@Vidqun :
For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name - Is. 54: 5
Thanks for the examples. Here the bible gives the definition of a metaphor as it usually does. This is an example of a standard literary device. At other times, the bible will say something like: it is like this or that, which clearly tells the reader about some parallel.
But to assign symbolism, metaphor, or some mystical meaning without a strong biblical directive to do so is very dangerous. I have been to churches where a small group bible study is conducted where a scripture is read and the conductor asks what each person thinks that it means to them personally. What a complete waste of time. I would advise anyone to flee from a church like that.
God's word is truth and we should not play around with it, or at least do so very carefully. Christianity is plaqued with unwarranted symbolic interpretations in epidemic proportions.
When we make ourselves the final arbiters of which parts of the Bible are to be interpreted literally, we elevate ourselves above God. Who is to say that one person’s interpretation of a biblical event or truth is any more or less valid than another’s?
The confusion and distortions that inevitably result from such a system of study essentially renders the Scriptures null and void.
The Bible is God’s Word to us and He meant it to be believed—literally and completely.
RC Sproul says this:
When Luther and the Reformers set forth the principle of interpreting the Bible according to the *sensus literalis*, or the “literal sense,” here’s what they meant and what we mean: that to interpret the Bible literally is to interpret the Bible the way it was written. Voilà. So that when you come to the text of Scripture, you have to be able to discern that there are very many varieties of literary genre present in the text. We see that the Bible is written sometimes in the form of letters, sometimes in the form of historical narrative, sometimes in the form of parables, sometimes in the form of proverbs, sometimes in the form of poetry. And there are different rules for interpreting poetry from interpreting historical narrative, for example, and we need to be aware of that. So to interpret the Bible literally means to interpret it according to the way it was written.
Now, let me tell what that doesn’t mean. No one ever has the right to come to a historical narrative text of Scripture and turn it into some kind of moral symbolism. Nineteenth-century liberals were the past masters of this. I grew up in a church and I wasn’t a believer and the church was exceedingly liberal. Our pastor taught us about the miracles of Jesus. And he taught us that at the wedding feast of Cana, what had happened was those great water jars had mixed with some of the sediment that had contained wine in it, that they were basically water, but the people had drunk so much wine that when they brought out this mixed-up version, people thought it was the best wine of all because they were already in a stupor. Or, he said, they were drinking water and the meaning of the text is this: that after all, water is the best wine.
He borrowed from the German liberals on the idea of the feeding of the five thousand. He gave two different interpretations. One was very crass, that Jesus and His disciples had stored a cache of foodstuffs in a cave with a hidden opening. And like a magician, Jesus stood in this long flowing robe—and you’ve seen magicians on the stage, pulling scarves forever out of their sleeves, or sausages—so there was a bucket brigade of loaves and fishes that the disciples had stored in the cave and they were passing it through this hidden opening through this back sleeve of Jesus. And He’s producing enough food to feed five thousand people. That was one interpretation we learned in church.
The other one was, well, the real story was about the little boy who stepped forward with his lunch and he was willing to share. And the real meaning of the text is this: some of the people came with their lunches; others failed to provide for themselves. And when the crisis came at noontime and everybody was hungry, Jesus in His masterful style of moral education was able to get those who had brought their lunches to share with those who didn’t. So, it was a miracle of ethics. That’s how I was instructed of the meaning of the miracles.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, that’s how not to interpret the Bible. That is what we call dishonest exegesis, because those people knew very well that the literary form in which those texts come to us were not symbolic moralisms but that it was presented to us in a genre of historical narrative. Now, you can reject it if you want, but you have no right to twist it to say that it is saying something that it never was saying.