Searching For God Knows What - VI

October 26, 2007 | Filed Under books, donald miller, gospel |

donald-miller-2.jpgHere is another excerpt from my favorite chapter of Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller. In this section of chapter 10 Miller is discussing the dominant metaphors used to describe our relationship with God. He argues that many of the attempts we make to explain the gospel somehow miss this crucial relational dynamic.

Miller writes:

“Biblically, you are hard-pressed to find theological ideas divorced from their relational context. There are, essentially, three dominant metaphors describing our relationship with God: sheep to a shepherd, child to a father, and bride to a bridegroom. The idea of Christ’s disciples being His mother and father and brothers and sisters is also presented. In fact, few places in Scripture speak to the Christian conversion experience through any method other than relational metaphor.

Contrasting this idea, I recently heard a man, while explaining how a person could convert to Christianity, say the experience was not unlike deciding to sit in a chair. He said that while a person can have faith that a chair will hold him, it is not until he sits in the chair that he has acted on his faith.

I wondered as I heard this if the chair was a kind of symbol for Jesus, and how irritated Jesus might be if a lot of people kept trying to sit on Him.

And then I wondered at how Jesus could say He was a Shepherd and we were sheep, and that the Father in heaven was our Father and we were His children, and that He Himself was a Bridegroom and we were His bride, and that He was a King and we were His subjects, and yet we somehow missed His meaning and thought becoming a Christian was like sitting in a chair.”

Bookmark and Share

Leave a Comment

If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.

Name

Email

Website

Comments