Slicing Bread with a Corkscew

There are allegories, metaphors, poetical language, and prophetical language used in scripture and the scripture itself must be the interpreter of these metaphors and symbols. And when the Bible uses this type of language, there is a literal meaning behind the words. When prophesy is fulfilled, it is fulfilled literally. When the Bible speaks of the resurrection of the body, it means resurrection of the body.

If I were to say that “Hymenaeus and Philetus were so crooked they sliced their bread with a corkscrew” you would know that they did not literally slice their bread with a corkscrew, but they were deceitful, wicked men that preached a deceitful and wicked doctrine (2 Timothy 2:17-18). There was a literal meaning behind my metaphor. Crooked did not refer to their posture but their integrity. When the Bible spoke of the future resurrection, Hymeaneus and Philetus told the churches that it had already happened. The only way to get there from here is to wrest the scripture.

Revelation 1:3  Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

To read and to hear and to keep. It does no good if the reader or the hearer cannot understand what is said or needs to be a historical scholar from works outside of the Scripture to understand this book. I believe that we can know what the book of Revelation says and means and do not need books or historical works apart from scripture to understand its meaning. I don’t believe we need to rely upon those with the greatest and best imaginations, but if we rely on the same basic ways of interpreting the scripture in other parts of the Bible, we can now what this means.