Fundamentalist tend to assume that since all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, all Scripture can be handled in the exact same way. Want to defend your evangelism techniques from Proverbs? Go ahead! Want to base part of your soteriology on an obscure passage from Psalms? Help yourself!

Poetry, parable, prose, prophecy — those are just labels given to texts by liberal professors who want to confuse people. Just read a verse and let the Spirit move. Everything from the most trivial details from parables to the strangest acts of minor prophets is up for grabs when the fundamentalist needs a proof text to support some preconceived notion.

In fact the only time that genre comes into play at all is when something comes up that makes a fundy preacher uncomfortable. For example, take all that sex talk in Song of Solomon. To fundamentalists this is obviously a deeply shrouded poetic picture of Christ and the Church. To prove it all you have to do is cross-reference a few verses from Malachi and 3rd John…