Say a man draws a portrait of a face with a hilariously large nose, and you critique him for doing so. It will do you no good to pull out a book titled “list of body parts found on the face” because “nose” surely will be there. The painter may even have memorized the chapter and verse where you can find it. The painter is technically right, the nose is on the face, and it is there quite conspicuously. But–and here is the point that you need to bring up–it is not quite as conspicuous as presently painted.

“A man’s nose is a prominent feature in his face, but it is possible to make it so large that eyes and mouth and everything else are thrown into insignificance, and the drawing is a caricature and not a portrait: so certain important doctrines of the gospel can be so proclaimed in excess as to throw the rest of truth into the shade, and the preaching is no longer the gospel in its natural beauty, but a caricature of the truth, of which caricature, however, let me say, some people seem to be mightily fond”

-Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to my Students

I think if you spend enough time in the Bible, you will have a pretty good handle on when things just don’t feel right. That is a good intuition to have.

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