Literal Vs. Non-Literal

[marks]

I'm not saying God has feathers, so we can take that off the table right away.

It seems to me that the more literally one understands the Bible, the more that person will reach the same conclusions as those who understand the Bible more literally.

The less literally someone understands the Bible, the more they are likely to hold divergent views, not just that the will diverge from the Literallists, but they will likewise diverge from the other Non-Literallists.

The more literal your understanding of Scripture, the more likely you will hold a common doctrine with those who understand it literally. The less literal your understanding of Scripture, the less likely you will hold a common doctrine with anyone.

The commonality of Scriptural interpretation, if it exists (and it does), exists in the printed words in their use as language.

Cast away the anchor of the meaning embued into the Words by the Speaker, and one may drift in any number of directions.

Ephesians 4:11-14
1 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

Be grounded in a common doctrine, or be blown about like a wave in the ocean, this way, and that way, by every wind. By trickery, by cunning craftiness.

Like I said, It just seems to me.

Much love!
mark

 

[Enoch111]

It seems to me that the more literally one understands the Bible, the more that person will reach the same conclusions as those who understand the Bible more literally.

The Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles took the Scriptures literally. Thus we find again and again when Christ corrected His enemies of their misconceptions, He said "Have ye not read...?"

The Lord, the apostles, the scribes, Pharisees, and lawyers all had the Hebrew Tanakh, and they all regarding it as "the Holy Scriptures". And they read and understood the Hebrew Bible literally.

Also, they had just 24 books in their Bibles, which correspond to the 39 books of our Protestant Old Testaments. That is because many were split into their components e.g. I & II Samuel, I & II Kings, I & II Chronicles, etc. All the Minor Prophets were just one book, whereas we have 12 separate books. But the canon and the context are the same.

Today (actually going back to the Early Church Fathers) we have people coming up with all kinds of fanciful interpretations because they choose to impose their own ideas on Scripture. Thus we have a great deal of spiritual confusion.

 

[Dave L]

I'm not saying God has feathers, so we can take that off the table right away.

It seems to me that the more literally one understands the Bible, the more that person will reach the same conclusions as those who understand the Bible more literally.

The less literally someone understands the Bible, the more they are likely to hold divergent views, not just that the will diverge from the Literallists, but they will likewise diverge from the other Non-Literallists.

The more literal your understanding of Scripture, the more likely you will hold a common doctrine with those who understand it literally. The less literal your understanding of Scripture, the less likely you will hold a common doctrine with anyone.

The commonality of Scriptural interpretation, if it exists (and it does), exists in the printed words in their use as language.

Cast away the anchor of the meaning embued into the Words by the Speaker, and one may drift in any number of directions.

Ephesians 4:11-14
1 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

Be grounded in a common doctrine, or be blown about like a wave in the ocean, this way, and that way, by every wind. By trickery, by cunning craftiness.

Like I said, It just seems to me.

Much love!
mark

Reading the bible literally is the natural disposition of the flesh without the Spirit. We should read it in light of Christ and the New Covenant writers who define OT terms and prophecies for us. Paul says the letter (literal) kills, but the Spirit gives life.

 

[aspen]

Ironically, literalists tend to take everything they find in the Bible literally except the two things in the Bible that are meant to be interpreted literally - love God and neighbor and the Eucharist.

 

[VictoryinJesus]

It seems to me that the more literally one understands the Bible, the more that person will reach the same conclusions as those who understand the Bible more literally.

Really? Have you taken a look around at all the man-made doctrines?

The less literally someone understands the Bible, the more they are likely to hold divergent views, not just that the will diverge from the Literallists, but they will likewise diverge from the other Non-Literallists.

Again... are you saying all who read it literally say the same thing? God is not the author of confusion. Man is. God is Spirit.

The more literal your understanding of Scripture, the more likely you will hold a common doctrine with those who understand it literally. The less literal your understanding of Scripture, the less likely you will hold a common doctrine with anyone.

Is it better to find one of the many denominations and let it(the denomination)teach you, so you will agree with the masses? Isaiah 55:11
[11] So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void(flesh void of Spirit), but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

John 6:63
[63] It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Psalm 119:124-126
[124] Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy, and teach me thy statutes. [125] I am thy servant; give me understanding, that I may know thy testimonies. [126] It is time for thee , Lord , to work: for they have made void thy law.

It is flesh that make void His Law. It comes to nothing. How many times are the children said to walk in the Spirit and not after the flesh.

Romans 3:31
[31] Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

Galatians 5:22-26
[22] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, [23] Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. [24] And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. [25] If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. [26] Let us not be desirous of vain(flesh void of Spirit) glory, provoking one another, envying one another.


Let’s not forget Moses endured as seeing Him who is invisible. ...Spirit.

Hebrews 11:27
[27] By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.

 

[Willie T]

"Have ye not read"... and taken that reading to be limited to a literal meaning?..."But, I say unto you".. that our Father meant so much more than just those few words you nailed on a wall. ("Thou shalt not kill" is a good example..... followed by "you must hate your mother and father"...… then looking at the total inability of a camel to go through the eye of a needle...… to name just a few.)
Many of us probably die from being Literal One-Verse Christians.

