As I learn something, I share it with you. That’s the way it has been for the past nineteen years, and that’s the way it will continue until Christ returns. For the past year, we have been using the acronym COMA for Bible study. Hopefully, we have said it so often that everyone, from our pre-teens to our most senior saints, thinks COMA when it comes to Bible study. (COMA: context, observation, meaning, and application)
Today, I want to introduce two new words that fit within COMA: concrete and abstract. During the observation step, we look for concrete elements in the text, and in the meaning step, we ask how those concrete elements point us to something abstract. As I read Scripture (observation), I encounter many things that are concrete, like circumcision, wine, bread, lamb, wheat, tares, birth, a cup, light, lamp, water, robe, staff, vine, branches, wind, the temple, the tabernacle, seed, and a sower. Of course, that list is ridiculously too short, but it gets us started.
By concrete, I mean real, tangible, physical—like a door or a gate. I say “door,” and even a three-year-old can create a mental image of a door. But when I say Jesus is a door (John 10:9), that may quickly become difficult for the three-year-old because of the abstract nature of the idea I am asking them to grasp. We must say that Jesus isn’t really a door, so why does He call Himself the door? In answering that question, we get to the meaning of the text.
I am introducing the words concrete and abstract because that which is abstract is just as real as that which is concrete. It is just real in a different way. There is nothing concrete about “common sense,” but you know when you have met someone who lacks “common sense.” Yet common sense is very abstract. Go ahead—attempt to explain what common sense is to someone who has never heard those two words put together like that.
In John 3, Jesus used the natural birth of a baby—something very concrete—to move Nicodemus from the concrete to the abstract: regeneration. Paul writes: He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5). Look at everything that is abstract in that verse: “works done by us in righteousness” and “regeneration and renewal.” Going back to John 3, Jesus used a biological birth to teach us about a spiritual birth. And Jesus used wind—very concrete—to teach us about the Holy Spirit in the same chapter.
Moving from concrete to abstract is everywhere in your Bible (and in life). You do it subconsciously without giving it a second thought. So, in reality, I am not writing about anything new to you. Instead, I am labeling it. When Jesus says He is the bread that comes down from Heaven, we must determine what He means by that. We know He is not a loaf of pumpernickel bread. So then, why does He describe Himself as something so concrete, real, literal, or non-abstract? He does so because our human brains are wired to learn in this way.
The purpose of this bulletin note is to give Berean two words—concrete and abstract—for us to all use as we learn and teach. I will model this: look at how Jesus takes something concrete and moves His readers to something so abstract. Let’s talk about the concrete aspect of bread. I need it to live; it nourishes and sustains me. I will grow weak and die without bread. Now that we understand the concrete, let’s move to the abstract. Then we identify the parallel abstract ideas and apply them. I will die a second death without Jesus, the Bread of Life. He nourishes and sustains me by giving my life purpose, and on and on. Moving from the concrete to the abstract is normative for the Bible.
