SURE, THE BIBLE IS LITERAL

“The Bible is literal.”

We say that as if it proves everything.

But we use non-literal language all day long without even thinking about it.

“We’re shooting the breeze.”
“We’re kicking ideas around.”
“We’re chewing on it.”
“We’re on the same wavelength.”
“We’re going back and forth.”

No one thinks bullets are flying.
No one imagines feet hitting ideas.
No one sees actual teeth marks on thoughts.
We all know these are phrases, not physics.

Now imagine someone 2,000 years from now reading those lines with no cultural context.
They would picture chaos, confusion, and nonsense.
They would completely miss what we meant.

That is exactly what happens when people read the Bible like a flat English instruction manual
instead of an ancient collection of stories, poetry, prophecy, parables, and symbols.

The Bible itself tells you this.

Galatians 4:24 literally says:
“These things are an allegory.”

Paul is not guessing.
He is not being “liberal.”
He is saying outright:
this story speaks symbolically.

Scripture speaks in many layers:
allegory,
parable,
symbol,
poetry,
hyperbole,
apocalyptic imagery,
cultural idiom,
prophetic metaphor.

Jesus said things like:
“If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.”
If that were literal, the church would be full of one-eyed believers.

He said:
“Eat my flesh and drink my blood.”
If that were literal, it would be cannibalism.
Instead, He tells them the words are spirit and life.

He said:
“You are gods.”
People panic over the phrase, but miss the revelation of identity and calling.

He said:
“The Kingdom of God is within you.”
Yet we keep pointing up, out, and away.

Nicodemus showed what happens when you take everything literally.
Jesus said, “You must be born again.”
Nicodemus asked if he had to crawl back into his mother’s womb.
Jesus redirects him to spiritual birth, not biology.

This is how ancient people spoke.
Eastern, symbolic, picture-rich.
Hebrew and Aramaic thought in images and patterns, not in modern Western bullet points.

When you ignore that,
you read apocalyptic poetry like a future newspaper.
You turn refining fire into eternal torture.
You turn metaphors into mechanics.
You turn parables into threats.

And when you take everything “by the letter” with no Spirit and no culture,
you end up with exactly what we see now:
around 44,000 denominations,
endless arguments,
and sermons that call God love
but preach hell and torture more clearly than they ever reveal His goodness.

Paul said:
“The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

The problem is not that the Bible uses symbol.
The problem is pretending it doesn’t.

If you are going to read it intellectually,
you at least have to read it in its own world:
its idioms,
its imagery,
its culture,
its covenant language.

If you want to read it as it was meant to be read,
you need more than grammar.
You need illumination.

Either the Spirit interprets,
or your fear will.

And fear will always build a God who tortures,
a gospel that threatens,
and a faith that divides.

But when love is the lens
and Spirit is the interpreter,
you begin to see:
Scripture is not less true because it is layered.
It is more true,
because it speaks to heart, mind, and spirit all at once.


Literalism without love always ends in fear. 
The same words can wound or heal depending on the lens you bring. 
When Spirit illuminates the page, threat turns back into invitation. 
You were never called to worship the letter, but to walk in the Life it points to.