 

[Helen]

Really? Have you taken a look around at all the man-made doctrines?



Again... are you saying all who read it literally say the same thing? God is not the author of confusion. Man is. God is Spirit.



Is it better to find one of the many denominations and let it(the denomination)teach you, so you will agree with the masses? Isaiah 55:11
[11] So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void(flesh void of Spirit), but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

John 6:63
[63] It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Psalm 119:124-126
[124] Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy, and teach me thy statutes. [125] I am thy servant; give me understanding, that I may know thy testimonies. [126] It is time for thee , Lord , to work: for they have made void thy law.

It is flesh that make void His Law. It comes to nothing. How many times are the children said to walk in the Spirit and not after the flesh.

Romans 3:31
[31] Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

Galatians 5:22-26
[22] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, [23] Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. [24] And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. [25] If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. [26] Let us not be desirous of vain(flesh void of Spirit) glory, provoking one another, envying one another.


Let’s not forget Moses endured as seeing Him who is invisible. ...Spirit.

Hebrews 11:27
[27] By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.

Amen!!!

I believe Adam only became literal when he fell from seeing Him who is invisible. That WAS adams real world...but he got shut out and his eyes were opened to this world. His lost his spiritual sight.

Some of our friends can see , sadly others when Jesus says "What can you see,...have to answer as the ( once) blind man answered- " I see men as trees walking." Stunted vision.

 

[ScottA]

I'm not saying God has feathers, so we can take that off the table right away.

It seems to me that the more literally one understands the Bible, the more that person will reach the same conclusions as those who understand the Bible more literally.

The less literally someone understands the Bible, the more they are likely to hold divergent views, not just that the will diverge from the Literallists, but they will likewise diverge from the other Non-Literallists.

The more literal your understanding of Scripture, the more likely you will hold a common doctrine with those who understand it literally. The less literal your understanding of Scripture, the less likely you will hold a common doctrine with anyone.

The commonality of Scriptural interpretation, if it exists (and it does), exists in the printed words in their use as language.

Cast away the anchor of the meaning embued into the Words by the Speaker, and one may drift in any number of directions.

Ephesians 4:11-14
1 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

Be grounded in a common doctrine, or be blown about like a wave in the ocean, this way, and that way, by every wind. By trickery, by cunning craftiness.

Like I said, It just seems to me.

Much love!
mark

Your quote of Ephesians tells why your assumptions are incorrect, as it qualifies the oneness that we are to have with Christ as one body, in this way: "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

As such, Christ being the "measure" of what Paul is saying, it would be wrong to say that Christ's doctrine stopped at the written word. He very clearly stated that His "words are spirit", and He has the authority and the intention - or rather made the promise to finish that "fullness" by sending the Holy Spirit, and giving spiritual "gifts to men."

So, your supposition stops far short of "the fullness of Christ" and being "perfect" as "God is perfect", and is therefore, simply wrong.

Furthermore, the "use of language" as you put it, is another problem. God's confounding of all language throughout all the earth at the tower of Babel, has not been rescinded.

"Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” the Lord scattered them abroad from there lover the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth." Genesis 11:7-9

 

[Enoch111]

"Have ye not read"... and taken that reading to be limited to a literal meaning?

Generally, unless it applies to a metaphor such as Christ the Corner Stone which the builders (the Jews) rejected.

Matthew 21:42 - Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?

But there is no mistaking the literal meaning of this: And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female (Mt 19:4)

This means that the entire creation account must be taken in its plain, literal, historical sense, since Christ Himself understood it in that way. It is interesting that even though Christ (the Word) is presented to us as the divine Creator, He does not refer to Himself but to God ("he"), since it is Elohim (God) who is consistently mentioned in the creation account. It is only when God begins to deal with man (Genesis 2) that He is called Yahweh Elohim (the LORD God).

Yet the evolutionists and pseudo-evolutionists would have us believe that God did not LITERALLY create the universe out of nothing in six literal 24 hour days.

 

[marks]

Really? Have you taken a look around at all the man-made doctrines?

Hi VictoryinJesus,

I have actually. Not all, I'm sure. But there are many! However, man-made doctrines would to me fit more with those who read a passage, and assign a symbolic or allegorical meaning, that is only supported by someone's say so, not that there is a textual reason.

Again... are you saying all who read it literally say the same thing? God is not the author of confusion. Man is. God is Spirit.

No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that what I've seen is that those who read Scripture more literally tend to be more in agreement with each other, as they are all looking at the same source, the words in print according to their historical meaning.

Those who read the Bible less literally, in what I've seen, tend to be less in agreement with the literal readers, and also less in agreement among themselves.

That makes sense to me.

The Sky is Blue.

As a simple, declarative statement, it has a single meaning, the color of the sky.

But what if I say, There is a deeper spiritual meaning, what is it?

One might answer, the sky is what is over us, and God is over us, God is blue, we've made God sad.

