(~) The Seven Deadly Sins of Bible Study (Part 1 of 7)
Jack Kuhatschek for New
Man magazine
The Seven Deadly Sins of
Bible Study
A few years ago a friend showed me a prayer letter he had received in the mail.
Inside were the following instructions: Take the prayer sheet I have sent
you and write your name on it, and as you do, lay hands on it. We must
have your prayer requests back from you so we can touch them and pray over
them for "if any two agree touching anything, it shall be done."
By misunderstanding the portion of Scripture in Matthew 18:19, the
well-meaning Christian who wrote this letter hit a new low in biblical
interpretation. The word touching, which is so crucial to his viewpoint,
does not even occur in the Greek text.
Although a bit extreme, this example illustrates the unusual and sometimes
amusing ways the Bible is interpreted and applied. One of my seminary
professors, Howard Hendricks, once said, "Many applicational elephants
dangle from interpretive threads!"
To interpret and apply Gods Word properly, we must be aware of what I call
the "seven deadly sins" of Bible study. In this article well identify
these "sins" and discover how to avoid them.
1. Proof-texting
When I was a child, our pastor often gave the following benediction at the
end of a service: "May the Lord watch between me and thee, while we are
absent one from another."
I always assumed that he was asking God to protect us both until the
following Sunday, and Im sure that was his intent. It wasnt until years
later that I discovered he had taken the verse completely out of context.
The verse isnt really as nice as it sounds. Its found in Genesis 31, after
Jacob and Laban have settled a heated argument by making a covenant.
Because Laban doesnt completely trust Jacob and knows that the two of them
will not be together, he asks the Lord to keep an eye on his son-in-law to
make sure Jacob doesnt mistreat his daughters. Taken in context, the verse
is sort of a pious threat -- hardly a fitting benediction!
In order to avoid proof-texting -- taking a verse out of context -- we
need to realize that good Bible study requires more than looking up a
string of isolated verses. We would never think of reading a Tom Clancy
novel the way we do Scripture -- one sentence from chapter one, another
from chapter five and a third from chapter 12. It would result in
nonsense, and we would miss the plot entirely! The Bible was written as
literary units, such as books, letters and poems, that were meant to be
read from beginning to end.
Coming tomorrow ... "Being Too Literal"
Ninure Saunders aka Rainbow Christian
http://Rainbow-Christian.tk
The Lord is my Shepherd and He knows I'm Gay
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