Reading The Bible Literally?

Having a high view of Scripture and having a strict literal view of Scripture isn’t necessarily the same thing. It sounds great to say that you read the Bible literally, that you believe the words that are written.

However, it’s not just about reading the words on the pages, you need to understand what you are reading.

For instance, Genesis 1:1-3 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light.”

We are all familiar with the creation story, but in Psalm 74 we find another account of this story.

Psalm 74:12-17 “Yet God my king is from old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. You spilt open spring and brooks; you dried up ever-flowing streams. Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun. You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter.”

If you say we just need to stick to the literal reading of Scripture, as in, it says what it says, then are you saying God killed a sea monster named Leviathan during creation? Of course not! To read the Scriptures literally means to read them according to their genre. While the Bible is one book, and all of it is God’s Word, we need to be aware of the literary genre of what we are reading.

We wouldn’t interpret Proverbs or Psalms the same way you interpret the book of Ephesians. Why? They are totally different genres of writing. We need to understand what type of writing we are reading, is it peotry? Is it Wisdom Literature? is it Narrative? Also, we need to understand the mind of the author, how did they understand the world? What are the intending to say?

Psalm 74 is telling the creation story, but it’s not literal. Leviathan is a chaos monster, the writer is teaching that God brought order into chaos which fits perfectly with Genesis 1. The earth was without form and void and darkness covered the face of the deep. The world was without order, it was chaos. God speaks into the void and brings forth order.

It’s not about finding hidden meanings, it’s not about taking liberty with the interpretations, it’s about finding the true meaning of Scripture!

I want you to notice that the sea in Scripture is connected to chaos and confusion. The ancient Israelites believe in a three-story world. 

Chad Bird describes this well,

“Understanding ancient Israelite cosmology is helpful when reading the Bible. Needless to say, they didn’t think of our planet or solar system as we do today. The simplest way to explain the Israelite view is that they conceived of a Three-Story World or Three-Decker Universe.

This is reflected, for instance, in Exodus 20:4, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” Here are the “three stories” or “three decks”: (1) the heaven above, (2) the earth beneath, and (3) the water under the earth.

The top level is the heavens, which Genesis 1 describes as a vast vault, in which are the sun, moon, and stars. On the other side of that vault are storehouses of wind, hail, rain, and snow. Here, too, is the dwelling place of God. Heaven is sometimes called the throne of God. He “looks down” from heaven. A few times, the OT mentions the “highest heaven,” which seems to be the uttermost heights of heaven itself. Later, during the intertestamental era, and into the NT, there were envisioned various levels of heaven, such as the “third heaven” that Paul mentions in 2 Cor. 12:2.

The middle level is where we dwell, “in the earth beneath.” All lands are conceived of as islands, which rest atop the sea. As Psalm 24 says, “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.” As the heavens are above the earth, so the seas are below the land.

The lowest level is “the water under the earth,” that is, the seas and oceans of the world, which are thought of as one vast and deep body of water, upon which the islands of the world rest. This base level of the world is also described as the Deep or Abyss, which becomes iconic of Sheol and later Gehenna. In the Israelite imagination, the seas are a space of chaos and confusion. Thus, the Gentile world is often pictured with imagery drawn from the sea. That is also why, in Revelation 20, there is no sea in the new heavens and new earth, because all chaos and confusion are gone.

This Three-Story World has many other nuances in the biblical narrative, but it forms the basic structure of—what we might call—the “moral world” of heaven and earth and hell.

To understand any literature, we need to get into the mind of the one who wrote it, as well as their addressees. So also, when reading the Bible, we need to see the world as a three-decker universe. When we do, much of the imagery and assumptions and symbolism of the biblical narrative become clearer.”

We have to remember that while the Bible is the inspired Word of God it’s not a channeled book. Guys didn’t fall out into a trance and woke up with Scripture written. Real people wrote to real audiences under the inspiration of God. 

It is our job to find the true meaning of Scripture, this means more specifically that we are finding the intended meaning. What did the authors mean when they wrote it? What were they trying to get across? 

