Literal

The Word of God is more than just words on a page - it is alive, reflecting the life of the One who has inspired it, who has written it through human scribes. Hebrews 4 says:
12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

How can the Word come alive in us?  First of all, we have to open it up.  The Bible does us no good if we keep it closed.  We also have to open our hearts to receive what the Holy Spirit wants to show us in His Word.  We can be diligent to dig deeply into the Scripture, approaching it with determination, to learn and to grow.  And, we can also meditate on Scripture, thinking about how we can apply what we read into our lives.  

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God's Word is the authority for the life of the Christian, and we can surrender to its principles and live accordingly. We read this in 2nd Timothy chapter 3:
16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Traditionally, devoted Christians have held to the Bible as being infallible and inerrant. Without error. The Word of the living God.  But is it to be taken "literally?"  A new Gallup poll asks that question, and in the survey summary on the polling organization's website, we find this:

A record-low 20% of Americans now say the Bible is the literal word of God, down from 24% the last time the question was asked in 2017, and half of what it was at its high points in 1980 and 1984. Meanwhile, a new high of 29% say the Bible is a collection of "fables, legends, history and moral precepts recorded by man." This marks the first time significantly more Americans have viewed the Bible as not divinely inspired than as the literal word of God. The largest percentage, 49%, choose the middle alternative, roughly in line with where it has been in previous years.

The phrasing of the so-called "middle alternative," is this: "Inspired by God, not all to be taken literally."

Among those identified as "evangelical or born-again," 40% are in the "literal word of God" category and 51% say it is "inspired by God."

The Christian Post provided some clarification:

Biblical literalism holds that “except in places where the text is obviously allegorical, poetic or figurative, it should be taken literally” as God’s Word, according to Got Questions Ministries, which holds this view of the Bible.

The danger comes when one begins to pick and choose what passages should be taken literally. And, when someone does not believe that certain passages of Scripture do not apply to them or choose to discount principles taught in the Bible, then we run into a danger zone.

As Bruce Hausknecht writes at The Daily Citizen from Focus on the Family:

Asking the right questions, however, can prove to be difficult, and as the saying goes, “garbage in, garbage out.” And a question that may have sounded correct to people’s ears in the 1970s can cause a different reaction in the 2020s.

I’m no theologian, but when Gallup asks, “Which of the following statements comes closest to describing your views about the Bible?” and then offers me only three choices, none of which any Christian ought to choose, how am I to respond?

He directs readers to the Focus website, which says:

Only the parts that are meant to be taken literally. Of the many kinds of writing in the Bible, some are literal, while others are metaphorical. But isn’t that true of most writing? When the poet William Blake wrote “Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,” he didn’t expect anyone to picture a flaming tiger sprinting through the jungle and smelling of burnt fur, did he? He didn’t mean it literally. And in the Bible, when Jesus said, “I am the door,” He didn’t mean He was made of wood or that He swung on hinges. When He told parables, He was using metaphors.

That is contrasted to "accounts of historical events."  Hausknecht continues: 

And wouldn’t Gallup’s second choice be equally confusing to many Christians today: “inspired by God, not to be taken literally.” God’s word is, of course, “inspired” or God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16-17) and when intended to be – see above – should be taken literally. But the way Gallup phrases it, it seems to exclude the possibility of Scripture being both “inspired” and literally true.

The Christian Post article also points out:

The data from the Gallup poll comes less than a year after, a study from Arizona Christian University found that of an estimated 176 million American adults who identify as Christian, just 6% or 15 million of them actually hold a biblical worldview.

That would the be the study conducted by George Barna, lead researcher at ACU; the Post noted:

The study found, in general, that while a majority of America’s self-identified Christians, including many who identify as Evangelical, believe that God is all-powerful, all-knowing and is the Creator of the universe, more than half reject a number of biblical teachings and principles, including the existence of the Holy Spirit.

The Love Worth Finding website notes:

Adrian Rogers says, “The God of truth cannot inspire error.” God’s Word is the product of the Spirit of God, therefore it is totally infallible because God is infallible.

We must not only respect its inerrancy, but we must also respect its authority and vitality. There is living power in the Word of God that changes lives and lasts for eternity.

Dr. Rogers also stated: "Perhaps the greatest enemy of the Word of God is found in churches and places of worship where there are those who say that they believe the Bible, but they only give lip service to the fact that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible and authentic Word of God."

Bruce Hausknecht of Focus on the Family offers these thoughts:

Should Gallup be asking something like, “Do you believe the Bible is completely true?”

Would you, as a Christian, have an easier time answering that question?

Or, another possibility: Do you believe the Bible is inerrant – without error – in its original manuscripts?”

So how would you respond to those questions?  I have to say, that if we don't believe in the inerrancy, infallibility, and authenticity of the Word of God, then we become the decider of what is true and what is not.  God's Word is beyond human understanding, and we should not try to reduce His magnanimous wisdom into our fallible human ideas.  If you're going to pick and choose, then what do you keep and what do you throw out?   Well, I guess it's about human convenience, then.  But, God is not about our convenience; His desire is for us to know Him, walk in His love, and reflect His glory.

You know, there are those that say that Jesus is a great teacher, which He is, and they are willing to concentrate on certain things He said and dismiss other parts of God's Word.  C.S. Lewis talked about that concept of Jesus as a "great moral teacher" in his book, Mere Christianity.  He wrote, as we find on the YouVersion website:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.

And, we have accept God's Word as inspired, inerrant, infallible, and completely authoritative.  To do anything else means that we have subverted God's Word to human reasoning.  It is also important that we recognize that the Jesus as described in Scripture is totally consistent with the rest of the Bible - there are those that would want to separate his earthly ministry from other writers, but we recognize that He inspired it all!!  We cannot build our theology around what we think, but around the "whole counsel of God" - what He thinks!