Some time back, I became intrigued with Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Dodgson) and his books Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.  These books for which he is best known contain a lot of nonsense words and silly rhymes. I had read where Carroll, (i.e. Dodgson) was a mathematician who also liked word games. I became convinced that Carroll / Dodgson had used his nonsensical wording to convey codes.  Afterall, that would make perfect sense for a man trained in mathematics and obsessed with clever word games.  After looking into it further, I discovered that that is exactly what he did.  In other words, I received corroboration for my hypothesis after the fact. Charles Dodgson had invented an alphabet cypher that he claimed was unbreakable.

 

The same thing happened to me when I studied the bible and started seeing parallels.  The importance is of course far, far more profound.  Bible parallels were employed by the writers under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and they are everywhere you look in the bible.  It was after my studies that I received corroboration.  I found that Jewish rabbis wrote about parallels hidden in the scriptures in the 12th century and Robert Lowth wrote about the subject in 1753. 

 

Lowth gave some examples. A synonymous parallel (as he called it) can be seen in Psalm 2:4...

He who sits in the heavens shall laugh;

The Lord holds them in derision.

 

Lowth used this example to describe  what he called an antithetic parallel in Proverbs 15:2...

The tongue of the wise makes knowledge acceptable,

But the mouth of fools spouts folly.

 

I prefer using the terms parallels and antiparallels.  I am convinced that God reveals His character by employing parallels and also tells His story through them.  They can even be seen in the prophetic sense by portraying future events as the story in Esther became a parallel for what unfolded at the Nuremberg trials (see my last post for details/ Nov. 9).

 

My personal conviction is that we the end-time church are the feet of the body of Christ.  Just as a baby is born with the feet being the last, so we are the last part of the body to be born.  Just as the feet of clay and iron are the end-time empire in Daniel, so we also are the feet of the body of Christ.  One foot to be caught up.  One foot to be persecuted and bruised by Satan for three and a half years.

 

On a different note, I wrote one time about some of the strange passages in the bible.  One of them was the truly weird passage in Judges where Samson slays 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass.  You have to admit that is really strange.  I don't believe it's in the scriptures to confound us, or amuse us.  I believe there is a hidden parallel though I don't know yet what it means.  It has to be there for a reason.

 

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness..."

2 Tim 3:16

 

It must be in my nature to keep digging.

 

YBIC

Bruce Baber