Bible Question (short): Should the Bible be taken literally? |
Question (full): I will probably be accused of beating a dead horse but let me ask my question once more. Should the Bible be taken literally? By that I mean in some passages some men say, “this particular passage is only addressing a problem brought about by a custom or tradition of the time and does not pertain to the church today.” Again I hesitate to point to a specific passage, but let me cite one that is less inflammatory there are many other examples. God in his wisdom told the Jews not to eat pork. I have heard the reason for this was bad sanitation of the time and pork’s susceptibility to parasites. I also heard that because they didn’t have refrigeration and that pork spoiled quickly as being another reason. Another said that they weren’t able to cook the meat completely and so forth. I think we have all heard such examples. We also all know that the prohibition did not apply gentile believers, and that various other passages clearly tell us as Christians we are not under the law and the old dietary prohibitions, and that God has made all thing clean, etc. However we also now know that pork probably isn’t the best thing for us to eat and God may have reasons for the prohibition we never considered. God might have included that just to see who would be faithful in the small things. The truth be known we just don’t know why God gave this prohibition to the Jews. Let’s not get into a discussion of whether we should eat pork or not. Please this question is not whether we should eat pork or not. My question is if God through his faithful servants writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit says “thus and such”. Should we attempt to apply man’s logic to what God said and if being able to do so, upon finding out our theorized situation no longer exist should we then ignore the scripture? |