(~) The Seven Deadly Sins of Bible Study (Part 2 of 7)

Jack Kuhatschek for New Man magazine

Being Too Literal

Several years ago the cult expert Walter Martin was giving a lecture on a religious cult. A few members of the cult heard about the lecture and decided to attend. About halfway through the meeting, one of them stood up and began arguing that God the Father has a physical body like ours. He proved his point by quoting passages that refer to Gods right arm, hand, eyes and so on.

Martin told the person to read aloud Psalm 17:8, Hide me in the shadow of your wings, and asked whether that meant God also has feathers and wings.

But thats simply a figure of speech,protested the cult member.

Exactly! replied Martin.

In order to avoid a wooden kind of literalism, we need to realize that the biblical authors communicated in a variety of ways -- through metaphors, similes and symbols -- and through a variety of literary genres, such as history, proverbs, parables, letters, poems and prophecy. We must identify the type of language and literature an author is using in order to interpret his meaning correctly. If we assume, for example, that an author is speaking literally when he is speaking metaphorically (the mistake made by the cult member), we end up with nonsense.