The Differences Between Typology and Allegory
In recent theological scholarship there is a move to combine typology and allegory under the heading of figural reading.[1] Many Theological Interpretation of Scripture (TIS) advocates view typology and allegory as lying on a continuum, or posit that both belong to the same family of reading strategies. Much of this is driven by the push for theological retrieval, with TIS proponents arguing that distinguishing typology and allegory in the early church writings is impossible. Further, they argue that the patristic writers rightly applied literal and spiritual senses because the biblical texts carry deeper meanings that point beyond itself.
In some quarters of past evangelical scholarship, typology and allegory were distinguished in a simplistic or reductionistic manner. When one says that typology involves history and thus is acceptable while allegory is non-historical and to be rejected, this is an overly simplified attempt of distinguishing them. Further, while some evangelical scholars have appealed to church history to categorize typology as the approach of the Antiochene school (a notable figure being John Chrysostom) and allegory as the method of the Alexandrian school (influenced by Origen) in the fourth century, but this has been shown to be misguided.[2] Nevertheless, careful Bible readers must distinguish typology and allegory in order to avoid confusion and interpretative mistakes. Another critically important distinction is to separate biblical typology and allegory from typological or allegorical interpretation. This article seeks to address both issues in what follows.
Typology Is Not Allegory
Allegory and typology have literary characteristics that differ in the Bible. Just as there are many figures of speech and nonliteral language—metaphors, hyperboles, synecdoche, and metonymy—so there are also parables, symbols, analogies, prophecies, allegories, and typologies in Scripture as well. At a most basic level, an allegory is “to mean something other than what one says.”[3] Allegory as a literary form is an extended metaphor or a trope that illustrates a story or conveys a truth by personifying abstract concepts.[4] In an allegory, meaning is extended in terms of parallels or analogies between two or more ideas. A common example of an allegory is John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. But allegory is also found in Scripture; examples include Ezekiel 17:1–10, Ecclesiastes 12:3–7, Psalm 80:8–15, John 10:1–16, Ephesians 6:1–11, and arguably Matthew 22:1–14. In each of these passages there are literary features of extended metaphors or figures that represent or symbolize certain truths or concepts. In sum, an allegory describes a larger narrative episode that has features laden with symbols.
On the other hand, typology in Scripture is a special and unique phenomenon of special revelation. Biblical types are particular Old Testament persons, events, actions, and institutions that God has providentially intended and invested to correspond to, foreshadow, and prefigure escalated and intensified New Testament realities (antitypes).[5] There are many examples of types, such as Adam, the flood, the exodus, Melchizedek, the sacrificial system, the temple, and so on. Allegory features an episode with many elements of metaphor and imagery to convey a truth or idea. However, typological patterns in Scripture are more discrete as real phenomena—persons and events—correspond and anticipate future fulfillment in similar, yet different persons and events—primarily Jesus Christ and the redemption he accomplishes. Typology generally involves a heavenly prototype or archetype which corresponds to an Old Testament copy or shadow (the type), which in turn points to and is fulfilled in the New Testament antitype.
-
Water Heater Maintenance
Make your prayers for your minister more fervent than your complaints about his shortcomings. Let your children hear you praying for him and his calling. Your prayers will strengthen him before the throne room of grace, and they will soften your heart toward him. This is important, especially if the hot water stops running for a season.
Last week our water heater broke down. I thought the pilot light went out because we have had some heavy rains and flooding lately. As it turns out, it was not the pilot light going out, but rather the tank breathing its last. Due to busy schedules, our plumber could not replace it for a couple of days. Over those days we often thought about our lack of a hot water heater. I showered at the church building where I serve as pastor. We boiled water so that dishes could be properly washed. Unkempt children were allowed to ferment a bit longer than usual.
It was not suffering, by any means, but it was annoying and it disrupted our first-world lifestyle. We went from never thinking about our hot water heater to thinking about it quite a bit.
Consequently, I meditated on a conversation that I’d had during my seminary internship. At that time, one of my mentors said to me, “Nathan, pastors are often treated like hot water heaters. Nobody really thinks about them when they are working, but when they stop working, they are not repaired; instead they are quickly replaced.”
In my time of pastoral ministry, I have talked with several hurting pastors who would resonate with the water heater statement. Many pastors work extra-long hours, are unable to “turn off” care for the church when not working, preach while on vacation (to afford the vacation), and have very few outlets for reducing the stresses of ministry. A year or so ago, my doctor told me that she could often tell which patients were pastors based solely on their high cortisol levels (cortisol is a stress-related hormone that is produced in the adrenal glands). Pastors suffer from high rates of depression as well. Pastoral ministry, although extremely rewarding, often fun, and spiritually refreshing is a demanding calling that, for many, results in being—well—broken.
I need to acknowledge that many in the church, not just pastors, have high-stress vocations and are frequently left without refreshment. Burnout is a symptom of our 24-7 culture, not merely of the stress of pastoral ministry. As the Bishop of Winchester said, “When we talk about pastoral burnout, we need to be careful not to invalidate the exhaustion many feel in all of life (citation withheld).”
With that said, this article will specifically address pastoral ministry. Without proper spiritual, physical, and emotional maintenance, the high stress and high demand calling of pastoral ministry will result in burn out, which will too often lead congregations to replace their minister rather than invest in their broken one.
No one repairs a hot water heater.
As I thought about the similarities between the calling to bring God’s Word to his people and the calling to bring hot water to the home, these five ways of investing in “hot water heater maintenance” were among my meditations amid boiling water and fermenting children.
