How Do You Know When to Take the Bible Literally?

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There's still going to be symbolism, obviously. I mean, Jesus tells

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Nicodemus, I think, that he has to be born again, right?

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And Nicodemus' response is a confusion, because he's taking

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Jesus literally and asking Jesus, how can a full -grown man be born from his mother again?

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How can he exit the womb a second time? When Jesus wasn't speaking about a literal, physical birth.

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The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of Almighty God is hanging over our head.

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They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed, and they will perish.

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God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended, and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the

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Father, where he sits now to make intercession for us. Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

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We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll answer the age -old question, how do you know when to take the

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Bible literally? Now Tim, this is one of those questions that I think a lot of Christians find themselves asking at some point or another, probably fairly early on for a lot of people if they take studying the

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Bible seriously, because they're going to run into a lot of passages that at first glance seem confusing to them.

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I think of books, especially the apocalyptic writings, they might look at something like that and just be totally confused by it because they haven't really trained themselves well in determining what is literal in the

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Bible and what is meant to be symbolic and you know, how symbolism typically works in the

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Bible to begin with. And so, this seems like a pretty important topic to be discussing, especially since we should all be, all

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Christians should be people who are desiring and seeking to study God's word, to meditate on his law day and night, but then we understand that yes, there are times where the

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Bible is meant to be literal and very literal, even though the world would want us to say no, it's not literal here.

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One example of that would be the creation account, right, where we view create, the

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Bible tells us that creation is a literal six days, literal six days, but then the world would want us to say, and there are even

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Christians out there who would say no, it's not a literal six days, you need to read the

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Bible this way instead. And so, there's just a lot of confusion I think around this subject in general, so it seems like an appropriate topic for us.

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But I guess the overarching question here is how do you determine what is literal and what is symbolic?

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I mean, is there some sort of formula you follow? Is there some kind of like, if this happens and this happens, then you know it's literal, or if this happens and this happens, then you know it's symbolic or metaphorical?

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How are we as Christians supposed to navigate that? Jared Yeah, sure. So, I think you should take everything in the

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Bible literally. Pete Alright, well, this has been a good conversation and we appreciate all you guys, no,

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I'm just kidding. Okay, what do you mean though, Tim? Because, you know, obviously, it seems like there's a lot of symbolism in the

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Bible, but then if you're saying take everything literal, the Bible talks about the sun setting, for example.

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Jared Yeah, take that literally. Pete Does that mean that we need to assume the flat earth?

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Jared Geocentrism, yeah, is that what you're saying? Jared No, I think you should take everything literally.

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I mean, what I mean by that is you should read it according to the normal laws of logic and reason, right?

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So, like you should read it as what it is, like read it according to the rules.

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So, take into consideration the genre, take into consideration the type of communication it is, right?

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But yeah, I mean, you take it literally, meaning it's meant to be understood in a straightforward way.

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I mean, there's different genres, there's different forms of communication, but you're not taking it not literally, right?

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So, meaning, as you read the Bible, for instance, particularly, like a lot of this really does have to do with genre considerations and things along those lines, but I mean, as you read in the poetic sections of the

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Bible, you'll see things like our God is a rock, right? So, yes, I think you should take that literally, but not woodenly literal.

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So, like when you're taking something woodenly literal, and this is kind of what you're talking about, when you're taking something in a woodenly literal way or in a literalistic way, like what you're doing at that point is you're not taking into account the genre of communication that this is, right?

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So, then if you were to say, hey, our God is a rock, and then you conclude from that that God literally is a rock, right?

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Then what you've done is you've just misunderstood the genre of communication. So, I mean, when you're reading poetry, like what you're going to find is you're going to find poetic descriptions, right?

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They're not meant to be taken in a woodenly literalistic way.

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To say God is a rock is just to say that He's stable, right? So, I guess like the song of Solomon stuff, your teeth are 30 white lambs on a hill.

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They're not literally. Yeah, so, but everyone knows. So, everyone, see, the issue is we all, generally speaking, and I want to say this, and this is kind of something that the liberals used to say, but I mean, there really is a sense in which you do read the

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Bible like you read any other book. I mean, it's a different kind of book, but I mean, there is a sense in which you read the

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Bible, like if Kayla were to say about you, you know, Harrison is just a rock, man. No one would conclude from that that she's, like if she were to say

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He's my rock, you know, He's a rock of my family or something like that. No one would conclude from that that she's literally just calling you a piece of granite, right?

