That’s a simple declarative statement with little ambiguity. The words “pain,” “in,” and “neck” are all in common usage. They’re not obscure; so, you don’t need specialized training in linguistics to understand the denotation of the language. It means what it says.

 

As plain as this statement is, by itself it isn’t sufficient to communicate my intent. Taken literally, you might assume I have an ache somewhere in my cervical vertebrae. Maybe it’s a muscle ache, or perhaps I’ve been in a car accident that has caused whiplash.

 

That’s seems straightforward enough—unless you happen to understand familiar figures of speech employed in the English language. Metaphorically, having “a pain in the neck” connotes annoyance at a nagging problem, not necessarily related to one’s physical neck. “My loud neighbors are a pain in the neck. Computer difficulties are a pain in the neck.”

 

How can you determine the precise meaning of the phrase? How do you know if my “pain in the neck” is literal or metaphorical? You need more information. You need to know the context.

 

For example, if you and I are sitting in a chiropractor’s office and I groan, “What a pain in the neck,” you are fairly safe in assuming that I have a physical ailment that I’m seeking treatment for.

 

Now, let’s say we’re sitting in an auto mechanic’s waiting room, and I make the same declaration, “What a pain in the neck.” You might readily concur as you discern that I’m referring to the bothersome feelings that accompany car problems.

 

The ability to convey which pain is which depends on the context in which the statement is made.

 

Traversing linguistic, cultural, and temporal boundaries adds to the complexity of communication. The marketing and advertising world are littered with examples of poor communication when attempting to communicate in foreign settings. Consider the meat packing company who wanted to sell “hot dogs” in Germany. The translation of the product’s name—hot dogs—on the package read, “Dogs in heat.” Literally correct, yet infinitely far away from what the company desired to communicate.

 

Also, language confusion contributes to the creation of urban legends. Supposedly, a few decades back, Chevrolet tried to sell one of their models in South America. The Nova sold well in the United States. However, someone allegedly forgot to tell the marketing department that “No va” in Spanish translates to “It doesn’t go.” I don’t work on Madison Avenue, but even I recognize that no one would buy a car that promises not to move.

 

 

Understanding context and the cultural setting of language is important when we get to Jesus and the Gospels. For instance, after feeding the multitudes, the crowds followed Jesus as they hope to get fed. When they caught up with him, he made a startling announcement. “My flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed” (John 6:55).

 

Perplexed, they asked, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Eating his flesh and drinking his blood clearly amounted to cannibalism in their limited view. Such barbarous actions would have been anathema. No wonder even his disciples murmured, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?”

 

Difficulty notwithstanding, Jesus was not envisioning himself as transforming into the main course at next weekend’s barbecue. The crowds understood him “literally” when he was communicating a spiritual truth. They misread his intent, and subsequently, many of them walked away. (As we all know, people in the Christian community have debated this saying of Jesus for the last 2000 years.)

 

In a similar incident, Jesus and his companions embarked on a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee. While on board, Jesus instructed his friends, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matthew 16:5-12). The twelve “reasoned among themselves, saying, ‘It is because we have taken no bread.’” They assumed that Jesus was advising them to avoid buying loaves from their adversaries.

 

Seeing that they just didn’t get it, Jesus clarifies. “How is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread?—but you should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” With that, the light bulb came on (not literally). “Then they understood he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

 

Once again, even his closest friends had trouble comprehending what Jesus was saying—not because they didn’t know the language he used. They appreciated the word “leaven.” Instead, the issue revolved around the meaning of the language. Leaven might mean a loaf of bread (even this is a metaphor: ‘leaven’ standing for ‘bread’), but in this case Jesus intended ‘leaven’ to mean ‘teaching.’ Jesus spoke metaphorically, but they thought literally.

 

Recognizing the contextual use of language becomes crucial in the statements of Jesus related to “last things” (or eschatology). (An aside: using the phrase “last things” carries connotations that we might do well to examine. We can ask: The “last things” of what?) Throughout the Gospels, Jesus uses ordinary words when discussing the coming of the kingdom of God, the judgment, and the Second Coming (or Parousia). Nevertheless, those everyday words communicate ideas and invoke entire narratives grounded in the context of Second Temple Judaism of the ancient Hebrew prophets.

 

Matthew 13 offers several examples. Jesus starts by announcing, “A sower went out to sow.” Did he? Was Jesus talking about a farmer who scattered seed that landed on various types of soil? Of course not. We recognize that he used this parable to point to higher truths about the kingdom of God.

 

In the same chapter, Jesus likens the kingdom to a mustard seed that grows into a large tree, a pearl of great price, and a hidden treasure. All of these figures of speech impart something about the kingdom—but not in literal one-to-one correspondence. The kingdom is not arboreal in nature, nor does it have a pearl-like sheen. Few people—if any—have trouble with this.

