The Principalizing Bridge and Biblical Interpretation

On Floating Axheads and Hungry Dragons

Excerpt:

The average Christian, even the one who attends church regularly, lives in two different worlds. On Sunday morning, from eleven o’clock to noon, such a person lives in a world in which axheads float, rivers stop as if dammed, donkeys speak, people walk on water, dead persons come back to life, even days after death, and a child is born to a virgin mother. But during the rest of the week, the Christian functions in a very different atmosphere.

Comments: From Grasping God’s Word: A Hands-on Approach to Reading, Interpreting and Applying the Bible p 46. The numbers in the image above

1. Grasp the text in "their town." What did the text mean to the original audience?
2. Measure the width of the "river" to cross. What are the differences between the Biblical audience and us?
3. Cross the "principalizing bridge." What is the theological principle in the text?
4. Consult the biblical map. How does our theological principle fit with the rest of the Bible.
5. Grasp the text in "our town." How should individual Christians today live out the Biblical principle?