However, it takes little Bible reading to discover figurative language. The sower, the net, the ten virgins, the vineyard, the pearl of great price. No one believes that Paul was literally a nursemaid or a farmer. The question is how much is literal and how much is figurative. The question for the believer is not whether or not we should start with the literal.
Daily conversation is filled with figurative language.
But as children grow up, they catch on. It s the sense you would expect common folk to have. A person of normal intelligence. A person with a reasonable amount of knowledge about life. A person of common intelligence and experience knows that kids can not lift a roof by yelling.