As I began to read through this and look for figurative language and metaphors I realized that I am still confused on what really falls under those criteria. I’m not too surprised because I have always struggled with this, even in middle school. But I did my best. I believe the first sentence started as figurative language with “Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Christ Jesus” (emphasis mine) They were not literally bond-servants but the same way a bond-servant acts to his master so also Paul and Timothy act towards Christ. “I have you in my heart” There is no way a person could actually be in his heart that is physically not possible. I feel that him saying “for to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” is figurative language but I’m not sure why. I’m fuzzy on that one. “Standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together” how do you have one mind? With so many different minds in the literal sense it is impossible to all have one mind. I counted around 22 different times he used figurative language, or at least 22 times I think he did, there are several times I am not sure and underlined it anyways to see later if it is or not.
When it comes to how someone perceives this text with understanding signs and signals, the reading would change a lot to a person who understood them. If you take everything literally them this would be very confusing as from things stated above. Not only understanding, but I feel that being aware of even the possibility of figurative language changes everything in this passage. I believe it also changes our perspective of much of the bible. Jesus showed how powerful it can be to use figurative language and Paul does as well. It helps when the reader is aware of what to look for in this type of language.
At first when starting to read I thought maybe you could only find one figurative language, but you did good I definitely did not catch the bonds servants!
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