I do think some things are clearly literal, some are more questionable, but can be logically determined, and some are clearly figurative.
When Jesus says, "I am the vine ..." he clearly was not physically a vine. His disciples were looking at Him and could tell. He then explains how he is like a vine.
Similarly, when Jesus claims to be the bread/wine:
"24and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes." (1 Corinthians 11:24-26)
The statements "do this in remembrance of me," "This cup is the new covenant in My blood"(covenant), and "For as often as you ... , you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes" all suggest something more figurative, although it isn't crystal clear in its meaning.
On the other hand, in Genesis, God goes out of His way to make sure people understand it as a literal description.
God defines day (yom) "God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day." (Genesis 1:5)
He then repeats with every numbered day, "And there was evening and there was morning, a second day, " "There was evening and there was morning, a third day.," etc. He knew we would question whether these events were literal 24 hour days, so He went out of His way to give us every clue (numbering the days, saying "evening and morning", etc.) In Exodus 20 when He commands the Sabbath, "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy." (Exodus 20:11) He says why He created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh to give an example to us. (He could have created everything in a millisecond.)
There is absolutely no Biblical reason to take these six days as anything other than six 24 hour days. It is only when someone puts man's word over the Bible that a person can think that it is a longer period of time. (Spoken as one who used to believe the day age theory, although I didn't know that is what it was called at the time because I came up with the idea on my own based on what I had learned in science class and what I had read in the Bible, not based on some person's theory. Now that I know the Bible better and the science better, that theory seems ridiculous to me, but it seemed like absolute, unassailable truth in my past.).
Sorry if this is too much. I want to help; I want to encourage; but sometimes I get carried away because of my passion for biblical truth. I want everyone to be as close to God as quickly as possible and to be as perfectly informed in the Bible as possible and sometimes I can throw too much at people. I know that is one of my faults. It is meant to be for your good.
