I’ll tell you why I take scripture literally. It’s because there are so many views both from a denominational level and often the individual level. With hundreds, or thousands of differing views, how does anyone ever discern truth? You say you seek the truth from scripture, yet you must step outside scripture to reach the understanding you have. To me, that’s the issue.
I take it for granted that there are a lot of people who are smarter and or wiser and or more educated than me. However, not a one of them can save me and not a one of them has a lock on truth. The one who is infinitly smart, wise and who DOES have a lock on truth is God and HE is also the only one who can save me.
When you talk of scripture, which scripture are you referring to? I’ve done a lot of study, not just in scripture, but how the different scriptures ( by scripture I am referring to the many different Bibles) came to be and I know there are thousands of differences between them.
One thing I’m confident we agree in is that God is not the author of confusion. The fact that we humans may never fully grasp or understood Gods truth(s) does not mean He doesn’t have a definitive truth.
As I believe in a definitive truth, I ask myself some questions:
Does God want his people to both learn and understand his truth?
If He does, how does he impart that truth?
Does He impart that truth only to the smart, wise and educated? And last, perhaps most importantly: If He only imparts truth to the smart, wise and educated, what happens to people who don’t have smart, wise and educated people to tell them what to believe? This has lead to the situation we are in today.
Aside from the way God answers our prayers and “leads” us in our lives, all we know of God is His word. I don’t consider it judgement to accept as fact what his word contains. A jury has to discern the truth from the facts presented, and then make a judgement of guilty or not to the judge.
That is what God wants of us- to make a judgement, NOT JUDGE. There’s a difference…