The Covert Bible, part III:

Do you realize that the Bible has some verses which have a covert or hidden meaning? These are sometimes not readily apparent to the average reader or Bible study student. However these covert meanings could shed a bit of light to understanding the message that Holy Scripture is presenting to us. Some of these meanings are definitive and others are of conjecture. They can be found in the beginning of Scripture and in the end (the bookends), and in many books in between.

Following are several examples.
I would not hesitate to say that there are probably hundreds more that would be beneficial as powerful teaching tools.

 Genesis 28:16,
"Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place; and I did not know it." (17) And he was afraid, and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."

How many have glossed over these two verses and not seen the covert meaning?
It is the "House of GOD", and not the 'houses of GOD' that is the "Gate of Heaven".

There is only one GOD who dwells in only one house, not multiple houses.
See Psalms 127:1...as a refresher...


 Genesis 29:3-4,
"and when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well, and water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place upon the mouth of the well. (4) Jacob said to them, "My brothers, where do you come from?" They said, "We are from Haran."

Covertly, did you catch that phrase "My Brothers"?
Do not non-Catholics teach that the Blessed Virgin Mary had 'other children' because of the word 'brothers' mentioned in the New Testament?
Well, here we are in the Old Testament. Are those to whom Jacob spoke his blood brothers?
No! They were simple shepherds who were watering their sheep.


 Exodus 9:6,
"And on the morrow the LORD did this thing; all the cattle of the Egyptians died, but of the cattle of the people of Israel not one died."

Exodus 9:19-20,
"Now therefore send, get your cattle and all that you have in the field into safe shelter; for the hail shall come down upon every man and beast that is in the field and is not brought home, and they shall die. (20) Then he who feared the word of the LORD among the servants of Pharaoh made his slaves and his cattle flee into the houses."

Whoa! What is happening here? Verse 9:6 said that all of the cattle of the Egyptians died, but just a few verses later the Egyptians were urged to take their cattle to shelters if they did not want them to die.
Is this a Biblical conflict? Is this an error in the Bible?

THERE ARE NO ERRORS IN THE BIBLE, ONLY 'APPARENT' ERRORS.
So where is the 'apparent' here?
What is the covert message here?
It is the original language words used in Hebrew for the Old Testament, and Greek for the New Testament that were translated to the English word 'all'. In both Hebrew and Greek translations when the English word 'all' is used, it does not necessarily mean 'every', but 'many' or 'a great many'.


"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun."
Ecclesiastes 1:9

 Exodus 13:17,
"When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, "Lest the people repent when they see war, and return to Egypt."

This is a prime example of having to know Biblical geography and history in order to see the covert meaning of Exodus 13:17.
The land of the Philistines is now the land of the Palestines (Palestinians) and includes Gaza.
So GOD, who was leading the Exodus (Exodus 13:16, 21-22), led the Israelies away from Gaza by a longer route in order to avoid a possible war with the Philistines.
The Exodus is thought to have happened around 1440 B.C., over 3400 years ago.
Here we are 3400 years later and today the Israelites and Palestinians are still at it.
Perhaps that could be the worlds longest war.


 Exodus 31:16-17,
"Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the sabbath, observing the sabbath throughout their generations, as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign for ever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed."

How many have simply glossed over those two very important verses? Surely the sabbatarians have.
Seventh-Day Adventists, sabbath keeping Baptists, and other non-Jewish sabbatarian sects have apparently ignored them completely.
To put those verses in context, GOD is speaking directly to Moses (Exodus 31:1).
It is so clear in those two verses that it is the Israelites, the Jews, who are commanded to keep the sabbath as a "perpetual covenant".
There is no verse in the entire Bible where GOD commands Gentiles (anyone other than a Jew), to keep the sabbath. 
Next time when you are in conversation with sabbatarians who call themselves Christian, ask them if they are Jews.
If they are not, then the onus is upon them to show you the verse(s) where GOD commands Gentiles to keep the sabbath.


 Numbers 30:1-16,
For brevity, I have included just a few verses of this important and interesting section of Holy Scripture.
I would suggest that the reader go to the Bible and read all sixteen verses to put them in the proper context.

