Christ in Children's Stories of the Bible ->Table of Contents
Introduction
There are many ways to study the Bible. When we understand the mystery which was hidden from the beginning [1], we have many more ways to approach our study.
This work is produced for children of our Sunday School class. We will take stories which are known to them, classic 'children's stories' from the Bible, and then re-examine them in light of the mystery to see Christ within them.
The hidden wisdom, the prophetic riddles, the hidden pictures of Christ are first identified by pattern. When scientists look for intelligent life in space, they look for patterns which stand out from the noise. In scripture, we 'feel' that patterns are there... Why is the number three seem important... or forty? There are subtleties which are commonly associated with the feel of 'something more'.
Making connections where there are none is called 'apophenia'. Examples are the faces of religious icons people see in cookies or pancakes. Is God capable of placing a picture of Jesus in your coffee using the cream swirls? Absolutely. Is it likely for him to do so when we really don't know what Jesus looked like?
How do we avoid apophenia when we look for prophetic pattern? We follow the rules. [2] One rule is particularly useful when avoiding apophenia; every symbol must be the same thing everywhere. This removes those observations where we impose meaning upon something rather than derive meaning from it.
The method of this study: remind the students of stories they have heard before, consider the symbols that we know from previous studies, and identify things that look like Christ, identify those symbols within the greater context of scripture to define observed patterns and dig into the formation of Hebrew words to validate our observation by the meaning of the words used.
By this method we will exercise our pattern recognition ability, practice validation methods, and learn a bit of Hebrew in the process.
References
- ↑ 1Co 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, [even] the hidden [wisdom], which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
- ↑ https://sensusplenior.net/wiki/Rules