The Literal Guardrail · Brief

Read It as the Kind of Writing It Is

Lesson 3 named seven guardrails for reading the Bible. This lesson takes up the first one, the Literal guardrail. Lesson 3 gave R. C. Sproul's short definition: "To interpret the Bible literally is to interpret it as literature." The Bible is one book made of many kinds of writing: stories, songs, laws, proverbs, letters and visions. Each one tells the truth in its own way, and each one asks to be read as the kind of writing it is. So the Literal guardrail asks two what kind questions: what kind of writing is this (name the family, then the subgenre), and what kind of speech is this (find each figure and the real point behind it). It keeps us on the road between two cliffs: the wooden cliff, which reads every word flat and takes away from what God said, and the hidden-meaning cliff, which treats ordinary words as a code and adds to it.

The lesson then puts question 1 of the ten to work, "What genre is this, and what does it actually say in that genre?", in three short cases: Nathan's parable inside Israel's history (2 Samuel 12), Isaiah's rain, snow and singing trees (Isaiah 55), and John's vision of the risen Christ among the lampstands (Revelation 1). Then it takes Ephesians 1:3–14 through all ten questions. Read as what it is, a doxology, a burst of praise to God, the passage leaves us worshiping instead of arguing. Every kind of writing in the Bible has one Author, and His Spirit helps us understand what God has freely given us. Meditate and Obey. Study and Apply. Hear and Do.

Break a Leg: Reading the Bible as Literature

• "Break a leg" and "knock 'em dead" sound like threats word for word, yet everyone at the theater hears good luck. We notice what kind of writing or speech we're reading, and we read it by its rules.
• Fee and Stuart give two reasons every reader still interprets: the kind of readers we are, and the kind of book the Bible is. Leland Ryken passes along C. S. Lewis's line that we should read "the different parts of it as the different sorts of literature they are."
• What kind of writing is this? Abide uses four families: narrative (history, gospel, parable, genealogy), poetry (songs, wisdom, prophecy), prose discourse (law, sermons, letters) and apocalyptic (visions full of symbols, as in Daniel and Revelation).
• What kind of speech is this? Roy Zuck: figures of speech aren't the opposite of reading literally; they're part of it, and every figure carries a real point. E. W. Bullinger: a figure is there to add force, life, feeling and emphasis. Literal asks what kind of words they are; Contextual's literary layer (lesson 6) asks where they are.
• Jesus told His disciples, "If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away" (Matthew 18:8, BSB). That's hyperbole. Jesus wasn't teaching anyone to harm their body; sin comes from the heart (Matthew 15:18–19). The exaggeration sharpens the command: get rid of whatever leads you into sin.

The Two Cliffs

• Each guardrail has a cliff on each side: adding to what God said, and taking away from it (Deuteronomy 4:2).
• The wooden cliff reads every word flat, whatever kind of writing it is, and takes away from what God said by losing the writer's point. "Idle hands make one poor, but diligent hands bring wealth" (Proverbs 10:4, BSB) is wisdom about how life usually goes, not a promise. Zuck: proverbs are "guidelines, not guarantees; precepts, not promises."
• The hidden-meaning cliff treats ordinary words as a code and adds to what God said, because the meaning comes from the reader. Bernard Ramm: the reader brings in something foreign or hidden and calls it the text's deeper meaning.
• The two cliffs are closer together than they look: readers who fixed on single letters ended up reading the text as a code (the note at the end of the lesson). The road between: read each passage as the kind of writing it is, and look for the real point behind every figure.

The First Question, and Where We Are on the Map

• The Literal guardrail owns question 1 of the ten: What genre is this, and what does it actually say in that genre? On the map, it sits at the top of the Observation circle.
• Work it in three steps: name the family; name the subgenre; look for figures of speech and ask what real point each one makes.
• Zuck's tests: read words in their normal sense unless there's a good reason not to. A figure is probably at work when the words describe something impossible ("seven stars" in His right hand, Revelation 1:16, BSB), when they would be absurd word for word ("all the trees of the field will clap their hands," Isaiah 55:12, BSB), when they would require us to sin, or when the text explains itself: believers who "have fallen asleep in Him" (1 Thessalonians 4:14, BSB) are "the dead in Christ" (v. 16, BSB).
• Each case ends with Guardrails at work: the Literal guardrail leads, and the line names the guardrails that help it.

Case 1: A Story Inside a Story

• Narrative, the history of Israel's kings. After David took Bathsheba and had Uriah killed, "the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the LORD" (2 Samuel 11:27, BSB).
• God sent the prophet Nathan to David with a parable, a short made-up story with one point, told inside real history. David missed the change in genre, judged the rich man as if he were real, and then heard, "You are that man!" (2 Samuel 12:7, BSB).
• Ramm's first rule for a parable: find the one main truth it teaches; as others put it, "Don’t make a parable walk on all fours." The story was made up, and it told the truth: a powerful man took what belonged to someone weaker, and showed no pity.
• The parable got past David's defenses, and he confessed, "I have sinned against the LORD" (2 Samuel 12:13, BSB). We are often quickest to see sin in someone else's story. Guardrails at work: Literal leads; Contextual helps.

