Whenever I am asked the question, ‘do you take this Bible passage literally?’ my answer is always ‘yes, of course!’ Every verse in our Bible should be taken literally. With this affirmed, something more needs to be said.
The word ‘literal’ means ‘according to the literature.’ To interpret a passage or verse in our Bible ‘literally’ means that we determine its meaning by first acknowledging the type of genre in which it is expressed. This allows you and I as the readers, to interpret the verse according to the purpose and intent of the original writer.
When we come to the text seeking a literal interpretation it means historical narrative should be understood as historical narrative, poetic passages as poetry, didactic (teaching) as didactic, parables as parables, etc. When a gospel writer introduces us to words Jesus spoke by informing us ‘And Jesus spoke a parable to them saying…’ he is giving us the information we need to interpret the words that follow properly. In this case it means that Jesus’ words here should be interpreted according to the literal genre of ‘parable.’
Let us take a passage such as Luke 2:1-7 where the gospel writer (Luke) records historical events surrounding the birth of Jesus. Here, we should not be viewing the names of people and cities in symbolic terms. ‘Caesar Augustus’ refers to Caesar Augustus, ‘Quirinius, governor of Syria’ refers to Quirinius governor of Syria and ‘Bethlehem’ denotes Bethlehem. Luke is recording history and is simply anchoring the events of Christ’s birth in their historical context. No secret or hidden meanings should be sought.
Other passages in our Bibles are highly figurative and need to be interpreted as such. The book of Revelation is apocalyptic literature. Much of the entire book contains figurative and symbolic language. This is significant for us because it means that a true interpretation can only be obtained by recognizing its figurative genre. A verse or passage found in the book of Revelation should be interpreted figuratively unless it is obvious it cannot.