This alone as a defense for any doctrine created by man, defended by a particular biblical scripture, is simply unacceptable.

Sorry. It’s not enough.

Because a literal-only reading of scripture will lead to unscriptural doctrine.

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple.”

Ergo, we must hate our families or we can’t follow Him.

But that’s what it says!

“And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell.”

Therefore if we covet or lust after something because of our eyes, we must blind ourselves.

But that’s what it says!

“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

So we must engage in cannibalism of Christ’s risen body, or we can’t be saved. (That’s gonna make it tough for anyone to be saved, isn’t it?)

But that’s what it says!

“As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says.”

Hence, women cannot speak at all. Not to teach the little ones. Not even sing the songs. In fact, they can’t talk until they get out of the building.

But that’s what it says!

“An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.”

So if an elder’s children get a little rowdy, even once … or he sins even in the slightest way … or his wife dies, he must immediately resign – or face eternal damnation, taking his church with him. (Unless, of course, they gently depose him even in the middle of his grief as a new widower.)

But that’s what it says!

Give me a break.

If your scholarship in scriptural exegesis sees only the literal and temporal, and cannot also discern the contextual, the conditional, the metaphorical, the spiritual, the eternal – if you cannot derive the principle without demanding the perfect -then you do not grasp the heart of Christ. You do not understand grace, or what the fellowship of the Spirit means, or the inestimable value of Jesus’ blood. You have missed the point God sent Him to make if you only make His Word into a checklist of laws, rules, and regulations that must be extracted through the careful application of definitions from the original Greek.

And your interpretation is null and void.