In order to understand fully what God wanted to communicate to us through the Scriptures, we must first consider what the human authors intended to say. This requires us to be aware of the different circumstances and literary techniques these authors used. This can be challenging because all the writings in the Bible were written thousands of years ago. We live in a very different time and place. One of the first and most important things to consider is the writing style the author chose to communicate his message. This can drastically affect the way we read a passage of Scripture. For example, even today, you would not read a poem in the same way you would read a historical account of something. The history is meant to be taken literally and factually, whereas the poem is less literal and uses figurative language.