The early church dealt with the gnostic heresy. This problem never really went away and reappeared at various times in the church's history. There is much pride involved in such secret knowledge. The followers of Harold Camping's heresies have demonstrated this. But that aside, are there not different genres to be observed in the Scriptures? Yes there are. So we have the case of not over reacting to the recent Camping scandal. We take a look at the book of Psalms, and in particular Psalm 1. We see simile as well as metaphor. When we get to the last book of the Bible, Revelation (which is apocalyptic literature), we see Jesus riding a horse with a sword coming out of His mouth! Obviously there are literary forms present. But as we observe the various forms, there are literal meanings in all of the Bible. We need to be careful as we approach the Scriptures. One of the HUGE safety nets for our understanding is to be in community. We need to be in fellowship with God's people in a church that is faithful to the Bible and is preaching it and exercising the keys and administering the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. For personal devotions, we also recommend some particular books of the Bible to begin reading, particularly if you are new to Bible reading. Towards the end of our program we share some more about the Psalms and how they are of such profound help to the people of God. The Psalms are both a hymn book and a prayer book. Participants: Dr. John Vance, Rev. Mark Diedrich, Dan Elmendorf