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I am a boulder. I mean, no one would think that, right?

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So, I mean, like there is a sense in which as you're reading the Bible, you're not supposed to suspend common sense, you're not supposed to do funny things, like you're supposed to understand it according to the way it presents itself, right?

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So, then, you know, as you're reading something like Genesis, for instance, I mean, you brought that up, like the issue is like what, you have to ask what genre of communication am

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I reading, right? And so, what a lot of people want to do is they want to present this as like mythology, right?

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Like it's myth, right? And so, then, as you're reading through Genesis, you're supposed to ask does this sound like myth, right?

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Is that the way it reads? Is that the way it's presented itself? You know, so, like for instance, like you brought up the idea of literal six -day creation kind of thing.

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Well, as you read the Bible, you read it on its own terms, you can see over and over again in the law, you know, in the

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Old Testament and the New Testament, like this principle of God, because God created the world in six days, like that's a pattern for all of human history.

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We're going to, you know, work six days, we're going to rest on the seventh day. That doesn't sound like a myth, that doesn't sound like symbolism, like they're grounding that in the historical thing that happened, right?

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So, when you have like evening -morning language, we're the first day, like the evening and the morning language is mitigating against like some kind of mythical interpretation, some kind of heavily symbolic interpretation.

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Like when you just read a few more pages, you're going to see the genealogies, they lived this number of years, then they had a son, right?

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Then after that, they lived this number of years, like this is presented as historical narrative. So, everything about it is screaming at you, this is a historical narrative, and so you read it on its own terms, right?

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And you understand it in the way that it's communicating. Now, I mean, when you get to the Psalms, you say, hey, this is poetic language, and so I'm going to read it like I would read any poetry, right?

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CBT Right. JG Like my beloved is fairer than gold, right? Like you know what that means, like you're not literally, like you don't have to do some kind of wittily literal things.

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I mean, you read it according to the way it presents itself. Like you read through the

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Proverbs, Proverbs are statements of general truth. They're statements of wisdom, right?

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That tell you the way the world generally works. They're not exceptionalist absolutes.

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So, you take them on their own terms, like you just understand what does the word proverb mean, and I'm going to read these

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Proverbs in light of the definition of a proverb, right? So, basically, when you're reading the

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Bible, you're supposed to read it according to the normal rules of language, right? The normal, like using normal rules of logic, and I mean, we do this so naturally in real life.

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I mean, we understand things like sarcasm, we understand generalizations, like, you know, so the

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Bible has generalizations, the Bible has sarcasm, the Bible has humor at times, like the Bible has poetry, you know, the

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Bible has wisdom statements, the Bible has historical narratives. So, you read it on its own terms based on what kind of information is presented.

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And so, yeah, you read it literally, like according to the laws of literature and language, right?

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So, you're understanding it in a straightforward way. And then there are, yeah,

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I mean, certainly in apocalyptic literature, like Revelation or Daniel, there's different rules, you know?

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So, you understand it on its own terms and everything else. So, I mean, but no one is, like the issue is no one is, with something like Revelation, no one is taking

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Revelation in a woodenly literal way. Like meaning, like even your most like out there, even like your newspaper headline kind of dispensationalist or whatever, like even them, like they're not, they may interpret the

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Beast of Revelation as helicopters or something like that, but they're still interpreting it as a symbol.

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So, I mean, I think sometimes I would say that some of this, like it can be harder in some passages than other passages, but the way that you really fix all that is you just expose yourself to the

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Bible over and over again. And the more that you read, you're going to find so many context clues to tell you how to place what you're reading.

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So, I don't really think it's really not that overly complicated when you expose yourself to large portions of scripture repeatedly, you know?

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So, I mean, like the way to fix the evolution arguments is just to have a person read Genesis 50 times in a row, right?

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Yeah, I mean, you don't have to read it that much, read it five times in a row. Read it five times in a row and ask yourself, what kind of genre is this?

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Is this history? Is this myth? You know, what is it? And what you're going to find is, you know, I pointed out some features of it that you can't ignore, but over and over and over again, it seems like this is presented as history, right?

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So, like Adam is presented as a real person in Romans when Romans talks about who Adam is.

