[hosepipe]

Originally Posted by OBW

I must confess that I was not looking at the passage as I spoke. Given Igzy's comments, it is even more evident that it is not about pastors, or even clergy, per se, but of those who would come to take the place of the Christ. In any case, our attempts to apply it to pastors, clergy, even a hierarchy are misguided because that does not appear to be what Jesus was talking about. He wasn't even talking about churches.

And, like Igzy said, so many of these parables, etc., used metaphors that were designed to make A point. Not a whole bunch of points. As was typical of Lee's teaching, he milked every metaphor for every remote inference he could glean from it — or read into it. Unimportant that it was not relevant to the immediate discussion. And while we may have seen through his errors, I still think that we (me included) so often are captured by his ways. I have begun to make myself question anything beyond what is clearly there and then let sound sources suggest anything more I should consider. And anything published by the LSM does not qualify (for me) as "sound sources."

A human say Paul might be trying to make one(a) point with a metaphor but
I would say God could easily and probably did make multiple points with his..
Passover being an example.. parables being others..

Jesus did not write books but transacted business in as brief a manner as possible..
We have very little of what Jesus did and said.. no doubt not all of it..
"If God", he would know that...... even THEN... Why not power packed transactions?

John chapter 10 is a good example.. about rolling metaphorical images into a screed.. Metaphors as cartoons do trump language and dialect.... even culture.. If so, then Jesus' metaphors were more important than his direct words.. I think.. even Psalms pile quatrain upon quatrain.. If Psalms were inspired God is willing and able to pack much into a few words..

Could be much is said and even implied by Jesus' metaphors..
Implied like.. maybe sheep pens implied that there are also pig, vulture, lion, goat, vampire, bat, mole, butterfly and worm pens out there.. I have surely been to a few of them.. any sheep were hiding..

We see what we see.. some see more some see less.. some are deluded..
I see what I see, you see what you see.. with self sacrifice we can tolerate each other..
With self sacrificial tolerance we may be able to "feed" each other.. metaphorically..