READING THE BOOK--2

I have said the Bible is not like any other book.  I'd like to develop that.  It has been stated by the sages that the Bible is a collection of Jewish allegories.  I think, rather, that poets write allegories with some truth in them.  The Holy Spirit writes truth which resembles poetry.  I don't think the Holy Spirit specializes or expresses Himself in what is fanciful, but in what is true.  The parables of Jesus are not untrue in order to be profound but true in order to be spiritual.

  When I say something which you know is true, you will be likely to believe what I might says on a spiritual level.  If I say something which you know is not actually true you won't believe any spiritual meaning I might derive from it.

  The Greek word lethe means, to forget.  In the Homeric hell, the river Lethe runs through it.  What is meant by that is that to be forgotten is hell to the ancient Greeks.  They always remember the men who died defending the city; if one died dishonorably, that soul would be forgotten.

  In Greek the opposite of lethe is a-letheia, to be true.  If something is not there, it will be forgotten.  if you always encounter something it is true.  If I say it is raining outside, you will encounter that rain wherever you go--it is true.  If I say there is a mermaid in my room named Hermoine, that is false because you won't find her there.

  With that in mind, let's go to the Bible.  The Biblical stories are remembered because they are true; the Greek allegories are not remembered or even believed because they were never true---they are forgotten.  The scholar Bruno Snell wrote a famous scholarly book, The Greek Discovery of the Mind, in which he claims the Greeks ended their belief in the Homeric gods around 700BC.  Today the gods are forgotten.  The Torah has been dated from 1500BC, it is remembered because it is true.

  What all this means is the word of God is that by which the Spirit of God communes with our spirit.  It works within.  As ir radiates the spirit, it overflows until the mind recognizes it, the heart responds to it and the will obeys it (we hope!).

  Let's look at how this works.  An example we might look at is Romans 8--
  There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
How does your rational mind deal with, in Christ Jesus?  How do you get into a man who died centuries ago?  You cannot, however, when the spirit hears these words a resonance occurs by which your spirit communes with and receives the Spirit of God in Christ Jesus.  Now He is not understood as a human frame with an outside skin and internal organs; rather He is divine love clothed with the being of God, the Spirit.  Our spirit can enter His Spirit in the manner in which the wind enters an opened window.

  In Matthew 2 Jesus as a child is taken by His parents from Bethlehem to Egypt.  Then, with Herod dead, Jesus is brought back to Galilee, Matt. 2.19-23.  Why so abrupt?  Because the text is giving our spirit what it needs to believe.  It is not giving our minds what will satisfy every question we might have.  We don't need to know the exact route, the address in Egypt, how Mary felt or how Joseph spoke with God about all of this.  We have what we need as believers.

  This is how the Scriptures work--from inside out--that we would be sent out into the world with faith in our God.