Your reference to 2 Peter 2:17 is valid Scripture, but you're misapplying it to defend a man-centered view of Bible study. That verse is speaking about false teachers, not literary analysis. The issue isn’t whether God used metaphor or imagery in the Bible, He clearly did, but whether we are reading His Word as it is written, submitting to its truth, or twisting it to fit personal preferences. The Holy Spirit inspired the words, not just the ideas (2 Timothy 3:16, pasa graphē theopneustos, “all Scripture is God-breathed”), and we are told to rightly divide the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15). That means studying what is written in context, not filtering everything through subjective “literary devices” or human interpretation.
You accuse others of making “tangential arguments,” yet you ignore the main issue, many people reject church buildings not because they reject God, but because they see that what’s being practiced in many of them does not line up with Scripture. Jesus said in Matthew 15:9, “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Your focus should not be on poetic devices, but on whether people are obeying the actual commands of God. The Word of God is living and powerful (Hebrews 4:12), and it cuts through all pretense. If someone avoids institutional church because it’s filled with compromise, false teaching, or entertainment instead of truth, that concern is not tangential, it’s scriptural. The real question is not whether the Bible uses metaphor, but whether you are obeying what it plainly says.
