenant disciples will do, that there is a deeper meaning, Jesus will give you that deeper meaning. Since true disciples are learners, they will make the effort to ask for more information. And since God\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=luke+11:9-13;matthew+7:7-11;james+1:5-8\">encourages disciples to ask for wisdom<\/a>\u00a0(i.e. knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God), he will be faithful to give it to those who bother to ask.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">In the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=matthew+13:1-9;luke+8:4-10\">story where Jesus told a large crowd about the parable of the sower<\/a>, it was only the disciples who came to Jesus afterwards to ask for the spiritual meaning. Others in the crowd were content to hear the literal story.\u00a0Members of the larger crowd were content to hear and understand with their natural capabilities (eyes and ears). This was not true for the disciples. They knew that there was more to the story and they\u00a0went out of their way\u00a0to ask Jesus for the deeper spiritual meaning. Jesus&#8217; disciples prove that they have\u00a0spiritual\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=matthew+13:9;luke+8:8-10;isaiah+30:21;jeremiah+25:4;ezekiel+12:2;ezekiel+40:4;ezekiel+44:5;matthew+11:15;matthew+13:15;mark+4:9;mark+4:23;luke+14:35;acts+28:27;romans+11:7-8\">ears to hear\u00a0<\/a>by asking for deeper spiritual understandings of God&#8217;s word.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">This story reveals three key qualities of New Covenant disciples:<\/span><\/p>\n<table class=\" aligncenter\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">They know that there is more to the story than what the natural eye and ear can understand.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">They will do what they need to do to get that deeper meaning.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">They will ask questions until they do understand the deeper meaning.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=matthew+13:10-17;+zechariah+7:4-14;+ezekiel+3:1-7;+isaiah+6:1-10;+psalm+119:65-72;+john+8:34-47;+2-timothy+4:1-4;+hebrews+5:8-14\">God has many unflattering ways of referring to people who do not listen to his voice<\/a> (i.e. they interpret scripture only literally). Essentially, they have have hard hearts. And if they have hard hearts, they are not true disciples. And if they are not true disciples who listen and understand with their hearts, they are not New Covenant believers because the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=jeremiah+31:31-34;isaiah+6:10;matthew+13:13-15;john+12:40;acts+28:26-27\">seat of understanding of God&#8217;s ways for a New Covenant believer is in the heart.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">A big part of the problem that those who do not listen to God&#8217;s voice is going along with the crowd. The crowd is trained (i.e. indoctrinated) to look only for the literal understanding. Most people are not even aware that hearing with their spiritual ears\/hearts is a possibility or that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=genesis+22:18;+exodus+23:21-22;+numbers+7:89;+numbers+14:22;+deuteronomy+4:12;+deuteronomy+4:30;+deuteronomy+4:36;+deuteronomy+5:22-26;+deuteronomy+8:20;+deuteronomy+9:23;+deuteronomy+13:4;+deuteronomy+13:18;+deuteronomy+15:5;+deuteronomy+26:14;+deuteronomy+26:17;+deuteronomy+30:20;+joshua+5:6;+joshua+10:14;+joshua+22:2;+joshua+24:24;+psalm+81:11;+psalm+95:7;+psalm+106:25;+jeremiah+3:13;+jeremiah+3:25;+jeremiah+7:23;+jeremiah+7:28;+jeremiah+9:13;+jeremiah+11:4;+jeremiah+11:7;+jeremiah+18:10;+jeremiah+22:20-21;+jeremiah+26:13;+jeremiah+32:23;+jeremiah+40:3;+jeremiah+42:6;+jeremiah+42:13-14;+jeremiah+43:1-7;+jeremiah+44:23;+isaiah+28:23;+isaiah+32:9;+isaiah+55:1-3\">God commands people to listen to his voice<\/a>. They wrongly think that only trained religious leaders can hear from God, and so that is who they listen to. That is why the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=luke+6:39;matthew+15:14;matthew+23:16\">blind lead the blind<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Carrying these points further, it is logical and accurate to say that people who do not allow for symbolic interpretations are not really Christlike. This must be true because, if Jesus spoke in parables, he also understood the symbolic interpretation of those parables. Thus, a person who is truly Christ-like must also understand the symbolic interpretation of the parables and other difficult scriptures. Or, even if that person does not fully understand such scriptures, he\/she must at least agree that such symbolic interpretations do exist and then seek diligently to study them until understanding comes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">By consistently choosing to acknowledge and accept only\u00a0literal interpretations,\u00a0people with dull, unbelieving hearts\u00a0use only their natural, intellectual abilities to understand truth. But, no matter what their intellectual capabilities might be, intellect and reason are never enough to gain spiritual understanding. The spirit of a New Covenant disciple must be engaged with spiritual ears to hear God&#8217;s spoken voice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Of course there\u00a0must be some intellectual understanding, but\u00a0those who begin and end with intellectual understanding effectively foreclose on deeper, spiritual understanding. Such people are focused on natural things of the world while <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=2+corinthians+4:18;2+corinthians+5:7;1+corinthians+13:12\">God wants us to focus on the things of the Spirit that cannot be seen or touched with natural capabilities<\/a> (i.e. eyes, ears and intellect). Those who interpret the Bible literally have a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=colossians+2:13-22;hebrews+8:1-10;hebrews+10:1-18\">shadow of truth<\/a>, but they do not get the full meaning.\u00a0 The are spiritually immature.They are\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/ephesians\/passage\/?q=ephesians+4:9-19\">infants tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.<\/a>\u00a0And as infants, they miss out on the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=1+corinthians+4:1-2;romans+16:25-27\">mysteries of God<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/ephesians\/passage\/?q=ephesians+3:14-19;ephesians+4:8-18\">fullness of Christ<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>GOD IS BIGGER THAN ONE LITERAL MEANING<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fundamentalism\">Fundamentalism<\/a> is a term use to describe religions that hold to <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Biblical_literalism\">Biblical literalism.<\/a> It is a kind of doctrine that appeals to people who by character and\/or training are inclined to hold to rigid interpretations and applications of truth as they understand it in the conduct of their life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">While fundamentalism is useful as an orientation for attracting people to certain religions, it has problems when applied to understanding God and interpreting the Bible:<\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Because God and his work are infinite, it is impossible to fully and accurately represent him in a finite package of human words.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">God, being spirit, speaks with a spiritual voice that cannot be easily heard by human ears, accurately interpreted\/processed by the human mind, or reliably reported to others by human words.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Considering these problems, Biblical literalism represents a kind of false wisdom based on human abilities to understand words and concepts that are essentially spiritual (i.e. without form).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">All words human words and concepts are open to multiple meanings and nuance that varies from one culture to another. There is always risk in trying to represent spiritual truth with natural words.Spiritual maturity is a process of learning how to manage these truths. We do what we can with what we have and let God fill in the blanks and correct the errors. That is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/kjv\/passage\/?q=matthew+4:4;john+6:63;genesis+26:4-5;exodus+19:5;exodus+15:25-26;jeremiah+7:2;john+10:27;john+12:47-48;romans+10;john+8:47;hebrews+4:12;hebrews+11:1-4;john+6:45-47;1+kings+19:11-13;luke+11:28;psalm+32:8-9;psalm+85:1-13;john+14:26;isaiah+30:19-22;galatians+3:5;john+10:1-16;psalm+34:11;psalm+34:3;psalm+29:1;jeremiah+31:31-34;isaiah+11:9;isaiah+54:13;1+corinthians+2:13;1+thessalonians+4:9;hebrews+8:10-11;hebrews+10:16;1+john+2:27;numbers+12:6\">what we will hear when we listen to his voice<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">A critical phase of the maturing process is in the beginning where conviction of sin and repentance occurs. This phase of spiritual growth is impossible to represent in detail because it is so personal for each person. Nevertheless, there are three things that we can say about the process\u00a0because God has outlined them in the Bible.<\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/hebrews\/passage\/?q=hebrews+12:2-12\">Hebrews 12:2-12<\/a>\u00a0tells us that we struggle against sin and that God disciplines those he loves.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/acts\/passage\/?q=acts+9:1-6;acts+26:13-18\">story of the Apostle Paul&#8217;s conversion\u00a0<\/a>tells us that God had been pricking, or\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Goad\">goading<\/a>\u00a0Paul to turn in the right direction. Paul, however, has been\u00a0kicking against the pricks\u00a0because he did not want to turn from persecuting the church.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The significance of this process in establishing the New Covenant in Jews and Christians\u00a0is\u00a0immense. With respect to Literal or Symbolic Interpretation, however, we must make a few key points.<\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">If the written law was adequate to accomplish God&#8217;s purposes, there would have been no need to write it on the hearts of God&#8217;s people.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">If the Old\/First Covenant was able to bring salvation, there would have been no need for the New Covenant.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">If the Old\/First Covenant was able to bring salvation, there would have been no need for a savior.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The written law is something that is finite. That means it has limitations on how much is written and on the meanings of written words.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=job+36:26;psalm+147:5;psalm+145:3;isaiah+40:28;job+5:9;romans+11:33;revelation+1:8;revelation+21:6;revelation+22:13;job+26:14;malachi+3:6;james+1:17\">God is\u00a0a big God; he does not change; his ways are not our ways<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">In<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/luke\/passage\/?q=luke+8:9-18\"> Luke 8:9-18<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/matthew\/passage\/?q=matthew+13:16-23\">\u00a0Matthew 13:16-23<\/a>\u00a0Jesus explains to his disciples the spiritual meaning of the parables. The blessing to which Jesus refers in these scriptures is the blessing associated with being in a New Covenant relationship where the meaning of the law and the parables is written on their hearts. This is the common experience for all who are in a New Covenant relationship with God.