Case 2: Rain, Snow and Singing Trees

• Poetry, and its subgenre is prophecy: Isaiah speaking God's words to His people Israel, inside an invitation: "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters" (Isaiah 55:1, BSB).
• A simile: just as rain and snow water the earth, "so My word that proceeds from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please" (Isaiah 55:11, BSB). God's word does what He sends it to do.
• Personification: mountains don't sing and trees don't have hands. The picture is joy, as God's people "go out with joy" (Isaiah 55:12, BSB).
• The wooden reading waits for trees to applaud; the hidden-meaning reading turns them into a code. The Literal guardrail hears a poem: real promises, told in pictures. Guardrails at work: Literal leads; Contextual and Harmony help ("the word of God is living and active," Hebrews 4:12, BSB).

Case 3: The Risen Christ Among the Lampstands

• Apocalyptic, the family of visions full of symbols. John, on the island of Patmos, writes "to the seven churches in the province of Asia" (Revelation 1:4, BSB), and the passage is a vision.
• No one can hold seven stars in one hand, so expect symbols. Don't glue the details together into one strange portrait; let each picture show something true about Christ. The sword from His mouth stands for His word and His judgment.
• The text explains itself: "The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches" (Revelation 1:20, BSB). Ramm: start with the symbols Scripture explains, and where it doesn't and there's no sound clue, it's wiser to be silent than to guess.
• What isn't a symbol: "I was dead, and behold, now I am alive forever and ever!" (Revelation 1:18, BSB). The book's blessing rests on reading, hearing and obeying, not on solving every symbol (Revelation 1:3). Guardrails at work: Literal leads; Contextual, Progressive and Harmony help.

The Central Case: Ephesians 1:3–14 Through the Ten Questions

• Question 1: the family is prose discourse and the subgenre a letter, to "the saints in Ephesus" (Ephesians 1:1, BSB). The passage's own kind is a doxology, "a continuous cascade of praise" (NIV Bible Speaks Today notes): one long sentence in Greek, with a refrain, "to the praise of His glorious grace" (Ephesians 1:6, BSB). Its pictures (adoption, redemption, sealed, pledge, inheritance) each carry something real. Read as praise, it doesn't argue a case.
• Questions 2–3: praise opens chapters 1 through 3, and praise closes them (Ephesians 3:20–21). Two refrains run side by side: in Christ (where every blessing comes from) and the praise of His glory (what every blessing is for).
• Questions 4–5: to the believers in Ephesus, Paul says: Praise God! In Christ, He has given you every spiritual blessing. "We" (Paul and his fellow Jewish believers) and "you" (the Gentile believers) become "our" in verse 14. Let go of the debate over "chose" and "predestined" for a moment: Paul praises God inside the mystery and wants his readers amazed, worshiping and ready to live as God's holy people.
• Questions 6–8: the one meaning: in Christ, God has given His people every spiritual blessing, to the praise of His glorious grace. The abiding principle: everything God has given us in Christ is meant to lead us to praise Him, and to live as people who belong to Him and bear His name.
• Questions 9–10: 2 Corinthians 1:3, 1 Peter 1:3, Romans 8:17 and 2 Corinthians 1:22 tell the same story with the same pictures. This week, read Ephesians 1:3–14 aloud, slowly, as a prayer, and thank God for each blessing by name. How is God inviting you to live out this abiding principle this week?

Every Kind, One Author

• In every case, naming the kind of writing didn't weaken what God said. It let us hear it the way He meant it.
• On the night before the cross, Jesus promised the Eleven that the Holy Spirit "will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have told you" (John 14:26, BSB). Paul wrote that we have received "the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us" (1 Corinthians 2:12, BSB).
• So ask question 1 every time you open your Bible, and let the answer take you where Paul's doxology took him: to praise.
• So what? Read the Bible as the kinds of writing God gave it in. Name the family, then the subgenre, and look for the real point behind every figure. Stay off the wooden cliff and the hidden-meaning cliff, and let each passage say what its Author meant.

Reflection Prompts

Instructions: For reflection, group discussion, or written response. Answers are not provided.

1. Four Families: Describe the four genre families Abide uses (narrative, poetry, prose discourse and apocalyptic) and their subgenres. Using the lesson's cases, show how reading one kind of writing by another kind's rules leads to a wrong reading.
2. Figures That Add Force: Some people wave a verse away with "Oh, that's just figurative." Using E. W. Bullinger's point that a figure is there to add force, life, feeling and emphasis, show how the hyperbole in Matthew 18:8–9, the simile and personification in Isaiah 55:10–12, and the symbols in Revelation 1:12–20 each make a real point hit harder.
3. Between the Two Cliffs: Compare the wooden cliff and the hidden-meaning cliff. Show how Proverbs 10:4 can be pushed over the wooden cliff, how code reading strays onto the hidden-meaning cliff, and how the Literal guardrail keeps a reader on the road between.
4. Ephesians 1:3–14 on the Road: Walk the passage through questions 1 to 5. How do its kind of writing (a doxology inside a letter), its place between the greeting and Paul's prayer, its two refrains, and its first readers in Ephesus shape what you take from verses 4, 5 and 11?
5. Every Kind, One Author: Jesus promised the Eleven the Spirit who "will teach you all things" (John 14:26, BSB), and Paul wrote that we have received the Spirit "that we may understand what God has freely given us" (1 Corinthians 2:12, BSB). How do careful study of the kinds of writing and the Spirit's help work together when you open your Bible?

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