This is part Three of a ten part series counting down. The series begins Here.
#8 Scripture is only one Genre: God’s word. Any other perspective is hoity toity liberal, Bible-as-literature, non-literal nonsense.
You will never understand scripture well if you believe that seeing it as infallible and God inspired means seeing it as only and all literal. When Jesus says the Pharisees were swallowing a camel you will easily be able to avoid applying this condemnation to yourself if you refuse to see it as an intended metaphor. You don’t have to be this extreme either, just refuse to see the Psalms as poems, the parables as parables, anything in prophecy as metaphor and so on. Insist that everything was intended to be read as literal history. Don’t ever stop to consider that the best and most reasonable definition of literal truth is to read as the author intended it to be read. Of course you could just as easily get nothing from scripture by assuming it’s all poetry, literature, or metaphor. Just make sure you don’t allow scripture to be treated like the genre it is. Your stance is to read it all the same, whatever that means to you. Just because God spoke through numerous voices, doesn’t mean He could possibly have intended to communicate in a myriad of different ways. Be clear that poetry could never be God’s word, so therefore none of it is poetry. God would never speak in story, so therefore none of it is story.
After all we never see Jesus use parable, poetry, metaphor, simile, argument, proposition, satire or any other style, right?
Sticking to this notion (as absurd as it is) will not only help you avoid learning anything God wants you to learn but has the added benefit of making the Bible so dry and uninteresting that you will not be otherwise persuaded by its beauty, humor or drama to actually read it and thus be lulled into learning accidentally.
Whatever you do, do not read a book like the one below. After all the man who wrote it was a fiction author who wrote fantasy novels, sci-fi, poetry, and satire. Such a man could never understand the truth of scripture, dealing as he is with all that genre. After all, a book like this might change your whole understanding of the Psalms opening your mind to new revelation from God, as it did me. So, please, if you want to stay stagnant in your scriptural walk, don’t read this book or any like it.