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Those who have the law written on their hearts effectively have the mind of Christ speaking to them spiritually &#8212; just like he spoke to his disciples &#8212; to explain the meaning of the parables and the rest of God&#8217;s word. This &#8220;knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God&#8221; comes as a quiet revelation by the Spirit of God to the mind of \u00a0a New Covenant believer. This revelation only came to the disciples after they asked Jesus about the meaning of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=matthew+13:1-9;luke+8:4-10\">parable about the sower he had just told a large crowd<\/a>. Many heard the story, but only the disciples asked Jesus to tell them the meaning. Everyone else in the crowd was satisfied with their literal understanding of what Jesus said, but the disciples were discerning enough to know that there was more to the story than the literal facts. They were curious about the true meaning so they had the courage to ask Jesus to explain the meaning to them. And Jesus satisfied their curiosity. As Jesus puts it, they had &#8220;ears to hear.&#8221; And when he said, &#8220;let them hear&#8221; he was affirming<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=luke+8:17;matthew+10:26;mark+4:22;luke+12:2\"> God&#8217;s guarantee that hidden spiritual truths would be revealed to those who ask.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">A clear and critical lesson in this whole story is that you need to ask for the spiritual meaning. If you are satisfied with the literal meaning, that is all that you will get from it. Since the ability to discern deep spiritual meanings is a function of having the law written on your heart (i.e. New Covenant), failure to obtain deep spiritual meanings is a clear indicator that you are still in an Old\/First Covenant relationship with God. And if that is where you are, you don&#8217;t even know enough to ask for spiritual meanings. For you, there is nothing more to the Bible than the literal word.\u00a0Indeed you\u00a0may have read through the Bible many times, and you may know all the important stories, and you may know some doctrines, and you may have memorized a lot of scripture, but if you don&#8217;t ask for and receive spiritual meanings of scripture, it is all intellectual exercise to gain information. You are not pursuing spiritual life. You may even be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/kjv\/romans\/passage\/?q=romans+10:1-2\">zealous to learn about God, but it is not zeal based on knowledge<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Jesus gave his disciples several<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=luke+8:17-18;matthew+13:11-12;matthew+25:24-29;luke+19:11-26\"> stern warnings about how we seek for hidden secrets and apply what we learn<\/a>. What he said is that what you think you have in terms of knowledge\u00a0will be taken away from you. The only way to understand these scriptures is to recognize\u00a0 that Jesus is talking to religious Jews who prided themselves on their religious knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The lessons here are these:<\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">If we assume that there is no deeper meaning than the one that comes to us intellectually as we read or listen to others teach, that is all we will get.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">If we assume that God is only as big and complex as he appears to be in scripture, that is as big as he will ever be for us.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">If we assume that all that God has to say to us is contained in the literal words of the Bible, we will never learn to listen to his spoken voice.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">However, if we assume, as true New Covenant disciples will do, that there are deeper meanings to scripture, God will reveal those deeper meanings to us. This is what it means to be a disciple.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Since true disciples are learners, they will make the effort to ask for more information. And since God <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=luke+11:9-13;matthew+7:7-11;james+1:5-8\">encourages disciples to ask for wisdom<\/a> (i.e. knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God), he will be faithful to give it to those who bother to ask.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">In the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=matthew+13:1-9;luke+8:4-10\">story where Jesus told a large crowd about the parable of the sower<\/a>, it was only the disciples who came to Jesus afterwards to ask for the spiritual meaning. Others in the crowd were content to hear the literal story.\u00a0Members of the larger crowd were content to hear and understand with their natural capabilities (eyes and ears). This was not true for the disciples. They knew that there was more to the story and they\u00a0went out of their way\u00a0to ask Jesus for the deeper spiritual meaning. Jesus&#8217; disciples prove that they have\u00a0spiritual <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=matthew+13:9;luke+8:8-10;isaiah+30:21;jeremiah+25:4;ezekiel+12:2;ezekiel+40:4;ezekiel+44:5;matthew+11:15;matthew+13:15;mark+4:9;mark+4:23;luke+14:35;acts+28:27;romans+11:7-8\">ears to hear <\/a>by asking for deeper spiritual understandings of God&#8217;s word.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">This story reveals a key quality of New Covenant disciples. They know that there is more to the story than natural eyes and ears can absorb and they will do what they need to do to get that deeper meaning &#8212; even humble themselves to admit that they do not understand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>GOD WILL HARDEN HEARTS OF PEOPLE WHO DO NOT ACCEPT SYMBOLIC INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/john\/passage\/?q=john+5:37-47\">Jesus criticized people who thought they had found the essence of life in the scriptures (i.e. the books of the Old\/First Covenant)<\/a>, but had only the literal understanding and not the spiritual understanding. He says, in effect, that the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/isaiah\/passage\/?q=isaiah+6:8-10\"> prophecy given to Isaiah<\/a> was fulfilled when the hearts of the people became hard and they lost the ability to understand with their hearts. In this prophecy God was directly responsible for the hardening of the hearts of Israel. He did that, however, because of people\u2019s pride in thinking they knew the literal word exceedingly well. Since people thought they knew the truth, they were very careful to apply the literal truth they knew in their heavily ritualistic lives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">That is how religious behavior develops. But <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nas\/passage\/?q=deuteronomy+29:1-4;+isaiah+6:8-10;+isaiah+28:1-13;+matthew+13:10-17;+acts+28:23-28\">because they focused exclusively on what they\u00a0could understand with their intellectual abilities and do with their physical bodies, God hardened their hearts so that they could not effectively know the spiritual (symbolical) truths that God was trying to communicate through symbolic language (parables and other forms of symbolism)<\/a>. He calls it putting a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice\/the-law\/the-law-is-a-stumbling-block\">stumbling block<\/a> before them. That does not seem like anything that God would do, but it is only one of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nrs\/passage\/?q=romans+9:18;exodus+4:21;exodus+7:3;exodus+9:12;exodus+14:17;deuteronomy+2:30;joshua+11:20;isaiah+63:17;john+12:40\">several examples where He hardens hearts<\/a>, so no\u00a0persons should arrogantly think\u00a0 that God would not harden\u00a0their\u00a0heart because\u00a0they professes to be followers of Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Finally, Jesus said they (disciples) will be blessed when they combine what they read and hear with their natural eyes and ears with what they hear (in the still small voice of their heart) and then apply (i.e. turn, or convert) what they have learned\u00a0 to their lives in a meaningful way.Sometimes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=john+12:35-40;romans+9:17-18;exodus+10:1;exodus+14:17;joshua+11:20;isaiah+63:17\">God hardens the hearts of people who have already hardened them by not listening<\/a>. Other times, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=mark+16:9-14;hebrews+3:7-10;hebrews+4:2-12;psalm+95:7-8\">people harden their own hearts by refusing to listen<\/a>.\u00a0 Whether God does the hardening or people do it to themselves, a hard heart is a bad thing to have. People with hard hearts are stuck in the letter of the law and have no concept of the Spirit of the law. Jesus said that the hearts of those who are not true disciples (i.e. they are not true learners) have become calloused to spiritual understanding because they have focused only on what they can see and hear with their natural capabilities. Another way to look at this condition is to say that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/passage\/?q=2+corinthians+5:7;1+corinthians+13:12;2+corinthians+4:18\">they walk by sight and not by faith<\/a>. It is not good to be a part of this crowd.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>LEAVE SOME ROOM FOR LITERAL UNDERSTANDING<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It is no secret that there are many scriptures for which symbolic understanding is not readily available to us because God, in His wisdom, has deliberately made them difficult to understand. Just because we don\u2019t understand, however, does not mean that there is no room for a literal understanding and that we should discount, reject or ignore those scriptures because God has made them too difficult for us to understand at a deeper level. We can\u2019t do that because the same God who made them difficult to understand has also given us assurances that understanding is possible \u2013 under certain conditions that we probably don\u2019t understand either \u2014 but remain in that great category of instruction about God for which we are, and may remain, ignorant. We call that \u201cMystery.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Moreover, if we are really serious about wanting to know God and about being transformed into His likeness, we will want to diligently search for that understanding \u2014 no matter what it might cost us. That is the essence of what it means to be a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/luke\/6-40.html\">disciple<\/a>\u00a0(i.e. learner).<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>UNDERSTANDING SCRIPTURE IS OUR PROBLEM TO SOLVE<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Ultimately, we need to accept that our lack of understanding of particular scriptures simply means that we have not yet satisfied God\u2019s conditions for making full revelation for those particular scriptures known to us. In particular, it may simply mean that we have not been actively listening for his voice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">This opinion may not sound much like grace to people whose theology includes an expectation that God will just want to give them all the understanding they need when they need it and that he will do that unconditionally. We understand that theology, but we cannot reconcile it with what God said about wisdom in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/nrs\/proverbs\/8-17.html\">Proverbs 8:17<\/a> or with what Jesus said about seeking in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/matthew\/passage\/?q=matthew+7:7-8\">Matthew 7:7-8<\/a>.