Articles
It's Like...
It’s true that the common English phrase, “It’s like” has been around for a long time, including common use in other languages for centuries, even millennia, its use dramatically increased in American culture, vernacular beginning in the 1950’s with an enormous spike in the 1980’s with California’s “Valley Girl” culture. The so called “Val speak.”
Some modern linguists, consider such “it’s like” phrases as “filler words” and associated with informal, sloppy or lazy thinking and speaking. Hum?
Maybe so, but it seems also to play a very legitimate and useful role in how we acquire and understand new knowledge, insights and wisdom. Comparing, making connections, distinctions, and similarities between something known and something new.
“It’s like” the seven times Jesus said, “The kingdom of Heaven is like” in Matthew chapter thirteen as he compared the kingdom of heaven to seven commonly understood aspects of life.
Another form of “it’s like” comes by way of analogies and metaphors, where the “it’s like” connection is made by analogy that explains a relationship by comparing it to something else, and a metaphor directly equates two unlike things.
There are four distinct analogies used in scripture that are clearly meant to help us understand from physical things, spiritual things, that are deep, eternal and reflect the reality of things unseen.
These four analogies in focus here are related to the ecclesia, the called-out body, the church, the chosen special people, holy, separate and zealous for good work.
• First the church is compared to the body of Christ
• Second the church is described as the family of God
• Third the church is described as bride of Christ
• Fourth the church is described in terms of a vine and its branches.
Each of these analogies help us draw from common physical realities that we have an understanding of and make a connection to spiritual relationships that are just as real as the ones we experience every day.
These analogies draw from the “ideals” of each type. A healthy body, a loving family, a beautiful bride and a flourishing vine with bountiful and good fruit.
Now…by analogy how are we “doing” as each analogy creates the image and the comparison between us and the body, us and the family, us and the bride, us and the branches?
