Talk:Matt 7:1-12

Bread, stone; fish, serpent

Welch gives an interesting discussion of this bit in his _Sermon at the Temple, etc._. If what is given instead of the bread is a stone with a new name written, etc., there may be suggested here a sort of equivalence between the endowment and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The fish/serpent thing may be similar: the symbol of the serpent and the symbol of the fish share some interesting parallels in the early Christian traditions. --Joe Spencer 17:12, 5 Dec 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I hadn't thought of this--Welch's book is on my shelf but has started gathering dust b/c of other projects. He discusses this on pp. 90-91, though it's not as in-depth a discussion as I was hoping. Lots to think about though. Interestingly, he does tie the fish and the bread to the miracle of the loaves and fishes which I wasn't thinking about for some reason. And he mentions the stone as in "not being stoned" and the serpent as a reference to Lucifer. I'd be interested in hearing if there are other references (scriptural or not) about "not being stoned." All that comes to my mind is the "cast the first stone" incident of the woman caught in adultery.... --RobertC 02:17, 6 Dec 2006 (UTC)