How can you help to provide maintenance for your pastor rather than replace him?
Pray for him
Consider having a stated time each week in which you pray for your pastor. Include this in family worship times as well. Frequently, the conversations in homes of church members revolve around what their pastor could be doing better, how he falls short, and what he missed in his sermon. Make your prayers for your minister more fervent than your complaints about his shortcomings. Let your children hear you praying for him and his calling.
Read More -
Neil Postman on Words and Images: An Antidote to Truth Decay
While Neil Postman’s critique of image-based and entertainment- focused culture dates to the middle of the 1980s, his warning about the dominance of the electronically-mediated image (which we watch) over the word (which we read) should still challenge us today, especially since the dangers he exposed are more potent today given the explosion of internet media.
My book on postmodernism, Truth Decay, assessed both the philosophy of postmodernism (nonrealism) and how cultural factors contributed to the postmodern view of truth as relative, negotiable, and constructed. Although we now hear less about postmodernism as a philosophy, it has taken root in the common mind and mood. I have found no better social critic to explain “truth decay” than social critic and media theorist, Neil Postman (1931–2003). By the term “truth decay,” I mean “a cultural condition in which the very idea of absolute, objective, and universal truth is considered implausible, held in open contempt, or not even seriously considered.”[1] I wrote that in 2000, but the situation has gotten far worse in the age of social media, influencers without knowledge or credibility, fake news, AI simulations (especially “deep fakes”), and more.
Nevertheless, one antidote to truth decay is an awareness of the potentially deceptive power of images and the need for spoken and written discourse to discern truth and find knowledge (justified true belief) through the evaluation of evidence and through reason. To that end, I will excerpt from and expand on sections from Truth Decay that address this issue of addressing reality aright, with frequent reference to Neil Postman’s, seminal book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, as well as his work Technopoly.
Information, Reading, and Watching
Postman describes the general problem of information overload, which is, paradoxically, tied to ignorance of reality.
The tie between information and human purpose has been severed, i.e., information appears indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, in enormous volume and at high speeds, and disconnected from theory, meaning, or purpose.[2]
We often do not know how to assess information for reliability, how to separate the wheat from the chaff. Thus, most Americans are well-informed, hyperactive ignoramuses. They are information-rich, information-ravenous, and knowledge-deprived. To use biblical language, they are “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming” (Eph. 4:14).
Moreover, most of this information is presented as entertainment or in entertainment-oriented form, usually dominated by alluring moving images. Hence the title of Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. Amuse literally means not to think (or muse). While Postman’s work was written pre-internet and focused on the rise and dominance of television, his essential insight is that the production and distribution of images made possible by television—and now overwhelmingly more so by the internet—debases our public discourse about religion, politics, education, and everything else.
Sociologist Jacques Ellul (1912–94) observes that the “visionary reality of connected images cannot tolerate critical discourse, explanation, duplication, or reflection”—all rational activities required for separating truth from error. Cognitive pursuits “presuppose a certain distance and withdrawal from the action, whereas images require that I continually be involved in the action.” The images must keep the word in check, keep it humiliated, since “the word produces disenchantment with the image; the word strips it of its hypnotic and magical power.”[3] Words can expose an image age as false or misleading, as when we read in a magazine that a television program “re-created” an event that never occurred.
When the image overwhelms and subjugates the word, the ability to think, write, and communicate in a linear and logical fashion is undermined. Television’s images have their immediate effect on us, but that effect is seldom to cause us to pursue their truth or falsity. Television’s images are usually shorn of their overall context and meaning and are reduced to factoids (at best). Ideas located within a historical and logical setting are replaced by impressions, emotions, and stimulations. While images communicate narrative stories and quantitative information well (such as graphs and charts), words are required for more linear and logical communication.
Read More
Related Posts: -
Natural Ability or Needy before God?
Watch out for this response: “I’ll try harder.” Men, in particular, are prone to say this, but given what I have learned, such a response is certain to fail. They might have good intentions, but this is foolishness for those who know Jesus. It sets us out on an independent path—without God—and as a result, without our spouse. If you think that you can do it on your own, you are, indeed, on your own.
In biblical counseling, we certainly hope to speak and write what is true. Even more, we prefer to write what is both true and lived. This story has been lived in marriage, which, for me, is a laboratory of love and wisdom that I hope affects my other relationships.
Over the last six months, my wife has had some erratic and difficult physical symptoms. From the moment they started, I knew they were alarming to her—and she rarely gets alarmed. Within the first few days, I knew that the symptoms were not simply going to pass, so I was committed to going through them with her. I didn’t know all the details of what that meant, but I knew it meant that I wanted to be a compassionate partner.
A month after the symptoms emerged, I had to go out of town for two nights. Though I think she misses me during those times, usually life remains business as usual for her. So I was surprised when she asked, “Do you have to go?” She had never asked such a question before. I responded that yes, I thought it best for me to go. As usual, I called her while I was gone. She mentioned that she was concerned about staying home by herself, which seemed unusual because she is not prone to fear. She said that the uncertainty about her health concerned her and thought it might be better to have other people around. When I called her the next day, she told me that she slept at our younger daughter’s house. When I asked why, she said because she didn’t want to die at home alone, scaring whoever would find her.
This motivated me to be more attentive and more determined to enter in, know her, and bear the burden with her. I knew that she wanted me to share in this experience, and I wanted to do that very thing. To that end, I would often ask her, “How are your symptoms today?” and “Tell me more about them; help me to understand.” I was confident that if I worked at understanding her, I could do it.
Read More
Related Posts:
