- Joined
- Apr 25, 2006
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Picture language
'I looked, and I saw' EZEKIEL 1:4
God gave Ezekiel some of the maddest visions any human eyes have ever seen. His book in the Old Testament (in between Lamentations and Daniel) is bursting with vision after vision; for 48 chapters! If you're serious about getting to know God through His Word, sooner or later you'll need to tackle books like this. The understanding won't come all at once (and you'll probably need quite a bit of help from Christian friends further down on the journey than you) but God wants to speak to you from every single page of His Word. None of it is just padding!
One of the special things about Ezekiel, like many of the 'prophetic books' (including Revelation too), is that it is full of picture language; pictures that have meanings deeper than just the surface. Let's look at an example. In his first vision Ezekiel is shown four heavenly creatures; with four faces each! The face of a lion, the face of an eagle, the face of a man, and the face of an ox. Can you guess what these faces might represent?
Pause for a minute and think about it. If you can then you're on your way to understanding the Bible on an even deeper level. So what did you get? Well the lion is a generally a sign of kingship, the eagle of vision, the man of intelligence and the ox symbolises strength in service. Still scared of those 'prophetic books'? Nah!
witten by Bob Gass
'I looked, and I saw' EZEKIEL 1:4
God gave Ezekiel some of the maddest visions any human eyes have ever seen. His book in the Old Testament (in between Lamentations and Daniel) is bursting with vision after vision; for 48 chapters! If you're serious about getting to know God through His Word, sooner or later you'll need to tackle books like this. The understanding won't come all at once (and you'll probably need quite a bit of help from Christian friends further down on the journey than you) but God wants to speak to you from every single page of His Word. None of it is just padding!
One of the special things about Ezekiel, like many of the 'prophetic books' (including Revelation too), is that it is full of picture language; pictures that have meanings deeper than just the surface. Let's look at an example. In his first vision Ezekiel is shown four heavenly creatures; with four faces each! The face of a lion, the face of an eagle, the face of a man, and the face of an ox. Can you guess what these faces might represent?
Pause for a minute and think about it. If you can then you're on your way to understanding the Bible on an even deeper level. So what did you get? Well the lion is a generally a sign of kingship, the eagle of vision, the man of intelligence and the ox symbolises strength in service. Still scared of those 'prophetic books'? Nah!
witten by Bob Gass
