If we do not accept the symbolic truth of the Exodus account, then the propositional truths in the Bible diminish in potency. If the Bible student does not understand that the Exodus is the redemptive story of the Old Testament, then how can the Bible student understand the significance of redemptive story of Christ in the New Testament? If the Bible student cannot understand the typology of Moses, how can the Bible student appreciate the greater Moses? If the Bible student does not understand the narrative of the Exodus, there is little chance to understanding the Book of Hebrews.

Revelation is generally divided into two categories, general and special. Special revelation is revelation revealed through the writers of the Bible; general being the revealed truth of God through nature.
Within special revelation, a distinction should be made between propositional truth and narrative truth. Propositional truth is akin to the didactic truths written by Paul in his Epistles. Reformed people and evangelicals broadly are drawn to propositional statements in the Bible. They lend themselves to tweets, bumper stickers, catch phrases. John 3:16 is the paradigmatic example. However, large swaths of Scripture are not written propositionally.
RC Sproul called a certain hermeneutic relating to this appeal to catch phrase Christianity “lucky dipping.” In his example of lucky dipping, a Bible student opens the Bible and reads “Then he went off and hanged himself.” (Matthew 27:5) The hypothetical Bible student then flips to another page of Scripture and reads “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:37) Adopting a “lucky dipping” hermeneutic is not advisable. To understand Scripture, it is necessary to understand the metanarrative of the Bible.
In the history of special revelation, Paul and his didactic style comes at the end of special revelation as a kind of capstone to Moses, the prophets, and the writers of the New Testament. To be sure, there are didactic texts in the Old Testament and in the Gospels, but the point is that the most distilled didactic teaching is with Paul because he has the benefit of looking back at the Messianic fulfillments of Christ in his death, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost.
Accordingly, Christians are left with what to do about narrative. For most of the church, the approach appears to be to ignore it. However, ignoring the metanarrative of Scripture comes at a cost of distorting the propositional truth that the church embraces today and reducing the Christian faith to the affirmation of particular propositional truths instead of an embodied reliance on the person of Christ.
In George Sayour’s article Jordan Peterson and Christianity critiquing Peterson, we have examples of both of the failings described above with the loss of narrative truth. He states, “It is Jung’s archetypes that forms the basis for Peterson’s insights (some of them very good) and classes on Genesis and Exodus.  This spiritualizing of the text yet denying its historicity is nothing knew [sic] either.  Furthermore, he has consistently held out that the Bible is true even if it is not true historically.”
Sayour makes several fair observations critiquing Dr. Peterson’s understanding of the Trinity, the natures of Christ, and the historicity of Genesis and Exodus. However, one problem with Sayour’s article is that, while the historicity of Genesis and Exodus should be affirmed as a matter of orthodoxy, it does not then follow that Peterson’s assertions of the symbolic truth of Genesis and Exodus should be denied. Sayour does not say in the article definitively whether he denies the symbolic truth of the Genesis and Exodus account that Dr. Peterson discusses; however, he also does not affirm the truth of the symbology of Genesis and Exodus. Symbology which Dr. Peterson extensively discusses in his Biblical lectures.
Both aspects, the propositional and the symbolic truth, should be affirmed. The reason why millions of viewers watch Peterson in his Genesis and Exodus lectures is because he has gleaned behind where the church has left truth in the field. Peterson takes the Bible seriously and expounds on truths about the Bible in the same way Plato and the ancient Greek philosophers illuminated important truths. Where intellectuals have spoken truthfully, the church should affirm those statements – especially in those areas where the church has failed to maintain a consistent witness.
Perhaps the church is tempered in engagement of the narrative by a desire to avoid the type of modernist liberalism that the forebearers in the faith fought (e.g., Machen). Symbolism in Scripture is subjective. The church today dislikes subjectivism in part because it lives in postmodern subjectivism culture. So for conservative Christians, best to play it safe and say nothing about narrative which is subjective. However, even during the throes of fights with modernists, Reformed theologians did not distance themselves from understanding special revelation symbolically. The best example is Geerhardus Vos in his book Biblical Theology. The discipline of Biblical theology (better styled, the history of special revelation) engages the narrative in Scripture from the ontological perspective and maps the process of God revealing himself to a people he ultimately redeems.
If we do not accept the symbolic truth of the Exodus account, then the propositional truths in the Bible diminish in potency. If the Bible student does not understand that the Exodus is the redemptive story of the Old Testament, then how can the Bible student understand the significance of redemptive story of Christ in the New Testament? If the Bible student cannot understand the typology of Moses, how can the Bible student appreciate the greater Moses? If the Bible student does not understand the narrative of the Exodus, there is little chance to understanding the Book of Hebrews.
Note that the symbolic truth and the propositional truths in Scripture are not conflicting, but rather complimentary. Moses was a real man who lived in history, and simultaneously Moses is a picture of Jesus Christ. These truths are not inconsistent.
As for the second cost of ignoring narrative truth which reduces truth to abstract disembodied affirmations, Sayour states “To the Christian, Jesus Christ is not an example of one who attained the Logos through his suffering and obedience, but rather He IS the Divine Logos from the beginning of all time.” First, it is true that Jesus always existed and was never created; however, Jesus is also perfected through suffering (Hebrews 2:10). Does this perfection mean that he was not morally pure and righteous from before all time? No, it means that in order to fulfill his role as High Priest, Jesus had to suffer to identify with the people which he was saving and also to atone for the people he was saving (Hebrews 2:17).
If the church does not understand the centrality of the suffering obedience of Christ, it will not understand the imitation of Christ. Christians must connect the narrative of their suffering with the ultimate suffering of Christ. If the church fails to comprehend these matters, it will be left as an empty shell-like figure of orthodox shibboleths and catch phrases. The call of the Christian is to suffer for Christ’s sake; not to act as the keeper of dead truths.
Perhaps this misunderstanding explains why today the church in America has diminished influence on culture and politics. The disembodied affirmations lead to perspectives like ‘Christianity is simply the formula of justification and saving souls. When the barbarians make me recite that Jesus is not Lord or affirm a salvation of works, then God is interested in my cultural engagement.’ However, holding to the full truth of Scripture – both narrative and didactic – leads to a life of obedience and ultimately suffering mirroring that of Christ Jesus. Christ’s claim on the Christian life is without limit. By grappling with the narrative of the Bible, Christians will be transformed and will find that their suffering in Christ has meaning. Dr. Peterson frequently observes the relationship between suffering and meaning, and if Dr. Peterson added the words “in Christ” to his comments, he would have a fuller description of that relationship.
All speakers have wheat and chaff in their statements, and Christians should diligently search the Scriptures to discern speakers’ truth claims. That said, Dr. Peterson has recovered the redemptive narrative that the church has forgotten or neglected. This redemptive narrative, when combined with orthodox systematic theology, has the potential for breathing fresh life into enduring truth.
John Westercamp a member of Southside Reformed Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana

