Using Scripture to Create Timeless Cultural Analogies
Scripture itself employs material comparisons to convey spiritual truths. Aquinas observes that "it is natural to man to attain to intellectual truths through sensible objects, because all our knowledge originates from sense," and therefore "spiritual truths are fittingly taught under the likeness of material things" [4]. This principle—that divine revelation accommodates human capacity—grounds the biblical use of metaphor, parable, and typology. The question of creating new cultural analogies from Scripture, however, requires distinguishing between the text's own analogical method and the interpreter's extrapolation.
The Biblical Precedent
Paul explicitly models this practice in 1 Corinthians 2:13, where he speaks of "comparing spiritual things with spiritual" [6]. Chrysostom understood this as illustrating Gospel mysteries by comparing them with Old Testament types, while Grotius saw it as expounding Spirit-inspired Scripture through the Gospel lens [6]. The New Testament writers themselves drew analogies from their cultural context—athletic contests, military imagery, household management—to illuminate revealed truth. This suggests that analogy-making is not foreign to scriptural interpretation but intrinsic to it.
The Danger of Displacement
Yet the Reformed tradition warns against allowing interpretive frameworks to supplant scriptural authority. Hodge argues that making tradition "a part of the rule of faith subverts the authority of the Scriptures," because when two standards exist, "it is of necessity the interpretation which determines" meaning [1]. Cultural analogies risk becoming autonomous traditions if they claim equal authority with the text itself. The analogy must remain servant, not master.
The Stumbling Block Principle
Origen notes that Scripture intentionally includes "stumbling-blocks, as it were, and offences, and impossibilities" to prevent readers from being "drawn away in all directions by the merely attractive nature" of surface-level reading [2]. This suggests that not all biblical content is meant to be immediately translatable into cultural parallels. Some passages resist analogy precisely to force engagement with their strangeness. Matthew Henry acknowledges this tension, noting that genealogical discrepancies might tempt us to wish certain texts unwritten, yet "the things necessary to salvation are plain enough" [3].
The legitimacy of cultural analogy depends on its function: illuminating what Scripture already teaches, not generating novel doctrine. Calvin insists that Scripture contains "sentiments which it is clear that man never could have conceived," rising "far higher than human reach" [5]. Analogies drawn from contemporary culture must serve this transcendent content, not domesticate it. When analogy clarifies, it fulfills Scripture's own pedagogical method; when it replaces, it becomes the tradition that Hodge warns against.
Sources
- CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, section 37: hundreds of folios in which these traditions are recorded? Surely a guide to the interpretation of the latter must be far more needed than one for the Scriptures. Tradition destroys the Authority of the Scriptures. 6. Making tradition a part of the rule of faith subverts the authority of the Scriptures. This follows as a natural and unavoidable consequence. If there be two standards of doctrine of equal authority, the one the explanatory, and infallible interpreter of the other, it is of necessity the interpretation which determines the f”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “ANF Vol 4: Tertullian IV, Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen — FROM THE GREEK.: 15. But since, if the usefulness of the legislation, and the sequence and beauty[1] of the history, were universally evident of itself,[2] we should not believe that any other thing could be understood in the Scriptures save what was obvious, the word of God has arranged that certain stumbling-blocks, as it were, and offences, and impossibilities, should be introduced into the midst of the law and the history, in order that we may not, through being drawn away in all directions by the merely attractive nature of the”
- 1 Chronicles (Nonconformist/Puritan) “Matthew Henry on 1 Chronicles 1 (introduction): This chapter and many that follow it repeat the genealogies we have hitherto met with in the sacred history, and put them all together, with considerable additions. We may be tempted, it may be, to think it would have been well if they had not been written, because, when they come to be compared with other parallel places, there are differences found, which we can scarcely accommodate to our satisfaction; yet we must not therefore stumble at the word, but bless God that the things necessary to salvation are plain enough. And since the wise God ha”
- theology (Catholic (Scholastic)) “Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part (Prima Pars), The Nature and Extent of Sacred Doctrine, Art. 9: Article: Whether Holy Scripture should use metaphors? I answer that, It is befitting Holy Writ to put forward divine and spiritual truths by means of comparisons with material things. For God provides for everything according to the capacity of its nature. Now it is natural to man to attain to intellectual truths through sensible objects, because all our knowledge originates from sense. Hence in Holy Writ, spiritual truths are fittingly taught under the likeness of material things. This is wha”
- CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 24: regard to the Holy Scriptures, however petulant men may attempt to carp at them, they are replete with sentiments which it is clear that man never could have conceived. Let each of the prophets be examined, and not one will be found who does not rise far higher than human reach. Those who feel their works insipid must be absolutely devoid of taste. 3. As this subject has been treated at large by others, it will be sufficient here merely to touch on its leading points. In addition to the qualities already mentioned, great weight is ”
- 1 Corinthians (Presbyterian) “Jamieson, Fausset & Brown on 1 Corinthians 2:13: also--We not only know by the Holy Ghost, but we also speak the "things freely given to us of God" (Co1 2:12). which the Holy Ghost teacheth--The old manuscripts read "the Spirit" simply, without "Holy." comparing spiritual things with spiritual--expounding the Spirit-inspired Old Testament Scripture, by comparison with the Gospel which Jesus by the same Spirit revealed [GROTIUS]; and conversely illustrating the Gospel mysteries by comparing them with the Old Testament types [CHRYSOSTOM]. So the Greek word is translated, "comparing" (Co2 10:”