Words of the Bible

Certain words in the Bible occur again and again and have a special metaphoric meaning. Let's list a few of them here and give some examples of their recurrence:

angel:
The dictionary of the word gave 7 meanings. This discussion focuses on the first two:
      a) a messenger of God or a supernatural being (either good or bad)
      b) a guiding spirit or influence

      A large book could be written describing biblical usage of the word angel. Here we confine ourselves to the angels of Revelation, the first one being the angel of God sent to "his servant John"
      On instructions from this messenger John proceeds to write to the 7 angels of the 7 churches under his care. Walter Wink in Unmasking the Powers (1985) gave us an inkling of angels in this context.

Powers in the Bible closely resemble and include angels. They are often assocated with principalities. They are not human entities, but represent spiritual forces influencing mankind, as in Ephesians 6:12. Go to Powers.

Communion

Communion is the most common name for the primary Christian sacrament. Some people call it The Lord's Supper and others call it the Eucharist. All three terms refer to the church's reenactment of certain passages in the New Testament, namely Matthew 26:26ff,
Mark 14:22ff,
Luke 22:19,
Corinthians 11:23-27

      Through the ages the meaning of this sacrament (or ceremony if you prefer) has been the subject of much controversy among church leaders: Catholics presumably believe that the bread and wine are miraculously transubstantiated into the actual body and blood of Christ.
      A somewhat more naturalistic theory is called consubstantiation.
      the practices of various denominations are treated at length in a Wikipedia document called Ecclesial communities contrasted.
      From Crystal, a fellow Bible scholar comes this interesting poem attributed to Queen Elizabeth I about communion:
      'Twas God the Word that spake it,
      He took the bread and brake it;
      And what the Word did make it;
      That I believe and take it.

Death

This word has a very special meaning in the New Testament-- and among recent theologians.
      "Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Romans 7:24) Obviously it doesn't connote physical death here, but an abject state of sin.
      1st John 3:14 We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.
      From 1st John, as with Paul we see that death refers to living in a state of sin. Repenting, being forgiven, we no longer "abide in death", but are said to live in a state of grace. So you could say that death is the opposite of grace-- a sense of unredeemed fallenness.
      Stringfellow said that principalities (subhuman social entities) practice the idolatry of death. He was the forerunner of those who write about the domination system, a graphic term for what we used to call the fallen world. So originated the dichotomy between the kingdom of God and the domination system, which Paul and other N.T. writers spoke of as life and death.

Fallen

This word has almost disappeared from the secular culture, and probably many 'religious' people as well. But we hear about Fallenness in the Bible right after the stories of the Origin.
      The reality of the Fall runs all through the Bible. Looking at the Myth you will see it happening repeatedly since the days of Adam. In the Psalms we hear about it repeatedly.
      Paul describes it clearly in Romans 7:22-3 and Walter Wink gave a very detailed analysis of how it impacts our present circumstances. In his lengthy discussions of the Domination System he found us all guilty, at the very least of acquiesence in an evil order of society.
      Wink wrote on page 72 of Engaging the Powers that although "the doctrine of the Fall has been perverted to justify the worst kinds of oppression,", the "gladsome doctrine" indicates that we were good in the beginning, we fell, and we have been/are/will be redeemed. He indicated that the "Church is fallen along with the Empire."
      "we have been trained, schooled, cajoled, and bullied into defecting from [God's values] in favor of the values of the world."

3: What can we say about the Fall? Thousand page books have been written about it. Some Catholics call it the happy sin because it leads eventually to Christ's redemptive life. Psychologists see it as the birth of consciousness: beasts don't worry; they may be happy or sad, but they don't reflect.

Adam and Eve chose knowledge, which induced guilt. The critical faculty is still condemned on all sides: "DON'T JUDGE!" people constantly say. But not to judge makes one closer to the beasts. Paul said that we will judge angels. To choose to reach up toward intellect leads to all sorts of problems---and moves us up toward God. Christ negated the prohibition against knowledge: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect." Matthew 5:48.

Everyone must make of the Fall what he can. What I have said is only one small element in the abundance of meanings that have come into people's minds. The Bible does not inform us about the meaning of the sin of Adam and Eve, so we must draw our own conclusions about what it means. Historically, in the earliest days, it was associated with sexual knowledge, which made sexuality an enemy of religion for all future generations.

