The question comes up constantly in Bible studies, seminary classrooms, and online debates: Should we read this passage literally or metaphorically?

The question itself is the problem.

It assumes these two modes of meaning oppose each other. That choosing metaphor means abandoning literal truth. That acknowledging figurative language undermines scriptural authority.

But language doesn't work that way.

When Jesus says "I am the bread of life," the metaphor's power comes directly from bread's literal reality. Ancient audiences knew bread as essential sustenance. Remove that concrete, experiential foundation and the metaphor collapses into abstraction.

The literal grounds the metaphorical. The metaphorical expands the literal. They're interdependent, not opposed.

Understanding this changes everything about how we read Scripture. It dissolves false conflicts, opens new depths of meaning, and actually strengthens our confidence in biblical truth rather than weakening it.

Truth Must Correspond to Reality

Before addressing how metaphor works, we need philosophical grounding.

The correspondence theory of truth holds that statements are true when they align with reality. Thomas Aquinas defined it as "the adequation of things and intellect." According to a 2009 survey of professional philosophers, 45% accept or lean toward correspondence theories, making it the dominant view in contemporary philosophy.

This matters for religious language because it establishes the standard: truth must match what actually is.

But here's where many people stumble. They assume "reality" means only what's empirically observable. That spiritual truths can't correspond to reality because we can't measure them in a lab.

This shrinks reality artificially.

Reality includes both physical and spiritual dimensions. God, angels, souls, moral truths, divine actions. These exist beyond empirical verification but remain part of the totality that truth claims must correspond to.

Religious propositions have intentional objects. The claim "God is loving" corresponds to God's actual character, a reality that transcends empirical methods but is nonetheless real. We access these realities through experience, revelation, testimony, and reason.

Scripture presupposes this broader view of correspondence. It affirms that truth conforms to fact, including facts about spiritual realities.

So when we ask whether metaphorical language can be true, we're really asking: Can metaphor correspond to reality?

How Metaphor Corresponds to Reality

Lakoff and Johnson's revolutionary 1980 book "Metaphors We Live By" demonstrated that conceptual metaphor structures our most basic understanding of experience.

Their key insight: "The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another."

Metaphors aren't decorative flourishes added to literal language. They're fundamental to how humans think and communicate. We understand abstract concepts through concrete, embodied experiences.

Spatial metaphors like "up" for "more" or "good" emerge from universal physical experience. We literally experience more of something as higher in a container. This bodily reality becomes the foundation for abstract thinking about quantity and value.

The principle of unidirectionality states that metaphorical processes typically move from concrete to abstract, not the reverse. We understand the abstract through the concrete.

This explains why Jesus's "bread of life" metaphor works. Bread was literally essential for survival in the ancient world. That concrete, universal experience provides the experiential foundation for understanding spiritual nourishment.

The metaphor corresponds to reality on two levels simultaneously.

First, it draws on the literal reality of bread as physical sustenance. Second, it points to the spiritual reality of Jesus as the source of eternal life. Both correspondences are real. Both are necessary.

Remove the literal foundation and the metaphor loses its power. Ignore the metaphorical expansion and you miss the spiritual truth being communicated.

The Lamb That Cries Out and Resists

Consider Isaiah 53:7-8a, where the suffering servant is compared to a lamb led to slaughter.

The metaphor draws directly from literal, experiential reality. Ancient audiences knew lambs as gentle, defenseless animals. They'd witnessed lambs standing mute before shearers and butchers, offering no resistance.

This concrete image creates meaning that abstract language cannot achieve.

The metaphor conveys innocence, vulnerability, silent suffering, and sacrificial death all at once. It engages the whole person: body, mind, spirit. The sensory richness of the image evokes emotional and theological resonance that conceptual statements about "innocent suffering" simply cannot match.

But here's what makes metaphor irreducible: it simultaneously demands interpretation and resists complete reduction to any single meaning.

The lamb image cries out for interpretation. Readers naturally ask: Who is this lamb? What does this suffering mean? How does this connect to sacrifice, to covenant, to redemption?

Yet the metaphor also transcends any conceptual frame we place around it. No abstract explanation fully captures the richness, depth, and experiential power of the image itself.

This tension isn't a problem to solve. It's essential to how metaphor works.

The resistance to reduction keeps the metaphor alive and dynamic. It prevents the image from collapsing into a static concept. It invites ongoing reflection, continual discovery, deeper engagement across centuries and cultures.

Try to flatten the lamb metaphor into just "innocent suffering" or just "sacrifice" and you lose the fullness of meaning. The metaphor's power lies precisely in how these meanings interplay, how they evoke profound response that goes beyond what words can neatly define.

When Both Readings Operate Simultaneously

Genesis 22 provides a clear example of literal and metaphorical truth coexisting.

Abraham is commanded to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. This is literal history. A father faces an impossible test of faith and obedience. He prepares to sacrifice his son but is stopped by God at the last moment. The narrative shows trust and divine provision in concrete, human terms.

Simultaneously, the story functions as typology. Isaac carrying wood for his own sacrifice foreshadows Jesus carrying the cross. Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his beloved son points to God's ultimate provision of salvation through His own Son.

Both readings are true at the same time.

The literal event grounds the story in real history and relatable human experience. The metaphorical typology opens profound theological insights about faith, sacrifice, and God's redemptive plan.

Holding both together reveals what neither alone could show. The literal teaches about trust in God through concrete human experience. The metaphorical connects that trust to cosmic significance and salvation history.

Ignore the literal and you lose the story's human and historical impact. Ignore the metaphorical and you miss its theological depth and connection to Christ.