\u00a0 Thus, our theology says that understanding of deep spiritual truths remains our problem to solve. It remains for us to decide if we really want to solve the problem and if we are willing to invest the effort to discover what God\u2019s conditions are for making revelation known to us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">If we do conclude that we do want to do these things, all that is left to do is do it. It all depends on the strength of our desire to find God and know him intimately. It seems like the least we can do if we claim to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/search\/?q=love+heart+soul+lord\">love him with all our heart, mind, soul and strengt<\/a>h.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Readers who want to learn more about symbolic interpretation would do well to to go to <a title=\"Literal or Symbolic Interpretation: Part 2\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice\/literal-or-symbolic-interpretation-part-2\">Literal or Symbolic Interpretation: Part 2<\/a>. In the meantime, here are a few key points to remember:<\/span><\/p>\n<table border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">God writes the law on the hearts of his people.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">After the law is written on their hearts, people will no longer say to one another: &#8220;I know God. Let me teach you about him.&#8221; Each person will take personal responsibility for knowing God.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">People who have the law written on their hearts will know God because the law reveals the depth and breadth of Gods character and his ways to them in ways that no human teacher can do.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">People who have the law written on their hearts will have faith that obedience to the requirements of the written law is no longer necessary. They will understand that performance of the letter of the law yields death while the spirit of the law produces life. With that understanding, people will understand that they no longer need to engage in the religious rituals and ceremonies written in the literal law. They will understand that all the righteous requirements of the law will be fulfilled by people who have it written on their hearts. For them,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=philippians+2:12-16;ezra+1:5;hebrews+13:20-21;2+corinthians+9:8;colossians+1:9-10;2+timothy+2:19-26;2+timothy+3:12-17\">God&#8217;s character is now part of who they are and it will be evident in their daily lives through their good works<\/a>. They will understand that to be &#8220;in Christ&#8221; means that Christ&#8217;s character is now their character. And because Christ is the image of the living God, God&#8217;s character is now their character and that it will be revealed in everything they say and do. To the degree that people accept and act on this truth by faith,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/john\/passage\/?q=john+7:2-12\">\u00a0they will no longer find it necessary or desirable to engage in outward religious behaviors required by the written law (e.g. the Law of Moses, the oral laws and traditions of the Jews, or the laws and traditions of denominations and churches)<\/a>. Their righteousness is based on what is inside them (i.e. the law, character of God), not on the works of the written law (e.g.\u00a0 sacrifices, tithes, offerings, feasts, temple worship, etc.).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">People who know God actively listen to hear his voice and obey (i.e. apply) what they hear.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">People will not need to teach or be taught about God because the law is written on their hearts.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The ability to know God will be available to everyone &#8212; not just those who have status as spiritual leaders because of their education or titles (i.e. priests).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Regarding rigid literal interpretations of scripture, here are a few key points to keep in mind:<\/span><\/p>\n<table border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It severely limits what God may want to reveal to anyone.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It discourages individual disciples from\u00a0doing their own spiritual digging\u00a0to discover meanings different from those that religious leaders have already taught.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It contradicts what the Bible says about mystery and parables and other deep sayings about symbolism.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It grossly simplifies God&#8217;s character and his ways.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It underestimates God&#8217;s willingness to discipline those whom he loves.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It reinforces the position and control of spiritual leaders in an Old\/First Covenant religious system, and<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It effectively constrains individual disciples from maturing into New Covenant disciples.