(3) "Or when a woman vows a vow to the LORD, and binds herself by a pledge, while within her father's house, in her youth, (4) and her father hears of her vow and of her pledge by which she has bound herself, and says nothing to her; then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand."
(6) "And if she is married to a husband, while under her vows or any thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she has bound herself, (7) and her husband hears of it, and says nothing to her on the day that he hears; then her vows shall stand, and her pledges by which she has bound herself shall stand."

Can you see the covert message in those verses?
The Blessed Virgin Mary, no doubt, knew the Old Testament very well and must have known about the vows.
Those verses provide justification for her to have taken a vow of perpetual virginity. 


 Isaiah 7:14,
"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son and his name shall be called Emmanuel."

Ah, the famous prophesy of Isaiah, "Behold a virgin shall conceive".
The problem here is that in a few bibles the translation reads, "a young woman shall conceive".
The covert message that is evident with that translation is that Isaiah's prophesy becomes no prophesy at all since 'young women' conceive all of the time.
Not only that but a translation which reads "a young woman shall conceive" (the type), loses meaning with its antitype of Luke 1:26-38 and Luke 2:1-7, the story of the virgin birth of Jesus the Christ..


 Matthew 5:1,
"Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. (2) And he opened his mouth and taught them..."

We have at least two important covert meanings hidden within those two verses.

1. Jesus 'went up upon a mountain'.
Throughout Holy Scripture, important things happened high on a mountain.
GOD give Moses the tablets of the Ten Commandments from high on a mountain (Exodus 31:18).
Moses is a type of Jesus Christ (Deuteronomy 18:15, Acts 3:22, 7:37).
The Transfiguration of Jesus took place on a high mountain  (Matthew 17:1-8).
From a mountain Jesus gave us the Beatitudes.

2. After Jesus had sat down, He taught. In the following verses of Matthew 5, He taught the Beatitudes.
Jesus taught while sitting in the barque of Peter (Luke 5:3).
Sitting while teaching is a sign of teaching with authority.
Kings rule while sitting on thrones (1Kings 2:19).
Judges make decisions while sitting in judgment seats (John 19:13).
The Pope teaches infallibly on faith and morals while sitting in the Chair of Peter.


Matthew 12:30,
"He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters."

This is a covert message for non-Catholics who fail to see it at all.
Who does the gathering?
When a person gathers, that person ends up with one assembly or Church.
Jesus founded only one Church, and He said that we must be one.
Who does the scattering?
When a person scatters, that person ends up with multiple assemblies or sects.
There are now more than 39,000* sects in the world today that call themselves Christian.
How can those who have done the scattering, ever call themselves followers of the Bible?

*Global Christian Statistics, mid 2008, a Protestant publication. See line #43.

 Matthew 17:8,
"And they lifting up their eyes, saw no one, but only Jesus."

This is the last verse of the story about the Transfiguration of Our Lord.
Are you troubled, worried, bothered, or upset over how things are going in the world today?
Then if you cannot remember anything else, please remember that one short verse.
It will give you much comfort, as it is the only thing that really matters.
The covert meaning is to blot out everything else by concentrating only on that one verse.
So when you are feeling down, lift up your eyes and see no one but Jesus the Christ.


 Luke 2:7,
"And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn."

John 19:41,
"Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. (42) There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews' preparation day for the sepulchre was nigh at hand."

Can you see the covert meaning of those three verses taken together?

He was born from a virgin womb.
He was buried in a virgin tomb.

Another note:
There was no place in the city for Him to be born (Bethlehem).
There was no place in the city for Him to die (Jerusalem).
He was crucified on Mount Calvary (Luke 23:33), which is outside of the walls of Jerusalem (Hebrews 13:12).

Yet one more note:
After His mother brought Him into the world she wrapped Him in swadling clothes.
Then we see in Mark 15:46,
"And Joseph, buying fine linen and taking him down, wrapped him up in the fine linen and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewed out of a rock."
He was wrapped after He was born and wrapped after He died.


 Luke 5:3,
"Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat."

There is a covert meaning to that verse that probably most people do not see.

Notice that there was more than one boat for Jesus to board but He chose Simon's. Why?
Could it be that Simon Peter held the primacy among the other Apostles?
It certainly adds to the fact that it was Simon Peter who was chosen to be the visible head of the Church which Jesus Christ founded (Matthew 16:18-19, John 21:15-19).
Could it be that the boat was to hold an important symbolic message to proper understanding of Holy Scripture?
We remember Noah's Ark, where the only people who were saved were those who were aboard it when the flood came (Hebrews 11:7, 1Peter 3:20, 2Peter: 2:5).
Notice that Jesus first sat down in the boat and then He taught from it.