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Romans talks about Adam as the whole world came through, like every human being who existed came from that one man, right?

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And sin came from that one man. These are people, right? This isn't like the first hominid or something like that.

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He's not a concept. This is a person, like, and we got guilt imputed to us by him, right?

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So, what I'm trying to say is the more you expose yourself to the Bible, the more you realize the Bible will tell you what kind of genre it is.

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Does that make sense? Petey Yeah, yeah. So, in trying to figure out, hey, do

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I need to read this, you know, whatever passage of scripture I'm reading, do

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I need to read it literally or symbolically, the first step is at least understanding exactly what you're reading, right?

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What is the genre? What genre is this book that I'm reading, whether it be like historical narrative or apocalyptic writing, literature, poetry, what is it?

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Probably, yeah. So, is that the only thing I'm taking into consideration when

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I'm trying to figure out if something is literal or symbolic, or is there more to it than simply that alone?

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Jared No, I mean, I think just exposure, I mean, it's just like anything else, like if you want to understand someone, you just listen to them, and pretty soon you get a feel for how they talk and what they mean, right?

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And so, I mean, and that's how we've learned how to communicate as human beings. So, I mean, I don't think what you don't want to do is you don't want to treat the

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Bible as if it's just some mystery wrapped in an enigma or something like that, like cloaked in secrecy or something.

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The issue is the Bible is a pretty straightforward book. Just read it like you would read any book.

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You obviously want to ask, like if you're going to read most books, you're not prayerfully meditating on it and asking

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God to help you to understand it and all that, and that's not what I mean. I just mean like you're not supposed to approach the

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Bible thinking that this is meant to confuse you, right? Like it's not a confusing book as much as you, like if you don't understand it, it's because you're totally ignorant about it.

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So, like the issue is like if you, like people, like if you want to understand a movie, you sit down and you watch the movie, and if you didn't get it the first time, you watch it again, right?

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But I mean, I can't imagine there being any movie that you watch five times in a row and you still don't understand.

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You get what I'm saying? Because even a movie that's a little bit more confusing than other movies, simple repetition will fix it for you.

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Does that make sense? So, like it's almost unconceivable that the thought of watching a movie five times in a row and coming away saying,

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I have no idea what's going on. I guess that's just not the way it works. So, you may watch a movie and think, man,

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I'm still confused. And then you watched again and you piece together some things you didn't piece together. And maybe it takes you three times and it's like, all right,

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I get it. I get what's happening now. But the Bible is like that. I mean, you just read it over and over again, just like you would just, like if you find this,

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I've done this with lectures that I've, like that are pretty high level lectures on specific topics.

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It's like the first listen, I'm fuzzy, man. It's real fuzzy. Second listen, I got a little bit more by about the fifth one.

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If it's really complicated way over my head, then it's like, all right, I got it now. I understand it.

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And so, I mean, and that's just the way the Bible is. That's the way any communication with any human being is. Like if you want to understand someone, you talk to them a little bit.

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I mean, and this is like what husband and wife marriage is like. You talk to your wife over and over and over again, you get a feel for, oh, he's being sarcastic.

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That was sarcasm. That was a joke. That was straightforward.

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I mean, some people could be more complicated than others, but like the Bible isn't really meant to, it isn't really trying to confuse you.

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And so, what you'll find as you read the Bible over and over and over again is you'll figure out, yeah, you start with the assumption this isn't,

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God's not trying to confuse me. Like this is persecutory of Scripture.

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This is meant to be like a clear revelation. It's not like I've been given the

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Holy Spirit. This is not overly complicated. And so, then what you'll do as you read through the

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Bible is you'll realize that, hey, there's different forms of communication. There's parables, there's proverbs, there's historical narratives, there's poetry, and then you understand them the same way you understand everything else.

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And what you'll find is there's just context clues within the Bible that just tell you how to even read what you're saying.

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And I don't really think this is overly, in 99 % of the time, most people get it right anyways.

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So, like most spirit -filled people, read the Bible, most of it is just pretty straightforward.

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You understand what's happening. It's not overly complicated. Absalom got his hair stuck in a tree and then he got stabbed while he was hanging there.

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This is a symbol. This is, it's not really that deep. It's just like that.

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So, I think what you need to do is just read the Bible. Read the

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Bible like you'd read normal literature. Most of the time, you don't read normal books and come away thinking, oh man,

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I'm so confused. A big part of the Bible is historical narratives that read like any other books.

