R.C. Sproul

And the reason we can do this is because we believe, and this we'll get into more fully later, that our language about God, though it is not univocal, it's not a one-to-one correspondence, neither is it equivocal where the terms change radically.

but rather the language that we have of God according to Augustine, according to St.

Thomas Aquinas, is the language of analogy.

Now you learn analogies when you go to school, and you know what an analogy is like when I say that such and such is like something else.

It's not identical, but that they have points of similarity.

Jesus would speak in parables, and He would say, the kingdom of God is like unto this.

He didn't say the kingdom of God is this.

He said it's like this.

And for example, when the Bible speaks about God as owning the cattle on a thousand hills,

It's speaking metaphorically.

It's using an analogy.

It's saying that you understand how powerful and rich the rancher is whose herds are not restricted to one barn and one acre of fenced-in pasture, but if that man owned the cattle on a thousand hills, that would be some kind of rancher.

He would be very powerful like the hunts in Texas or something like that.

But we're not to assume from that that therefore God is the great cattle rancher in the sky

who every now and then comes down and has a shootout with the devil at the O.K.

Corral.

I remember Corrie ten Boom when she was imprisoned and struggling, and their ministry was hurting, and they ran out of money.

And she prayed very simply.

She said, God, You own a cattle on a thousand hills.

How about selling a few head and giving us the money to help us in our ministry?