Could you help me comprehend your seven days teaching with Biblical qoutes?
I would be happy to if it were possible.
Solving riddles does not lend itself to proof-texting like simple arguments over doctrine. A riddle by nature is unknowable by the contents of the riddle itself. You must know the trick in the riddle or know the solution then apply it back. So if someone tells you the answer to the riddle, you either ‘get it’ or you don’t. If you don’t get it, then drawing the picture so that you do can be very complex. It can be done, but it can be very involved.
So what do I mean by the trick? When is the ocean friendly? Someone who doesn’t know the trick may say “When it is shallow or calm.” The trick is that the riddle is not asking for a real condition, it is simple word play. The answer involves a word that may be used as a noun or a verb and the swapping of it produces a humorous result. Now I have explained the trick and you still don’t know the solution.
It is friendly when it waves at you. Now you get it or you don’t. If you still don’t get it, trying to explain it will be nearly impossible. Though you can understand that the word has multiple meanings, some cannot get past the literalist approach and will insist that the ocean does not have hands to wave at you. But this is the nature of riddle. It is word play. It is a genre of it’s own.
By some this is viewed as a stupid child’s game unworthy of God and the Bible. It is a child’s game, but it isn’t stupid. Mt 19:14 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. The Jews call the hidden meaning of scripture “Paradise”. Children recognize riddle because they naturally hear a word with multiple meanings at the same time and often pick the wrong meaning.
I believe the sensus plenior is there so the Jesus as a child would hear the double meanings and know exactly who he was and what he was to do, since he chose not to use his omniscience while in the flesh.
But it is not just simple child’s play it is also a game of God and kings: Pr 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
Riddling used to be the pastime of sovereign courts with the wagers being anything up to and including death. God ties his Glory to His ability to conceal a thing. He is wagering that you cannot discover the riddle until He reveals it… which He did in Christ Jesus.
And so he says the wise will seek out his riddles:
Pr 1:5 A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:
Pr 1:6 To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings (riddles).
If this were a simple riddle, I would be happy to do what you ask. This riddle involves the history in the Bible from Genesis through Rev. being divided into seven parts. Each part has a riddle containing the same pattern or theme that matches the seven days. Then each part is related to each day by a series of other riddles.
The purpose of the web site is to document the very thing that you ask. When that is done, so will the web site. For those who can ‘get it’ a very short conversation explains it such as the ocean waving. For those who don’t and do not wish to dive in to the explanations, there is no way to communicate the idea.
So for the short conversation:
Each period of history contains the same theme starting with a Fall or separation and ending with being fruitful.
Then each period is linked to the day by simple word association.
Day 1 is the separation of Law and Grace and represents “The Fall”
Day 2 is the Promise and is linked by the water and the rainbow
Day 3 is the desolation it is when the wheat and tares grow together Abraham didn’t get the promise yet, Isaac died relatively desolate, Jacob bore earthly children who then moved to Egypt. It is the idea of mixing. It is tied my mixing and ruling.
Day 4 is Israel in the desert. It is the renewing of the Word. It is tied by the multiple givings of the law by Moses and by Joshua.
Day 5 is Israel in the Promised land. This is the judgment. It is tied by their captivity.
Day 6 is the Life of Jesus. This is reconciliation.
Day 7 is the church which is the fruitful and multiplying.
This riddle is the most complex of any since it spans the whole Bible. I am hoping that those who get it, or almost get it will be willing and able to invest some time in the web site so that they too can see the riddles. So I kinda throw them out as a fishing expedition to see who may still have the childish ability.
The main trick to discerning the riddles is knowing that they all speak of Christ. That it is divine is demonstrated by the humanly impossible task of making them all theologically important statements about Christ, rather than silly accidents of the language such as the ocean waving at you.
