{"id":6775,"date":"2025-07-06T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/?p=6775"},"modified":"2025-06-06T18:47:32","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T23:47:32","slug":"literally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/?p=6775","title":{"rendered":"Literally"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Short and sweet thought for the week\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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My favorite high school English teacher once remarked that if she were marooned on a desert island and could only have one book, it would either be the complete works of Shakespeare or the Bible. As a teenager, I thought that an odd statement. However, I have come to realize that some really do consider the Bible merely a great literary accomplishment rather than the actual word of God. That is a bit sad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, with that being said, I think those of us who believe the Bible to be God\u2019s divine revelation miss much by taking every scripture too literally, since it is full of similes, metaphors, personifications, parables, anthropomorphisms, symbolism, and hyperboles which make it all the more interesting to read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, a hyperbole is a deliberate overstatement or exaggeration for effect. You might say, \u201cI died of embarrassment,\u201d but you really didn\u2019t die. You might say, \u201cI am older than dirt,\u201d but dirt is pretty old, so that is not really true. How do you know today is the worst day of your whole life because your life isn\u2019t over yet? Am I really as hungry as a horse???? Actually, I am pretty hungry at the moment so that might be literal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, the Bible is full of figurative statements to drive home a given thought. These are not meant to be taken literally, but poetically or figuratively which means a figure of speech used for exaggeration to emphasize certain points. God inspired authors to use these to intensify warnings, aid our understanding, or add poetic examples to an already rich text.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t need to literally see a camel go through the eye of a needle (Mark 10:25), get a plank out of our eye (Luke 6:41), or cut our arm off (Matthew 5:29-30) to understand the meaning of what is said. Jesus is not literally bread (John 6:35), the mountains don\u2019t really sing (Psalm 98:8) unless someone is up there yodeling, and God doesn\u2019t have feathers (Psalm 91:4). Well, I guess He can if He wants. After all, He is GOD! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Realize this\u2026at least one third of the Bible is written in poetic form. So, there is a fine line between taking the Bible too literally or too figuratively. Sometimes we need to ask for God\u2019s wisdom to help us discern the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe shall cover you with His feathers, and under<\/em>
His wings you shall take refuge…” ~Psalm 91:4<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Short and sweet thought for the week\u2026 My favorite high school English teacher once remarked that if she were marooned on a desert island and could only have one book, it would either be the complete works of Shakespeare or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6775"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6782,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6775\/revisions\/6782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}