"In the divine Scriptures, there are shallows and there are deeps; shallows where the lamb may wade, and deeps where the elephant may swim"
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Owen’s image is a quiet flex disguised as pastoral care: Scripture is not a riddle-box for the credentialed, nor a children’s book for the merely pious. It’s both. By giving us “shallows” and “deeps,” he reframes a perennial Protestant anxiety of his century - who gets to interpret the Bible, and with what authority - into a matter of scale rather than gatekeeping. The lamb can wade without drowning; the elephant can plunge without hitting bottom. Accessibility and inexhaustibility become features of the same text.
The intent is double-edged. On the surface, it comforts ordinary believers: you don’t need to be a scholar to receive real truth. Underneath, it defends the learned vocation Owen embodied. If Scripture has deeps, then the elephant’s work - languages, doctrine, disputation - isn’t elitist ornamentation; it’s a necessary kind of swimming. That matters in a 17th-century England where religious legitimacy was being fought over in pulpits, pamphlets, and Parliament, and where “plain reading” could be weaponized against theological precision.
The metaphor also polices arrogance on both sides. Lambs are not invited to pretend they’re elephants; elephants aren’t permitted to sneer at the lambs’ shoreline. Owen’s subtext is an argument for humility as an interpretive posture: Scripture yields real nourishment quickly, then refuses to be domesticated. The line works because it turns complexity into a moral landscape - one where depth is not a barrier, but a summons.
The intent is double-edged. On the surface, it comforts ordinary believers: you don’t need to be a scholar to receive real truth. Underneath, it defends the learned vocation Owen embodied. If Scripture has deeps, then the elephant’s work - languages, doctrine, disputation - isn’t elitist ornamentation; it’s a necessary kind of swimming. That matters in a 17th-century England where religious legitimacy was being fought over in pulpits, pamphlets, and Parliament, and where “plain reading” could be weaponized against theological precision.
The metaphor also polices arrogance on both sides. Lambs are not invited to pretend they’re elephants; elephants aren’t permitted to sneer at the lambs’ shoreline. Owen’s subtext is an argument for humility as an interpretive posture: Scripture yields real nourishment quickly, then refuses to be domesticated. The line works because it turns complexity into a moral landscape - one where depth is not a barrier, but a summons.
Quote Details
| Topic | Bible |
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