Metaphors in the Text
A Jackpot with a Countdown Timer
Let’s imagine this situation: in a very posh casino, with a very unique promotion, and some crazy luck, not one but two people end up hitting an “Easy Money” jackpot at 11:00 pm exactly. The time stamp is important, because this never-before and never-to-be-repeated jackpot comes with $50,000 of the house’s money; but there’s a catch. (Of course there’s a catch.)
A Place to Call Home
Whenever you visit a place linked to strong memories, the experience can be filled with a sense of homecoming. But it’s not the same as it used to be. That combination of feelings helps us think about our relationship with our current home in the world, and what it means for us to be foreigners and exiles in what is our home, but not our home the way it was, and not our home the way it will one day be.
A Loving God with Dirty Hands
Your Heavenly Father rejects a remote control approach to your discipleship walk. You know: God way up there somewhere, pushing some buttons or pulling a few levers behind the curtain to make things happen in your life. Instead, in the person and work of Jesus, God rolls up metaphorical sleeves, puts on an artist’s smock, […]
Look, Lift Up Your Eyes, And See
Warfare, Containers, Harvest, Living Water, and the LCMS Constitution and Bylaws By Justin Rossow One of my favorite moments in the Gospels comes in John, chapter 4, right after the Samaritan woman at the well leaves her empty jug behind to share what she has seen about this Jesus guy: So the woman left her […]
The Dead Sea and the River of Life
by Justin Rossow The following sermon is based on the vision recorded in Ezekiel 47:1-12. Revelation 22:1-7a and John 4 were also used in worship that day. We often think of metaphor as using something we know to help us understand something we don’t know. While that may often be the case, it’s hardly a […]
Source and Target, Target, Target Domains
If you know even the basics of contemporary metaphor theory, then you know that in the metaphor “Richard is a gorilla,” what we know (or think we know) about gorillas is the “Source domain.” The metaphor works by taking what we know and expect and how we reason about gorillas and mapping those inferences and […]
Abide With Me: A Case Study
Part 2 of a 2-part series. (You can go to part 1 here.) “Abide with Me” and A Lifetime is a Day My professor, David Maxwell, encouraged me to do a close analysis of the hymn “Abide with Me,” by Henry F. Lyte (1793–1847), and he mentioned that it was one of his favorites. Well, […]
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