Written by Jeremy S. Adams |
Thursday, October 28, 2021
The notes about my father weren’t about test scores and college admission. They were about the universal aim of human flourishing. His former students flourished in their lives not because of my father’s compassion, but because of his inspiration.

My father passed away a few weeks ago. He had spent his entire working life teaching junior high and high school students. Most communities in our country possess a few teachers of my father’s ilk, educators who are considered local celebrities—the type who can rarely enter a restaurant or movie theatre without encountering at least a smattering of former students or thankful parents.
Often, teacher-celebrities teach for decades. They oversee successful academic, athletic, or artistic programs. They might even win a teaching award or two. But most of all, they are fondly remembered by their former students. They hear superlatives like, “You made a real difference in my life” or “I wouldn’t be where I am today without you.” They are localized versions of Jaime Escalante or non-fiction avatars of John Keating.
Still, I was overwhelmed by the volume of notes, e-mails, and letters I received from his former students, all painting a similar picture of my father: he was a tough teacher, a bit intimidating at first, but ultimately a man who helped generations of young people find their own paths in life. The letters were filled with powerful and colorful testimonials about his unwavering sense of purpose and ubiquitous passion.
One of the letters I received was from a former student who became both an ER doctor and an award-winning medical school instructor. Looking back on my father 35 years later, this is what he had to say:
Only through the natural course of time have I come to appreciate how he engaged his classroom, how he mastered the material he taught, and how he truly cared about his students. I now see his wisdom, humor, and devotion to his craft with a clarity I lacked at the time. His “tough love” approach, which seemed personal, mean, and unbearable at times to my immature 14-year-old brain, was exactly the inspiration and motivation I needed to push me to reach for my potential.
Here was a man who ardently believed in the Socratic method of teaching, walking up and down rows of desks, never allowing anyone to hide in a classroom crevice or sulk with proud indifference. Students eventually came to understand that his affection for them was intimately tied to his belief in their capacity to learn and achieve. After all, a good teacher doesn’t tolerate student ignorance or indifference.
And yet, my father would probably be appalled to learn that the Socratic method is woefully out of step with a generation of young people who find feelings—not facts, evidence, or knowledge—to be sovereign. Challenging a young person to defend the material they devour on TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter—and doing so in front of the entire class, mind you—would probably land him in a bit of hot water these days. Administrators would demand to know the learning objective to which his questioning was tied. Parents would complain about how “uncomfortable” their son or daughter now felt. Fellow teachers would counsel him, “Be careful. Let them think whatever they want to think.”
He never let students chew gum or even wear hats in class because a classroom is a serious place and serious places demand respectful behavior. If you were in his second period class (home room) you learned the proper cadence of the Pledge of Allegiance. “There is no comma after ‘nation’ and before ‘under God,’” he thundered at successive generations. He always respected those who didn’t say the Pledge for religious reasons but would probably be aghast at the blasé, nondescript platitudes offered up by modern students who can rarely articulate concrete reasons for sitting during the national anthem beyond avant-garde pieties about generalized “oppression” or “white supremacy.”
He taught short stories, essays, plays, and poetry if they were instructive about the human condition; he had too much regard for the transformative power of literature to ever use it as a political cudgel with which to insist upon different forms of “representation.” He never judged literature through a postmodern kaleidoscope of race, gender, or class.
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When Jesus says to us, Because I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you (John 15:19), he is NOT saying that Christians are universally hated by NON-CHRISTIANS. We are hated by the City of Man—by the ruler of this world, by the system of rebellion, humanism, and sin that both pulls on our heart strings to lure us and seeks to attack and destroy us. The average non-Christian is lost, hurting, and open to the love of Christ, like the woman at the well of Samaria.