Part of the interior of Catholic Churches is called the 'Nave'. It is the place of worship in the Church. 
The word 'Nave' comes from the Latin word 'Navi' which means 'ship'. From the Latin word 'Naves' we get the plural word 'ships'.
Mark 4:36, "et dimittentes turbam adsumunt eum ita ut erat in navi et aliae naves erant cum illo." 
Mark 4:36, "And sending away the multitude, they take him even as he was in the ship: and there were other ships with him." 
As Christ taught from the boat of Saint Peter, so does the Catholic Church teach the Gospel to the whole world
from the nave of the successor of Saint Peter.


Luke 10:16,
"He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me."

Those are simple but oh so powerful words from Our Savior.
There is the obvious meaning to that verse, and there is the covert meaning that is not grasped by many.
First, establish the context. To whom was Jesus speaking?
The first verse in this chapter told us:
Luke 10:1,
"After this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to come."
So the Lord Himself appointed others to speak in His behalf.
Through Apostolic Succession it is the same today, men of His Church appointed by the Lord Himself to speak in His behalf.

The first six words of verse 16 are the promise of Jesus Christ that His Church would not, and could not, teach other than what He Himself has said and taught, and that could only be the fullness of truth.
Anything coming from the teaching of His Church comes from Him, and He is truth personified (John 14:6).
He speaks to His Church and His Church in turn speaks His Word to the whole world.
If you reject the word of His Church, then you have rejected His word, since His Church is His body (Ephesians 1:22-23,  5:23).


John 1:1,
"In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God: and the Word was God."

This is an extremely important verse since covertly it refutes three heresies.
 1. The Word was there from the beginning. GOD is more than one person.
 2. The Word was with GOD. The Word is a distinct person.
 3. The Word was GOD. There is only one GOD.


John 2:4,
And Jesus said to her, "O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come."

Some interesting covert meaning is hidden in that one verse.

When Jesus called His mother "woman", He has acknowledged that He is the second Adam (1Corinthians 15:45),
because it brings to mind the first words of Adam when he called Eve "woman".
Genesis 2:23,
Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."

 John 2:4 also implies that His mother is the second Eve.
After all, we have the first Adam and the New Adam.
And we have the first Eve, so the context demands that there must be the New Eve.


John 2:5,
"His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

The covert meaning to that verse is that Mary started Jesus in His ministry by saying. "Do whatever He tells you."

The miracle of Jesus changing water into wine at Cana did start His ministry:
John 2:11,
"This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him."
In the previous example of John 2:4, Jesus said, "My hour has not yet come."
Yet He aquiesed to His mother and performed His first miracle for all to see.
GOD obeyed His mother, a mere human creature.

One last note regarding John 2:5;
The words spoken by Mary in John 2:5 are the last words that she spoke in Holy Scripture.
However, her last words are words that we all should live by,
as they are the gist of the message of the New Testament to "Do whatever HE tells you."


 John 2:19-20,
"Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." (20) The Jews then said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?" 

John 2:20 is one of those verses which at first glance seems irrelevant. However, covertly it is extremely relevant.
Sometimes we must go outside of the Bible in order to understand just what it is teaching us.

Josephus,* a Jewish historian of the time, wrote that Herod started rebuilding the temple in the 18th year of his reign.
(Josephus, Antiquities, 15.11.1.) It was in 37 B.C. that Herod began his reign so his 18th year would be in 20 B.C.
when he atarted rebuilding the temple.
Now add 46 years to that date and it comes to 26 A.D. when Jesus started his ministry.

Remember also that when you go from B.C. to A.D. there is no year zero.
You go from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D..

* Flavius Josephus 37-101 A.D. was a Jew and a Jewish historian. He 
wrote many books about Jewish history from their very beginnings until the 
destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.. His writings are valued by scholars, as
some of what he wrote is the only source for some of the events. He also
dated the events which very few writers in the early times did.


 John 14:6,
"Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me."

Acts 9:1-2,
"But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest (2) and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem."

Acts 19:9,
"but when some were stubborn and disbelieved, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them, taking the disciples with him, and argued daily in the hall of Tyrannus."

Acts 19:23,
"About that time there arose no little stir concerning the Way."

Acts 24:14,
"But this I admit to you, that according to the Way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the law or written in the prophets,"

Acts 24:22, "But Felix, having a rather accurate knowledge of the Way, put them off, saying, "When Lysias the tribune comes down, I will decide your case."

Jesus called Himself "the Way" in John 14:6.

The covert message in these verses is that His Christian movement, at first, was called "the Way".


 Acts 12:16-17,
"But Peter continued knocking; and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed. (17) But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, "Tell this to James and to the brethren." Then he departed and went to another place."

There is a covert and conjecture mixture in those verses.
It would be helpful to keep the following verse in mind:

Matthew 10:23,
"And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another."

In the Acts verses, Peter had been under persecution and imprisoned, and was miraculously unchained and escaped.
So he was a wanted man and had to flee to another city.
"Then he departed and went to another place."
That other place had to be far enough away from those who persecuted him and it is thought that 'other place' was Rome.
St Luke wrote the book of Acts, and it is possibile that he did not name the 'other place' because Emperor Claudius had commanded that all Jews depart from Rome (Acts 18:2), and Peter was a Jew. 


 The Book of Romans - all,

"St. Paul had not been at Rome when he wrote this epistle, which was in the year fifty-seven or fifty-eight..."
(Haydock* Introduction to Romans).
*Haydock Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859.
Also the Confraternity Catholic Bible intro to Romans lists the same dates and sets the place of writing in Corinth.

So the covert message here is that if the Church which Jesus Christ founded was not already established in Rome, then why did St. Paul write an epistle to the Romans at all?
He gave us a hint of who founded the Church in Rome in the following verses:

Romans 15:19-20,
" By the virtue of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Ghost, so that from Jerusalem round about, as far as unto Illyricum, I have replenished the gospel of Christ. (20) And I have so preached this gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man a foundation." 

St. Paul admited that at this time he had not preached the Gospel any farther than Illyricum which is present day Dalmatia.
So obviously he was not to be found preaching in Rome by this time, but he hinted that another man laid a foundation that is no doubt in Rome, since here he is writing to the Romans. St. Peter was already in Rome as genuine historical writings show.

At the time of the writing of the Book of Romans, the Church in Rome was under great persecution and had to practice underground in the catacombs. Consequently, St. Paul would dare not reveal St. Peter's name for fear of jeopardizing his safety.


Romans 3:10-12,
As it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; (11) no one understands, no one seeks for God. (12) All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one."

Overtly these verses seem to say that none of us are righteous. Some teach that this is true.
However, the covert meaning of these verses is quite different.
The key to the correct understanding of these verses is in the first few words, "As it is written".
Paul is quoting Psalms 14:1-3, and Psalms 14 clearly refers to the righteous and the corrupt.
Psalms 14:1-3,
"To the choirmaster. Of David. The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none that does good. (2) The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any that act wisely, that seek after God. (3) They have all gone astray, they are all alike corrupt; there is none that does good, no, not one."

Paul is talking about the corrupt, not all mankind.

Trivia for Psalms 14:1: "The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."
Did you know that the people mentioned in that verse have their own holiday?
That is easy. It's April first.


 1Thesalonians 5:23,
"And may the God of peace himself sanctify you in all things: that your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Here Saint Paul has separated a human person into its three distinct entities*.
*Entity: That which is perceived or known or inferred to have its own distinct existence.

Many times you have probably seen or heard of body and soul, or body and spiritual soul, in reference to a human person.
How many times have you seen them separated as in the verse above?
Covertly or by conjecture can you see a miniature trinity pattern for each human person?



 James 2:10,
"For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one, he is guilty of all."

How many cafeteria Catholics see this covert message aimed directly at themselves?
How many simply ignore it?
This verse sends a strong message to those Catholics who accept some Catholic teaching and reject what they see as not befitting themselves.
The verse strongly admonishes all Catholics to either accept all of what the Church teaches, or they have rejected it all.
Remember:
"He who hears you hears me..."
So who are cafeteria Catholics really rejecting?

"To reject but one article of faith taught by the Church is enough to destroy faith, as one mortal sin is enough to destroy charity..."
St. Thomas Aquinas

One lifetime is not long enough for any human person to digest everything
written overtly or extracted covertly from the one book that we call the Bible.

©
Written by Bob Stanley, November 15, 2008
Updated, January 23, 2009
23

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