Twisted Scripture.

Do you believe that all of what was written in the Bible are the very words of God? That is what the Bible says about itself.

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17).¹

The “breathed out” words are what God Himself spoke, not man. They are life-giving because Jesus, God in the flesh, is life. They are true because He is the truth.

Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

How do we know the things we are taught are truly the words of the Lord? Christians should understand that too often, men twist the words of God in order to jam them into a message they want to teach. So, first of all, when an individual presents a statement as if it were biblical truth, we should ask, “Where does it say that in the Bible?” If we don’t know, we should look it up and read it in context where the true meaning is often made clear.

For example, I once heard a leader preaching about how we should not say we are sick after we have been prayed for. He used this passage to prove his point.

“And no inhabitant will say, ‘I am sick’…”(Isaiah 33:24).

If we read this verse in context of the whole chapter—it is too long to quote here—we will find that it refers to a time when believers will be living in God’s heavenly kingdom. As G.W. Grogan wrote, “Verse 24 reminds us that the whole passage is really a description of the future blessedness of Jerusalem. The blessings of God will take both physical and spiritual forms.” ²

The result of this erroneous teaching was a burdensome legalism wherein people chastised Christians for lacking in faith when they said they were still sick after they had been prayed for. “Don’t confess that! In faith, confess with your mouth that you are healed.” They used part of the following verse to back up what they were saying.

“‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim)…” (Romans 10:8).

Here is the verse in context.

“But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:8–9).

There is nothing whatsoever in these verses about being healed physically, only the wonderful message of salvation for those who confess in faith that Jesus is Lord and was raised from the dead.

I once attended a church whose slogan was, “Find, tell, bring” The church’s teaching on this was that Christians should find someone who doesn’t know Jesus, tell them what they know, then bring them to church. Find, tell, bring. They referred to the passage in the Gospel of John when Jesus had called Philip to follow Him. Here is the passage:

“The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see’” (John 1:43–46).

What is the error here? True, Philip did find Nathanael. He told him what he knew. He did bring him to Jesus. But he didn’t bring him to a fellowship of believers. He brought him to Jesus. The church’s slogan twisted Scripture.

Christians must take seriously the need to understand the truths of the Bible and be careful that we are not misled. God’s words are truth and life. Man’s invented words are not.

¹All Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (2016). Crossway Bibles.

²Grogan, G. W. (1986). Isaiah. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel (Vol. 6, p. 215). Zondervan Publishing House.

Gif courtesy tenor.