A.  Reason #1. God’s very first command in the whole Bible to humans is Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth (Gen 1:28). As image bearers of God, Adam and Eve are created to be kings and queens over earth. They are to discover and unleash the potential God has put into planet earth, causing the earth and those humans God placed on the earth to flourish. They were to build culture; they were to turn the untamed garden into a beautiful, garden city. Out of love for God—allegiance to him—they were to rule over this process as his vice-regents, shaping that culture to please Him, according to the moral law of God written on their heart. God’s moral will on earth was to be done as it is in heaven. This command to the first humans was never abrogated by Jesus. Jesus did not undo this command but built upon it.
B. Reason #2. The second reason cultural withdrawal is wrong is that it is based on a misunderstanding of the term, world, in Scripture. Here is the background behind this term. When Adam and Eve joined Satan’s alliance to rebel against the High King, they unleashed the power of Satan, sin, and death upon kingdom earth. Adam and Eve’s kingdom has now become a realm where two loves, two allegiances compete. The great theologian, Augustine, describes human existence since the fall as two kingdoms existing side by side, which he likens to cities. He says, Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self (City of God.) The biblical term for this “earthly city” is the world.
This is very confusing because world can mean, “the earth with its inhabitants and all things upon it.” Scripture often uses “world” with this meaning, e.g. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the  world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God (Ps 90:2). But Webster also tells us world can mean, “the concerns of the earth and its affairs as distinguished from heaven and the life to come.” So, “the world” can refer to a system of thinking, a way of life that contrasts to the way of life in heaven. In other words, the term, world is used in Scripture BOTH for the sphere of human life on earth where the clash of two kingdoms takes place and as a synonym for one of the two kingdoms, i.e. the kingdom of darkness, i.e. the City of Man, the attitudes and perspective of sin—to a way of life shaped by the love of self to the contempt of God in contrast to a way of life shaped by the love of God, to the contempt of self.
This second definition of world as contrasting with the righteous life of heaven is the meaning of the world in John 15:19: Because I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. In this verse, the term, world, DOES NOT REFER TO OUR CURRENT CULTURE but to the kingdom of darkness at work in the culture. Again, the world does NOT refer to the non-Christians around me or the Internet, but the system of thinking—the worldview, the values of the lost world, the thinking and behavior that contrast to the righteous way of life in heaven. Here are some examples of this frequent use of the term, world, in the NT.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience (Eph 2:1).
He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world” (John 8:23).
Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out (John 12:31).
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Gal 6:4)
You once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience (Eph 2:2).
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (James 1:27).
We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19).

Withdrawal from the culture is wrong because it is based on a misunderstanding of the term, world. We are to turn our backs on the enticement and values of the fallen world but not on the sphere of human existence where this battle is taking place (culture) or on those being harmed by Satan and sin’s attacks.
C. Reason #3.  Jesus reaffirmed God’s command to Adam and Eve in Genesis 1 to shape culture, subduing the earth in a way that pleases the High King when he calls his followers to make disciples of the nations. The Great Commission begins with the words, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”   After sin entered the world, humans only have the power to fulfill this creation calling in the power of Christ, the Second Adam who at the cross redeemed Adam’s kingdom from its slavery to Satan Sin, and Death. In fact, Jesus taught his followers that recovering and pursuing this calling is their highest priority. He commanded “seek first the kingdom of God and his rightness-for-creation” (which is what the term righteousness means). We are called to seek the rule of Christ’s moral law in every sphere of life—starting with our own hearts, and accomplishing Christ’s agenda in our heart attitudes, marriages, families, workplaces, neighborhoods, and nation.
We do this, however, not by military conquest, i.e. forcing that law on citizens (which is called theonomy). Christianity’s view of kingdom expansion is the opposite of radical Islam’s pursuit of the Caliphate, which practices jihad in slaughtering religious opponents and forcing Sharia Law on those who survive. Rather, Jesus repudiated the use of force, saying My kingdom is not of this world, and teaching that his kingdom grows not through political coercion but through Christians’ influence in the culture as salt, light, and leaven which spreads over the earth. Tuesday’s election is an opportunity for us to demonstrate that influence through voting, although our calling to shape culture in a fallen world goes way beyond voting.
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