No, says another. Blue is the color for heaven, and the sky is over all, so heaven is everywhere!

Is it better to find one of the many denominations and let it(the denomination)teach you, so you will agree with the masses? Isaiah 55:11

No, I think I'm better off learning the words of Scripture.

[11] So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void(flesh void of Spirit), but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

Why add in the words? God's word shall not return to Him void - that is, empty, without fulfillment. It shall accomplish His Work.

In the believer, I believe the work of God is conforming us to Christ. So, yes, we should be like the masses . . . of Christians.

I don't think we should make void a single word of Scripture.

Much love!
Mark

 

[marks]

To those who believe the Bible is embued with meanings that are not attached to the historical usage of the languages the Bible was written in, I have this question.

When you read a passage, and understand from it something that's not actually stated in the wording, how do you know it is true?

What happens when what was revealed to you is different from what was revealed to another? Which is true? How do you know?

Is this not confusion?

I mean, if I think a passage means this, and you think it means that, and we are agreed over an historical grammatical hermeneutic, then we can look at the text to see who is right, and can come to agreement.

But if we're both reading the same verse, and I say it has this "spiritual" meaning, and you say it has a different "spiritual" meaning, and we both maintian that the Spirit is revealing His Word to us, which is true? How can you know?

Much love!
Mark

 

[Helen]

No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that what I've seen is that those who read Scripture more literally tend to be more in agreement with each other, as they are all looking at the same source, the words in print according to their historical meaning.

( And to @VictoryinJesus too. ♥︎ )

Why on earth do people like little boxes!!
Why has it got to be 'Either v Or' ???

It is BOTH....the bible reads on many levels.
It is not "one OR the other"

The older and more mature we get, we are not reading it as we did when we were new baby Christians...it is a spiritual book...God IS Spirit and He speaks via His Spirit.

Yes it is literally spiritual....BOTH are there...but some have blinkers on when reading or hearing the Word .

Many decades ago Father used a scripture to speak something to me about something.
About a decade later He used the same scripture in a totally different way to speak something. God can and does put His emphasis where He likes on any given verse.
He is our Father...He speaks. "The middle wall that separated is broken down"...

Some things happen literally, most things have a spiritual meaning TOO.

My two cents....
.......

 

[Willie T]

In using the example of a camel being unable to go through the eye of a needle, a literal reading of the Bible confirms that no one who is rich will go to Heaven.

So, the only conclusion a Literalist could reach is that Abraham (a rich man) and many others also, are not in Heaven, and never will be.

This easily demonstrates the fallacy of claiming you read all of the Bible literally.

 

[Dave L]

In using the example of a camel being unable to go through the eye of a needle, a literal reading of the Bible confirms that no one who is rich will go to Heaven.
So, the only conclusion a Literalist could reach is that Abraham (a rich man) and many others also, are not in Heaven, and never will be.

Wealth under the OT was geared to law keeping enjoyed by both believers and unbelievers. The same is true today but with the full revelation of the NT love almost insures we will not have hefty bank accounts in love for those who have need.

 

[Enoch111]

In using the example of a camel being unable to go through the eye of a needle, a literal reading of the Bible confirms that no one who is rich will go to Heaven.
So, the only conclusion a Literalist could reach is that Abraham (a rich man) and many others also, are not in Heaven, and never will be.

But that is not the conclusion from a literal reading. All it means that it is extremely difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God because they are worshiping their wealth. And then Jesus added that with God all things are possible.

 

[Willie T]

But that is not the conclusion from a literal reading. All it means that it is extremely difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God because they are worshiping their wealth. And then Jesus added that with God all things are possible.

"No", it simply means you are not reading (and are not applying) the words literally.

 

[CoreIssue]

In using the example of a camel being unable to go through the eye of a needle, a literal reading of the Bible confirms that no one who is rich will go to Heaven.
So, the only conclusion a Literalist could reach is that Abraham (a rich man) and many others also, are not in Heaven, and never will be.

That is a poor deduction.

Job. A very rich man.

How about Melchizedek? Moses?

Were David and Solomon rich men? We know they are in heaven.

The rich man that put Christ in his tomb?

While difficult, it does not say impossible.

 

[Helen]

In using the example of a camel being unable to go through the eye of a needle, a literal reading of the Bible confirms that no one who is rich will go to Heaven.

So, the only conclusion a Literalist could reach is that Abraham (a rich man) and many others also, are not in Heaven, and never will be.

This easily demonstrates the fallacy of claiming you read all of the Bible literally.

AMEN!!
Why couldn't I have said it as clearly and easily as that!

 

[Willie T]

It has always been so laughable to me when people try their best to sound "Holy" by claiming they "only read the Bible Literally", when we all know that is just a sad attempt at a smoke screen. Even an eight-year old child can name plenty of places in the Bible that all of us know we do not read the word literally. (You have to wonder where all the "one-armed" and "one-eyed" people are.)

 

[bbyrd009]

We know they are in heaven.

wadr we know you are wrong,
No one has ever gone up to heaven
you and your sons will be here with me