Understanding Metaphors

[Babu Thomas]

The book provides an impressive overview of a very important and often misunderstood Biblical metaphor. Metaphors are implicitly comparative (e.g. God is my rock, light or shepherded (p.32). It came to my understanding from the reading; a metaphor compares two things by identifying one with the other. Usually one of the metaphors is easily recognized and is used to clarify the others that is not so easily understood. It is the way we communicate from the known to the unknown. For example, Matthew 5:13 states, “Ye are the salt of the earth,” meaning that just as salt is a flavoring influence in food, so Christians should be a flavoring influence morally in their society. Metaphors crate a bridge between two specific phenomenal words, one that can only be crossed by two parties (speaker/listener) who are similarly socialized. In this sense metaphors are made for the moment (pp.33-34).

It is the use of metaphors that has given rise to spiritualizing Scripture, because most metaphors are symbols. The most important metaphor in all of Scripture is found in Luke 22: 19, 20, where Jesus took bread and said, “This is my body, which is given for you.” The bread was bread; it was not Christ’s literal body. Obviously, it was a symbol of His physical body. The same is said of the cup, when He said,” This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” We do not drink the blood of Christ when we partake of the grape juice: instead, we drink grape juice, which symbolizes His blood. To the careful reader trying to literalize Scripture, the use of metaphors is not really a problem because they are usually quite obvious.

In my view, the metaphor of shepherd is often used to provide a biblical understanding of the functions and role of the pastor. The image of the shepherd is a powerful metaphor for God’s care for His people, and can be quite useful in pastoral care as an example of the character and nature of the compassionate and just God who intimately cares for His people. Psalm 23 and Ezekiel 34 contribute significantly to this motif. However, caution must be taken as to not simply correlate the work of God described in these passages to the role and function of the pastor in this century. The primary concern of the shepherd metaphor is not a prescription of pastoral functions, but description of God Himself as revealed in the incarnation of Christ as the ‘Good Shepherd’ (Jn. 10:11); the ‘one Shepherd’ (Jn. 10:16; Ezek. 34:23; 37:24); the ‘great Shepherd’ (Heb. 13:20).