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To: 50sDad
<< Praytell, Christ said that "I am the door". What kind of hinges does He have? >>

My humble apologies - I was unaware that English was not your first language.

The English language has some tools which are used for comparative purposes, among them are analogies, similies, metaphors, hyperboles, euphenisms, and others.

This expression is a metaphor, because it doesn't use a comparative term such as 'like' or 'as'. An example of a simile would be "A day is AS a thousand years".

Such phrases would make no sense at all if the comparative object was not LITERAL in the first place. Jesus is COMPARED to a door because He has SOME qualities of a literal door - that doesn't mean He is identical to a literal door, but He is the portal a person must go through to be given salvation (portal, that is another comparative term). The context determines what qualities of the literal object apply to what it is being compared to.

When the Bible says the heaven and earth were created in six days - the term 'day' must be literal, normal, as generally understood, or subsequent comparisons (such as the one mentioned above with the thousand years, or comparisons with weeks, months, seasons, and years given in Genesis) would make no sense at all. To say a day is AS 1,000 years would be meaningless if a day could be anywhere from 24 hours to 20 billion years. To say Adam was 930 years old would mean nothing if he had already lived through two days that were millions of years long.

And the subsequent statement from the same verse, that 1,000 years is AS a day, would make comprehension even more confusing, because then a day could be 1,000 times shorter than a day, rather than 1,000 years.

To summarize - the creation days are literal, they are not being compared to something else. No figure of speech is being used. But the example you gave is a grammatical tool called a figure of speech, specifically, a metaphor.
152 posted on 08/11/2003 1:14:02 PM PDT by Con X-Poser
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To: Con X-Poser
My humble apologies - I was unaware that English was not your first language.

Hey, brother, I may not be 100% in your flight path, but that was a slam. I'm not aware that in this discussion, a friendly one I thought, I had said anything that was in any way demeaning or degrading of you, although I may disagree with your presentation. That was a slam, you know it, and it is not within the Spirit to do so, either to another Christian or to those outside the Faith. We are to be encouragers of each other, as I read the text. That was just mean, and you know it.

169 posted on 08/11/2003 2:07:50 PM PDT by 50sDad ("Can't sleep...clowns will eat me!")
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To: Con X-Poser
Great post. It's easy for people to forget (or never understand) that this is GOD we are talking about...Creator of the Universe.

We cannot try to put his actions into the context of our abilities and understanding.

305 posted on 08/11/2003 8:24:05 PM PDT by NewLand (The truth can't be ignored...but can be feared and avoided)
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