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Good luck on getting a logical response to your post.

I don't really hold out any hope for a decent response. Their claim to interpret "literally" is false in most cases. It simply boils down to interpreting the Scriptures according to their dogmas and practices - the dogmas and practices being the most important to them.

Let me give them more to operate on :-)

1. The term “elder,” in its first century use and meaning meant a person of age and experience, and it is used as the word to describe the character of the leadership of local assemblies of Christians. It is the Greek word “presbuteros,” of which there were many in each local Church of Christ.

2. The term “bishop,” in its first century use and meaning meant the title of an office. This is the word the Greek speaking world at the time of Christ used to describe the office of one who “oversees” a group of people. Example: A “foreman” is an “overseer,” a “bishop” of those he is in charge of. It is the Greek word, “episkopos,” which is used to describe the office of the “elders” of the Church of Christ.

3. Putting 1 and 2 together, we find that the “presbuteros” held the office of an “episkopos,” or to put into our American English: “The ‘elders’ held the office of an ‘overseer’.”

“From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the ELDERS of the Church. When they arrived, he said to them: ’… I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole counsel of God. Guard yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you OVERSEERS. Be shepherds of the Church of God, which He bought with His own blood’.” (Acts 20:17, 27–28).

Now understand, the word which is here rendered “overseer” is “episkopos,” which is the same that is rendered “bishop” wherever the term “bishop” occurs in the New Testament Scriptures!

We also have to notice that Paul uses another word to describe the office of “bishop/overseer” — the word “shepherds,” which in other places is rendered as “pastors.” We have a very similar expression used by the Apostle Peter: “To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder … Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, …” (1 Peter 5:1–2). Here we have Peter using the words “presbuteros/elder,” and the word “shepherds,” which Paul used in the plural also to describe the office of the “episkopos/overseer/bishop.” Both Peter and Paul are in complete agreement that the word “presbuteros/elder” describes the character of the one who is an “episkopos/overseer/bishop.” Here, then, are two instances in which the “elders” are commanded to do the work of an “overseer,” which shows that when the writers of the New Testament used the term “elder” as an official title, they always applied it to the “bishops” or “overseers” of the local Church of Christ.

Let's see how Salvation (them) weasel their way out of what I just brought out from the Scriptures!