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And they're not really overly complicated. So, I think you have

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Jesus' sermons, you have figures of speech. I do think, yeah, a lot of people, they really don't understand generalities anymore.

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And so, I mean, there's things that can trip them up, but all in all, by the way, it really isn't overly complicated.

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I'll say that may not intuitively be aware of what you're supposed to do with the apocalyptic literature, and I'm not going to do a course on that in the next five minutes to unravel all the secrets to understanding that.

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But I mean, I - That was my next question. You just ruined that whole question. Here's the five tips to understanding apocalyptic literature in five minutes.

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But I mean, there's courses on these kinds of things too that you could take. But I mean, yeah, with something like apocalyptic literature, the advice people give is like, hey, yeah, you read a bunch of it and you'll realize that you'll see the patterns between how it works.

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So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of Jewish apocalyptic literature that you could read that just give you a feel for what's happening in these kinds of things because it is a little bit of a lost genre that we don't really understand as much as we could at that point.

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So I'm not trying to say that everything is equally easy to understand, but yeah, for the most part, the

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Bible really isn't all that complicated. When I first started reading the

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Bible, I started with the assumption that God wasn't really trying to confuse me. He didn't have a speech impediment.

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He gave me something that he wanted me to understand. And I mean, I know you've the same experience as me, as you've listened to the

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Old Testament, just listening straight through the story of the Old Testament. It's amazing, it's like you come away from that thinking people were sinful, right?

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And God's really patient, right? But he's still just, right? He's abounding in steadfast love, but he'll be at no means clear of the guilty, right?

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And so you see, it wasn't really all that complicated. Man just sins over and over and over again.

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They need a redeemer, right? Jesus has come to do for us what we can't do, right?

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There's no king in Israel. The mess of the judges, everyone's doing what's right in their own eyes.

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They get a king, right? Even the kings are messed up. The sacrificial system isn't the final answer.

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We need a better problem to this, or a better answer to this. And you find that in the New Testament. But I mean, the

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Bible really isn't overly complicated. I mean, you could fixate on like a few tough passages or something and then pretend like the whole thing is a mystery, but it really isn't all that.

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It's pretty straightforward. Petey Yeah, and I will say to your point, I think the first time I ever listened through the entire

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Bible, I was kind of wondering, what is the benefit of this going to be? Because, I mean, it just, with anything like that, you're just not going to remember everything.

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You're not going to get 100 % on the first listen through. You're not even really going to get 50%.

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I mean, depending on where you're at, you might get somewhere from like,

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I don't know, maybe 5 % to 15%. 15 % seems pretty high for one listen.

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But maybe you're the kind of person who didn't really know a lot about the Bible, and so you're getting a lot of those very common knowledge things as you're listening, and those are pretty easy to remember.

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But then what I realized is after the third or the fourth or the fifth, however many times it was through, all of a sudden, yeah, did

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I remember everything after that fifth listen? No, but maybe

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I remembered 1 % or 2 % more than I remembered the time before, right?

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Jared But it all starts to piece together and make sense and feel cohesive. Pete Yeah, it really does in a pretty surprising way.

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I mean, you just find yourself remembering all these things. Sometimes it's like I don't even remember, I didn't even think that I remembered that, but I did, and that's the

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Holy Spirit working, obviously. But then I guess to what you're saying, so all that just to say, yeah, be listening through the

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Bible along with whatever regular study you're doing because it is incredibly beneficial, and it might not seem like it is, but it really is.

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Personally, I might even argue for listening to it even when you're asleep.

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Even though you're not necessarily conscious, I think it's still a beneficial thing, and you're probably still getting a lot more of it than maybe you realize you are even in your sleep.

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But putting that part of it aside, kind of what I was trying to get at,

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Tim, was yes, it seems like genre is a major influencer when it comes to deciding is this meant to be taken literally?

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Is this meant to be symbolic? I mean, the way you're going to read the apocalyptic writings are way different than the way that you're going to read the historical narratives, and the historical narratives are way different than the wisdom literature, or the prophecy, or the letters that are written, whatever it is.

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But then even, that can't be the end -all, be -all, and I think that's kind of what you're getting at because even in, say, like a historical narrative like the

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Gospels, there's still going to be symbolism, obviously.