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/hebrews\/passage\/?q=hebrews+12:2-12\">Hebrews 12:2-12<\/a>\u00a0tells us that we struggle against sin and that God disciplines those he loves. The\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/acts\/passage\/?q=acts+9:1-6;acts+26:13-18\">story of the Apostle Paul&#8217;s conversion\u00a0<\/a>tells us that God had been pricking, or\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Goad\">goading<\/a> Saul to turn in the right direction. Saul, however, had been\u00a0kicking against the pricks\u00a0because he did not want to turn from the security (e.g. position, income, etc.) he enjoyed as a leader in the established religious structure of the day. The pricks were God&#8217;s discipline to turn Saul from trusting that religious structure and his knowledge of the literal law, but Saul resisted what God was trying to tell him. God ultimately had to strike Saul blind, of course, to get his attention, but that is what it took to turn him from his rigid literal interpretations of the law. And we know very well what God did through Saul, as a new creation called Paul, after he stopped resisting God and started <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/rsv\/passage\/?q=exodus+15:22-26;+exodus+23:21;+exodus+19:5;+jeremiah+7:23;+jeremiah+11:1-4;+matthew+4:1-4;+deuteronomy+8:1-3;+job+22:21-23;+psalm+119:9-13;+psalm+138:4\">listening to his voice<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The way we see it, Saul&#8217;s story is our story. In other words, God is pricking\/goading everyone to turn from rigid, literal interpretations of the law to hearing his voice. Until that happens, we are blind to the deep, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/kjv\/john\/passage\/?q=john+6:63-68\">symbolic interpretations of the law which are the words of eternal life <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/kjv\/john\/passage\/?q=john+6:63-68\">spoken by Jesus.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>READ MORE ABOUT LITERAL AND SYMBOLIC INTERPRETATION<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/website-03399378.phw.pfz.mybluehost.me\/how-to-assemble-the-puzzle\/\">Assemble the Puzzle<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice\">Mystery<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice\">God\u2019s Written Word and God\u2019s Spoken Voice<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-1852\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice\/literal-or-symbolic-interpretation-part-2\">Literal or Symbolic Interpretation Part 2<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-1860\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice\/literal-or-symbolic-interpretation-part-3\">Literal or Symbolic Interpretation Part 3<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-1687 page_item_has_children\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\">Symbols, Signs, Types, Copies, Shadows and Patterns<\/a><\/span>\n<ul class=\"children\">\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-2243\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/nations\">Cities, Kingdoms and Nations<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-2259\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/egypt-and-babylon\">Egypt and Babylon<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-2238\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice\/the-law\/fourth-commandment\">Fourth Commandment<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-2247\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/people\/religion-is-the-kingdom-of-false-prophets\/kings-queens-and-princes\">Kings, Queens and Princes<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-1683\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/land-and-earth\">Land and Earth<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-1683\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/people\">People<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-2234\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice\/the-law\/fourth-commandment\/sabbath-fasting-rest\">Sabbath, Fasting and Rest<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-1913\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/people\/true-prophets\/the-high-priest\">The High Priest<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"page_item page-item-1828\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/mystery\/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns\/wood-gold-silver-stone\">Wood, Gold, Silver, Stone<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GOD ALWAYS SPEAKS IN PARABLES Many surveys have been conducted over the years to document what people of different religions believe about how the Bible should be interpreted. Most survey respondents believe that it is the actual, inspired word of <span class=\"excerpt-dots\">&hellip;<\/span> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/godsvoice\/interpret-the-written-law\/literal-or-symbolic-interpretation\/\"><span class=\"more-msg\">Continue reading &rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":73,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-218","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/godsvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/godsvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/godsvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/godsvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/godsvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/godsvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":809,"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/godsvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/218\/revisions\/809"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/godsvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/godsvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}