Have you ever had someone try to use Scripture to explain something, and you just know he’s abusing the passage but aren’t really sure just how? Well this problem is as old as the New Testament:
2 Peter 3:15-16 (ESV)
15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,
16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
This is a pretty neat passage. It identifies Paul’s letters as Scripture at a time when they were still very new and that Scripture twisting is at least 2,000 years old. But how do people do this, twist Scripture. There are lots of ways. Here are just three of the most common ones.
Some will take a passage out of context to try to prove something entirely different from what the passage says. Look at 1 Cor. 8:6 –
1 Corinthians 8:6 (ESV) yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
Jehovah’s Witnesses will tell you this proves that Jesus isn’t God because for us there is only one God; the Father. But, if you read the surrounding context, you’ll see the passage says there are many lords and gods as there were in that culture – so, it’s comparing cultures. It’s saying there may be many called gods but for us, there is just one. Another problem here if you’re trying to prove only the Father is God is that logic leads you to say only Jesus is Lord. Even Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe that.
Here’s another. Some people will quote the Bible to draw you into their way of thinking. Mormons will tell you that Joseph Smith prayed for wisdom using James 1:5:
James 1:5 (NASB77)
5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
Smith tells us he prayed for wisdom as James told him to, and he was visited by two heavenly beings who told him all the churches were wrong.
Smith should have recognized a couple of things here, first the fact when we pray it isn’t only God who hears. And, secondly, to check on who shows up, we should test what we are told in Acts:
Acts 17:11 (ESV)
11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
Smith should have checked what he was told by these two “heavenly personages” just as you and I should and as the Bereans did and were commended for it. James 1:5 isn’t the only verse in the Bible.
Galatians 1:8 (ESV)
8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.
Don’t listen to “heavenly beings” just because they look authoritative. The Bible tells us to test things we hear:
1 Thessalonians 5:20-21 (ESV) 20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good.
Lastly for this post is the fact some people will misquote Scripture for their own advantage. The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi once said, “Christ said, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ Be still and know that you are God and when you know that you are God you will begin to live Godhood, and living Godhood there is no reason to suffer.”
There are several things wrong with this, of course. Jesus didn’t say this. This is a quote from Psalm 46:10. The original meaning of the statement is completely different. It’s telling us to trust in God, not ourselves. The passage has nothing to do with us being gods.
So, just like the Bereans, we need to be careful in how people use Scripture to convince us of something we don’t recognize as truth. As Walter Martin used to say, “New truth is almost always old heresy.”
Believers Armed and Dangerous 