 

Recognizing the contextual and metaphorical performance of language becomes apparent in the judgment scene of Matthew 25. In this text, Jesus separates the sheep and the goats. The sheep are moved to the right, and the goats to the left. The sheep have done the will of God in showing compassion, but the goats are pronounced guilty of selfishness.

 

It’s common to affirm that Jesus foresaw a literal judgment here. Yet, no one seriously suggests that Jesus envisioned a herding episode. Jesus may have been the Good Shepherd, but his sheep were not farm animals.

 

 

N.T Wright persuasively argues for the ongoing need to carefully reconsider the contextual function of language in the Gospels. “And this process of rethinking will include the hard and often threatening question of whether some things that our traditions have taken as ‘literal’ should be seen as ‘metaphorical,’ and perhaps also vice versa—and, if so, which ones” (The Challenge of Jesus, p17).

 

Our understanding of Matthew 24 would benefit and transform by asking those hard questions. This is Jesus’ famous Olivet Discourse. In popular Christian imagination, it is a principal text for events such as the judgment, the Second Coming, the rapture, and the end of the world. A cursory glance at the text might affirm a literalistic reading of all these things. In verses 29-30, Jesus speaks of the sun being darkened, the moon turning to blood, and the Son of Man coming on the clouds. These statements present no obscure words. We have the sun and the moon, darkness and blood, the Son of Man and clouds. What could be plainer? Jesus said what he meant and meant what he said.

 

Even so, we’re left asking the question, “What was Jesus talking about?” Was he envisioning literal cosmic events like meteor showers, or did he have something else in mind by employing metaphors? Would his Second Temple Jewish context permit him to have been talking about something besides literal astronomical happenings?

 

Let’s focus on two items concerning the context and linguistic performance in the Olivet Discourse. First is the textual setting itself.  In Matthew 23, Jesus berates the Jerusalem power structure. He announces that they would cause trouble and would reap what they had sown. Significantly, he asserts that they—as the perpetrators—would live to experience their consequences. “Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation” (Matthew 23:36). Immediately, he and his disciples leave for the Mount of Olives (itself a real place filled with symbolic value, especially for Second Temple Jews. See Zechariah 14.).

 

While there, his disciples point out the grandeur of the Temple structure. This sets the stage for Jesus. “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2). This textual indicator should awaken us to the fact that in his discourse that follows Jesus speaks about the Temple and what it stood for. The signs of the Olivet Discourse point to a world-changing episode that the Temple would undergo.

 

Second, Jesus echoes the language of the prophets who employed creative and evocative metaphors—including astronomical phenomena—to signal momentous events in the life of Israel. One such text (among many) is Isaiah 13. In his “burden against Babylon,” Isaiah speaks about labor pains without intending to lecture about a literal pregnant woman. He continues by utilizing picturesque and poetic tropes in his announcement against Babylon. “For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine…therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth will move out of her place” (Isaiah 13:10-13).

 

Isaiah was not predicting outer-atmospheric incidents. Instead, he was pronouncing a theological judgment. Likewise, when Jesus—steeped in the Hebrew prophetic tradition—employs similar language, we should consider that he was speaking of a comparable theological action. When we couple this with the immediate textual setting of Matthew 23, we can conclude that it is likely that he was addressing what he expected to be God’s judgment on the oppressive Temple elitism—not the dissolution of the space-time universe. Wright notes that the language “about the Son of Man coming on the clouds should not be taken with wooden literalism” (The Challenge of Jesus, p.51).

 

Max King addressed the interplay of language, symbols, and signifiers like this. “So how does this apply to our understanding of end-time prophecy?  Very simply, Jesus used figurative language (coming on the clouds, etc) to describe a temporal event (the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans) in terms of its spiritual significance (the consummation of the ages and the coming of the kingdom of God)" (The Spirit of Prophecy, 2002, p.17).

 

Reorienting ourselves to a new reading of the Biblical text and the Biblical narrative may be a pain in the neck. It can be challenging to consider the wider cultural and linguistic contexts of cherished passages of Scripture, thereby resulting in us reconsidering what we believe. Once again, Wright observes, “Precisely because these texts have been read and preached as holy Scripture for two thousand years, all kinds of misunderstandings have crept in, which have then been enshrined in church tradition” (The Challenge of Jesus, p.27).

 

To this sentiment I add that it is precisely because these texts have been—and continue to be—read and preached as Holy Scripture that we owe it to their authors, to Jesus, to God, and to ourselves to engage the texts afresh, even if it causes us a pain in the neck.