We must take the Word of God seriously in how we read it, how we teach it, and how we interpret it. We must read both the Old and New Testaments the way the biblical authors did. Follow their interpretive method. Ground your exegesis in context, repetition, and theological themes.

Have you ever listened to a sermon in which the pastor tells a biblical story you know well—one you’ve heard many times—and then draws a connection or illustration you’ve never heard before? Suddenly, you find yourself thinking, Wow, how did I miss that?

Sometimes that moment comes because the Word is being taught clearly. However, what I’ve consistently noticed is that more often than not, it happens because the pastor or teacher creates an allegory or makes a connection that simply isn’t in the text.

Understanding Allegory

I once sat in a service where the pastor preached from 1 Samuel 17. He focused on the five stones David chose before facing Goliath. He claimed each stone represented something: deeper prayer, fasting, evangelism, discipleship, and obedience, and he said that David’s sling symbolized faith.

While that might sound like a novel idea, the pastor took excessive liberty with the text. He turned a historical detail into spiritual symbolism that Scripture never suggests explicitly or implicitly. The passage simply records how David prepared to face Goliath. It’s a historical fact, not a hidden code.

Another common hermeneutical error involves looking for Christ in every passage. While all of Scripture ultimately points to Christ and His redemptive work on the cross, Jesus isn’t secretly hidden in every Old Testament verse.

Take Joshua 2, for example. Rahab is told to hang a scarlet cord from her window so her household would be spared from judgment. Many preachers allegorize this and claim the cord represents the blood of Christ, the window symbolizes the heart, and the house stands for the Church. But the text doesn’t make those connections. The actual point is that God showed grace by saving a Canaanite woman through faith—not by inserting hidden symbolism.

These interpretations might seem deep and impressive, but we must handle God’s Word carefully. What’s happening here is an allegory.

Allegory is an interpretive method that assigns hidden, symbolic, or spiritual meanings to biblical details apart from the author’s intended meaning. It treats the narrative as if its true significance lies beneath the literal sense.

Here are some key features of allegory to watch out for:

1. Imposed symbolism – Names, numbers, objects, and actions are assigned spiritual meanings not found in the text.
2. Reader-driven interpretation – Authority shifts from the inspired author to the interpreter’s imagination.
3. Historical disconnection – Allegory often downplays or ignores the real, historical meaning of the passage.
4. Subjective outcomes – Different readers can invent wildly different “hidden” meanings from the same passage.

Understanding Typology

However, there is something important that serious students of the Word must understand—it clarifies the Bible in a deep and meaningful way—and that is typology.

Typology is a biblical interpretive method in which God-intended people, events, or institutions in the Old Testament (called types) foreshadow greater realities fulfilled in the New Testament (called antitypes), with the connection confirmed by Scripture.

Here are some examples from the Old Testament. Adam is considered a type, as the first man and federal head of humanity. Christ is the antitype, the last Adam who brings life where Adam brought death. New Testament passages like Romans 5:14 and 1 Corinthians 15:45–49 make this clear. Paul does not invent this connection. Instead, he builds on Genesis and traces the theology initiated by the original authors.

Another example is the connection between the Passover lamb and Christ. The type is the lamb sacrificed during the first Passover in Exodus. The antitype is Christ, the ultimate sacrificial Lamb who takes away sin, as John the Baptist declared in John 1:29. Exodus 12 introduces this type, establishing a redemptive pattern that later culminates in Christ.

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