This is how Scripture often works. Medieval interpretation understood this through the fourfold sense of Scripture. Thomas Aquinas articulated it clearly: God can "write" with created objects and historical events as humans write with words. Objects and events carry power to signify things beyond themselves.

The double signification honors both historical reality and theological meaning simultaneously.

Why the Fear Exists

Many believers experience genuine vulnerability when faced with metaphorical interpretation of Scripture.

The fear makes sense. If we acknowledge metaphorical elements, does that open the door to relativism? Can meaning become whatever we want it to be? Does admitting "I'm not sure" about a passage undermine biblical authority?

These concerns reflect deeper needs. The need for certainty in an uncertain world. The need for solid ground when traditions and beliefs face challenge. The emotional security of clear, definitive answers.

Some church traditions emphasize literalism or definitive interpretations, making ambiguity feel dangerous or even unfaithful.

But here's what's actually at stake.

Faith doesn't require omniscience. God doesn't expect Bible readers to have perfect or exhaustive knowledge. Faith involves trust, effort, humility, and obedience. Not absolute certainty in every interpretive detail.

Scripture's complexity reflects reality. The Bible was written in ancient contexts with vastly different worldviews. Some passages are inherently difficult or mysterious. This complexity invites deeper engagement rather than demanding simple answers.

Wrestling with difficult texts fosters spiritual maturity. It builds critical thinking and robust faith that can withstand challenges. Forcing certainty where it's unwarranted leads to misinterpretation or intellectual dishonesty.

Admitting uncertainty is intellectual and spiritual humility, not weakness. It shows openness to God's ongoing revelation and guidance.

Faith is trust, not certainty. It's about relationship and obedience, not having all the answers.

How to Actually Read This Way

The practical process begins with deriving literal meaning first.

Read the passage and identify the most basic, explicit sense of the words. What does this say on the surface? This establishes your baseline understanding.

Then test that literal meaning against context. Examine the immediate literary context, the broader biblical context, the historical background, and theological framework. Does the literal meaning cohere with these contexts? Does it create contradictions or implausibilities?

Look for linguistic and literary clues. Markers of figurative language like simile, metaphor, symbolism, hyperbole, irony, personification. Biblical writers used metaphor intentionally to communicate spiritual realities.

If the literal meaning seems inconsistent with context or reality, explore metaphorical or symbolic interpretations. But don't force a metaphor if it's not clearly supported by evidence.

Evaluate whether the passage functions on multiple levels. Does it convey truth through both literal facts and metaphorical imagery? Can both be simultaneously true?

Confirm your interpretation with community and tradition. Compare your understanding with historical interpretations, theological teachings, and faith community insights. This guards against purely subjective readings.

Most importantly, hold tension without forcing premature resolution.

Some passages remain difficult. Accept that uncertainty is natural when engaging ancient texts from vastly different cultural contexts. Resist the urge to force metaphorical meaning that isn't clearly supported. Avoid rigid literalism that ignores complexity or cultural distance.

Maintain openness to multiple possibilities. Be comfortable with ambiguity. Recognize interpretation as ongoing conversation between reader, text, and faith community.

What Opens Up

When readers stop treating literal and metaphorical as competing categories, their relationship with Scripture transforms.

Engagement becomes multidimensional. Reading on intellectual, emotional, and spiritual levels simultaneously reveals layers of meaning that single-mode reading misses. Attention to literary devices, cultural context, and theological nuance increases. Appreciation for the text's depth grows.

Spiritual growth accelerates. Seeing metaphor as real and complementary to literal meaning opens pathways for Scripture to speak personally and powerfully. Abstract spiritual realities connect to everyday life. Metaphors invite imagination and reflection, fostering intimate and dynamic relationship with God through Scripture.

Misinterpretation decreases. Holding both meanings together guards against rigid literalism that leads to misunderstanding. It prevents arbitrary or subjective metaphorical readings by grounding interpretation in literal and cultural context.

Theological and ethical nuance becomes accessible. Readers appreciate complexity, including paradoxes, tensions, and mysteries that reflect real faith experiences. Application becomes more thoughtful, recognizing that Scripture speaks differently to various contexts without losing core truth.

New insights emerge. Readers discern intertextual links, typologies, and symbolic patterns that illuminate Scripture's unity and coherence. Understanding of God's redemptive work broadens. Appreciation for biblical literary artistry and theological sophistication deepens.

The binary question itself dissolves. Instead of asking "literal or metaphorical?" readers ask: "How does this passage communicate truth? What layers of meaning correspond to reality here? How do these meanings work together?"

This isn't about abandoning literal interpretation. Church father Augustine of Hippo wrote extensively about the need for reason in interpreting Scripture, seeing much of Genesis as extended metaphor. Sophisticated metaphorical reading has ancient theological precedent.

It's about recognizing that "literal" interpretation actually means taking full account of language's nature. Literary convention, idiom, metaphor, typology, figuration. All these factors go into understanding what Scripture communicates.

To read literally is to understand what Scripture says in the ways we understand what other people say. That includes recognizing when they use metaphor, when they employ symbolism, when they layer meanings.

The question shouldn't be "literal or metaphorical?" Perhaps the better question is: "Do we take this passage seriously?"

Taking Scripture seriously means engaging with how it actually communicates. Respecting the sophistication of biblical language. Honoring both the concrete foundations and the transcendent realities that language points toward.

It means trusting that truth can correspond to reality through multiple layers of meaning. That literal and metaphorical readings can both be true simultaneously. That the interdependence isn't a weakness but a strength.

The false war ends when we recognize there never was a real conflict. Just a misunderstanding about how language works, how truth functions, and how God chose to reveal Himself through the rich, complex, beautiful medium of human words.