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Kingdom Metaphors
Metaphors for the Kingdom
The Bible itself contains many metaphors of how the Kingdom of God will look, or of the characteristics of God in His Kingdom. The paper "And Finally…the Kingdom of God is Like…" gives several contemporary examples of what people have seen of the Kingdom and the characters who inhabit it. Such as the Holy Spirit being a guiding star. This paper takes a look at one of the example metaphors from the essay by Tame and also provides a personal metaphor of the kingdom.
Metaphors are meant to be a common picture that can be related something that people want to understand better. Tame (2005) talks about a college as a metaphor of the kingdom of God, or at least entry into the Kingdom of God. In the United States, anyone can go to college, and anyone can enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but there is a difference. To enter the Kingdom of God one has to accept the offer to enter and freely accept it. It is difficult to get a full-ride scholarship to college, it takes exceptional academic or athletic skill, the same cannot be said of the Kingdom of God. The college metaphor speaks to the fact that qualified students, those that have accepted the...
The college is filled with people who are able to teach the new students and help them grow. The metaphor works well to an extent, but it does talk about those who fail the curriculum and are dropped from the college. As a metaphor for the Kingdom, no one would ever be dropped, but people may people make different grades as, in life, they try to grow thorough the mistakes people make. Once a person enters the college, no one will fail because they are already a part of the Kingdom.
The instructors are all experienced and been well vetted by the colleges Master. They understand the Master, His curriculum and what He wants the students to learn. The students, as they grow in the curriculum, become peer teachers and counselors who are able to help the newer entrants to better understand what is being taught and possibly add a small bit of personal experience to the teaching.
Graduation day is sad and happy as it is with a normal college graduation day. The death of a loved one is tragic for the people who are left behind both for fellow students…
References
Tame, K. (2005). And finally…The Kingdom of God is like this…. Expository Times, 116(7).
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