The Importance of Reading the Bible Literally

When people say they read the Bible literally, they often mean that they believe one purpose of the Bible is to provide us a historically and scientifically accurate account of the world. When someone says they read the bible literally, that's not just a code word for an errancy; it's also acode word for believing what God promises to us today. The Bible is trying to do too many different things, using too many different genres in an ancient way to be able to say either of those things about the Bible.