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I mean, Jesus tells Nicodemus, I think, that he has to be born again, right?

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And Nicodemus' response is essentially, it's a confusion because he's taking

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Jesus literally and asking Jesus how can a full -grown man be born from his mother again?

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How can he exit the womb a second time when Jesus wasn't speaking about a literal, physical birth, right?

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And so, you have parables that he's teaching that are meant to be symbols that represent theological truth that applies to the

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Christian's life, but it seems like all of those are, like you're saying,

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I mean, they're pretty obvious. I mean, when he tells a parable about -

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Jared Well, a normal feature of language is that you have figures of speech and you have analogies and you have comparisons and everything else, and so, you're not doing anything, like if Jesus says,

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I'm the door, right? Think about that, like Jesus says, I'm the door, and you're looking at a human being saying that they're a door.

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Pete I didn't even think that band was around yet. Jared So, I mean, the thing is, this is a normal manner of communication, like to give analogies, like this is a normal feature of language.

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You're not shifting into, oh, I need to interpret that symbolically or something like that.

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You're still using the normal laws of language. You're asking what manner of communication is.

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This is, and yes, that's a figure of speech, it's an analogy, right? Pete Right. Jared Do you think he's making a metaphysical claim right there that he's a door?

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Is this like an ontological claim about the nature of his being?

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What do you think he's doing there? Pete He's 100 % God, 100 % man, and 100 % door.

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Jared How I wish I could gather you together a hen gathers her brood, but you weren't willing or whatever.

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Is he, say he? Pete 100 % hen, too. Jared 100 % hen. I think a lot of these -

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Pete Free range. Jared Free range. Cage free. Pete Cage free. Jared I mean, this really is not, most of these things are not that complicated.

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Meaning you're not meant to, you're meant to, when Jesus says,

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I am the way, the truth, and the life, right? Like, I am the door. So he has all these

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I am statements in the gospels, and each one of them are, they're doing the same thing, right?

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Like, so you, I am the good shepherd, I'm the door.

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When he describes his followers as sheep, it's a metaphor, man. It's a figure of speech.

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Pete It's not a Pixar movie? Jared He's not, yeah, making an ontological claim that you are literally sheep.

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That's not what's happening. It's an analogy. It's an analogy. And we talk this way all the time.

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And even things like Revelation, you see John sees a vision,

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I see a vision of Jesus standing in the midst of these golden lampstands, and then it gives you the interpretation afterwards.

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The seven lampstands are the seven churches, right? And all that, like, you know, all that.

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So you have the seven stars in his hand, and it'll tell you what the symbol, like, so yes, that's the symbol, and then the text tells you what the symbol means later, right?

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There's totally an interpretive key there, like you understand he's seeing a vision. And then you're supposed to, when you see other visions, apply the similar rules, right, that you found in the first vision in the opening chapter of the book.

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So that's kind of what I mean by just, like, you don't want to check your brain out and treat it like it's funny, like something funny is happening or something like that.

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Just think about the normal manner of communication that human beings do in all times and all places.

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They use analogies, they use the figure of speech, you're not trying to discern like the hidden mystical meaning underneath the words or something like that.

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No, you understood in a straightforward way, basically. TBT Okay, well, I think that's a good place for us to wrap up the episode on.

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So, thank you, Tim, for answering all my questions, and hopefully this has been a helpful conversation for anyone who's been intimidated by trying to understand the

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Bible or, you know, they've been taught that the Bible is this insurmountable book that's almost like, why even try to understand it?

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Just give up, you know? I've met people like that. I've probably been that person myself at certain points, just to say, well, it's too confusing, move on, you know, give up on that one, to my own shame.

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But, you know, thankfully, I will say, as an encouragement, seriously consider, you know, study the

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Bible, read the Bible, physically sit down and read the Bible in your own personal study time.

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Obviously, sit underneath a pastor who's going to preach the word to you weekly, but then listening to it is such a benefit.

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When you can get large swaths of scripture all at once, it's a lot more beneficial than you might realize.

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And I would highly encourage, I would highly recommend that. I would highly encourage that personally from my own personal experience with it.

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And Tim, I think you'd probably say the same. But with all that being said, we appreciate you guys supporting us week in and week out.

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And until the next episode, we'll see you. This has been another episode of Bible Bashed.

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and consider supporting us through Patreon. Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.