For more sophisticated readers it was associated with the birth of consciousness. There is no good or evil until someone has sufficient level of consciousness (and conscience) for the birth of the idea. They were disobedient; they knew good and evil. Hencefore that dualism has characterized civilization in every particular. "Lower" animals lack such a disability; they follow their instinctual paths. Humankind, after Adam and Eve's act find it necessary to judge their actions.

According to the story their act was the time when sin began to happen. Sinful or conscious it determined the shape of our psyche thereafter.

In a simpler age men simply assumed that they had disobeyed God and that was that. Many in our age are still content with that explanation. But to the degree that we are all part of the Fall we must ask ourselves, what does this disobedience mean? Why was the rule instigated? For the Bible those are the things of God, which man cannot understand, but thinking people have to wonder, and that is creative. If it was evil, God has made it into a good.
For a mythologically sophisticated comment on the Garden incident look at this post from my blog.

Fire:
Fire as a metaphor has a bad name among conventional Christians, since Hell is thought to be such a fiery place, but generally in the Bible it has more positive connotations.
Fire generally signals the presence of God, not Satan. Look at
Exodus 3:2
Exodus 13:21
Deuteronomy 4:11
2nd Kings 2:11
Acts 2:3

Grace

Grace is the chief spiritual gift of God to us. In the O.T. we find several characters who have found grace, notably Noah,

Light:
Throughout the Bible the physical quality of light is the basic metaphor for the spiritual qualities of goodness, truth, reality, all of the desireable qualities of a spiritually oriented life. See for example:
Esther 8:16
Job 30:26
Psalms 4:6
Proverbs 4:18
Ecclesiastes 2:13
Isaiah 5:20
Isaiah 9:2
John 1:4f
John 8:12 and many, many others.

The first mention of light occurs in Genesis 1:3; this has a close connection with John 1:5, from which we understand that Jesus is the light. John in fact quotes him to that effect in John 9:5.
This comparison make it clear that the O.T. and N.T. both have a start with the light of the world-- called day in Genesis and identified with Christ in John.

Darkness and light have both a material and a spiritual dimension. For 'light' see above; darkness is the realm of chaos, which turns to order with the appearance of light.

In Exodus 20:21ff we discover that 'darkness' symbolizes something entirely different. Metaphors are fluid, and certain metaphors are used for something and its opposite. Look for example at the serpent, symbol of incarnate evil, but also symbol of wisdom.

Meek:
      This word is not often used in the Bible, but included here because the meaning applied to it in the King James Version is so often misinterpreted. The concept first occurs in Numbers 12:3:
"Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth."
      The most famous occurence was from the Sermon on the Mount. "MAT 5:5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth."
      Wesley's notes: "Happy are the meek - They that hold all their passions and affections evenly balanced. They shall inherit the earth - They shall have all things really necessary for life and godliness. They shall enjoy whatever portion God hath given them here, and shall hereafter possess the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
      The first definition of 'meek' in Webster: "patient and mild, not inclined to anger or resentment". Unfortunately the second definition is the one we usually apply.

Very often you may hear someone say, "I don't like to be meek." This stems from the unfortunate understanding of the word according to Webster's second definition.

Powers and Principalities These terms have a very special meaning in the N.T. We find them first in Romans 8:38, then in Ephesians 3:10 and in 6:12. Also in Colossians 1:16 and in 2:15. See also the note to Ephesians 6:12.
Of all these places the one at Ephesians 6:12 gives us the best clue as to what the words mean: ".....against spiritual wickedness is high places". Chapter Two also gives us some idea. He's talking about the things of the Devil, with whom we had conversation. (My understanding suggests that I still do, though hopefully to a lessening degree.)
You may find further light on this subject at the citation on Walter Wink, who believed that these 'powers' were created good, but fell, and are to be redeemed.

The World

The world in the N.T. has a very special connotation. It refers to the fallen state of life before the coming of the kingdom of God. The term runs all through the N.T., but look especially at Revelations 11:15.
     I get the impression that the world was more negative for Paul than for Jesus. Jesus was not negative about the world, but about the care of this world.
      John Sanford wrote "A Psychological Commentary on the Gospel of John" named Mystical Christianity. On page 72 he tells us that John used "the world" or "this world" 67 times in his gospel. He goes on to say the Greek world, cosmos referred "not simply to the earth... but also to the spiritual order prevalent among people "often in opposition to God's will".
      So we find that in the N.T. the world generally refers to a human kingdom in opposition to the kingdom of God. (These are all spiritual categories.)