Am looking at Matthew 18:12-14 this morning.
Sometimes people ask, should I take the Bible literally?
My response is yes and no.
What do I mean?
I think we can take it at face value when the text justifies it, we can take it literally.
For instance, this morning's passage says a shepherd will leave the 99 sheep to go look for the lost 1 sheep.
So is this literal?
Well, yes and no.
Yes, in that we take it at face value that Jesus is making a point about God's desire to find the lost.
No, in that he is using a metaphor of sheep and shepherd.
In day-to-day conversation, we do this all the time.
We are literal in that we are trying to communicate something. And sometimes the details are literal: I went to the doctors office today. And other times we are non-literally, I was running around like a headless chicken!
In today's passage, Jesus stresses God's desire to find those who are lost. That is the face value point made metaphorically.
So we don't have to wonder, but won't the 99 left behind get scared? Or what if the shepherd has to spend so much time looking for the lost sheep that the 99 starve to death waiting for him to come back? Those kinds of consideration come in to play only if the face value point is made in a literal way.
Lord, thank you that you found me, a lost sheep! Help me to join you in finding the lost sheep in the world today.
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