In the book, How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth, Gordon Fee says this,

“The aim of good interpretation is simple: to get to the plain meaning of the text. We tend to think that our understanding is the same thing as the Holy Spirit’s or human author’s intent. However, because of our backgrounds, knowledge, experiences, it is easy for our interpretations to become skewed from what God originally intended. The bible, in fact, that most of us read is already an interpretation from the language that it originally was penned in. This is another reason for close examination of Scripture and good exegetical study.

 Another reason for the need to interpret exists because the way in which the Bible was created. It is the word of God given to people throughout history. Because God chose to speak to us in this way every book of the Bible has historical particularity. This means that every document is conditioned by the language, time, and culture in which it was originally written, as well as the oral history it had before it was written down.

One of the most important aspects of the Bible is the variety of ways in which God chose to speak to us: narrative history, genealogies, chronicles, laws of all kinds, poetry of all kinds, proverbs, prophetic oracles, riddles, drama, biographical sketches, parables, letters, sermons and apocalypses. To interpret the Bible correctly the reader must be able to not only understand the exegetical aspects of the content but also the genres in which the different books were written.”

One more principle of interpreting Scripture is to interpret narrative passages with the help of didactic passages. 

Narrative passages: literature that is meant to relate a series of events (ie large portions of the four Gospels and the book of Acts). It tells the story.

Didactic passages: literature that is meant to teach or explain (ie much of the Epistles). It interprets the story.

Just because one passage interprets another, that passage isn’t given more authority over the one it interprets. All of Scripture has equal authority, though there may be a difference in order of interpretation.

Since all of Scripture has equal authority, we must be careful to not claim to follow God while rejecting the teachings of those He used to write His words for us. The principle of interpreting the narrative by the didactic isn’t designed to set passage against passage, writer against writer, or apostle against Christ. It is merely recognizing one of the principle tasks of the Scripture writers, specifically the apostles, was to teach and interpret the mind of Christ for His people.

This helps us from taking a narrative that is simply describing something and making is prescriptive for all Christians today.

“When studying the Bible, it is important to determine whether the verse or passage at hand is descriptive or prescriptive. The difference is this: a passage is descriptive if it is simply describing something that happened, while a passage is prescriptive if it is specifically teaching that something should happen. Simply put, is it a description or a command? Is the passage describing something (it happened) or is it prescribing something (it should happen)? The difference is important. When a biblical passage is only describing something but is interpreted as prescribing something, it can lead to errant thinking and behavior.” 

When reading the Bible I need to ask myself, is this just describing what is happening, or is this prescribing something for all Christians at all times? For instance, in the book of Acts we find that the early church met in homes and gave all they had to the church. Does this mean that this is the prescription for the church today? Of course not! This is just telling us what happened, not that we should be doing the same thing.

People make a mistake when they try to apply descriptive passages as if they are prescriptive. 

Gideon put out a fleece because he doubted whether God was really calling him or not. That’s a descriptive story about the life of Gideon, that doesn’t mean we should follow that pattern in our own lives. 

Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines but that doesn't mean the Bible condones that type of behavior nor does it give us license to have multiple wives. 

Much of what we read in the Epistles would be considered prescriptive because these letters are teaching letters written to the church. In these letters we find teaching about conduct, spiritual gifts, leadership, dealing with sin, etc... While the book of Acts tells us a lot of stories about the early church, the Epistles give us instruction on how the church should function.

All this isn’t to say that you need to be a scholar or a theologian to understand the Bible. The Gospel message is simple. What I’m trying to point out is that in order to avoid falling for false doctrine or being taught something that isn’t true. We should challenge ourselves to study the Word and learn its history, we should not be afraid to dig into it and realize that the culture that the Bible was written in is completely different from the culture we live in today. 

We should love God enough to take his Word seriously! take it serious by studying it, by learning about it, by digging deep into the beauty and richness of Scripture. Don't take it for granted!

2 Timothy 2:15 "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth."