Pastor John, here's a question about Bible reading and interpretation.

It seems that the miracles of Jesus can be so situational that it can be hard to know what

the takeaways are from the stories as we read them in the Gospels.

How do you process the miracles of Jesus in your own personal devotions?

I was reading, I think day before yesterday in my trek through the Bible with Machines

Bible reading plan, Matthew 16, and Jesus says to the disciples, beware of the leaven of

the Pharisees.

So clearly he's using a metaphor, and I say clearly, I wasn't so clear to the disciples.

They start squabbling with each other about, oh, we didn't bring any bread, we didn't

bring any bread, and Jesus is concerned or upset with us, that we don't have any bread

with us.

And Jesus hears them, and he says to them, hey, do you remember the 5,000 and the 12

loaves left over, and the 7,000 and the 7 loaves left over, how is it that you don't

understand that I did not speak about bread?

Now, when I read that in my devotion, I just stopped and said, what is Jesus saying?

That if they had really understood his miracle, those two miracles where he fed thousands

with a little bit of bread, if they had understood that, they would have perceived the meaning

of his metaphor, and it might take away, I haven't thought through to the bottom of this

yet, but Jesus said, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, they totally misunderstood

him, missed the metaphorical meaning, and went straight to the literal meaning, and Jesus

says, that was too good because if you understood my miracles, you wouldn't have made that mistake,

which means that there are mistakes we make in the language of Scripture, in understanding

...