Twisting Scipture Part 1

How often have you encountered some bizarre doctrine only to be stunned to hear a Bible verse quoted to support it? With new religious cults springing up almost daily and old ones growing rapidly, this is more and more common. How are they seemingly able to twist Scripture to mean something Christians have never believed it to mean in two thousand years?
James Sire, author of the Universe Next Door and How to Read Slowly, has isolated twenty separate kinds of reading errors which are characteristically made by cultists as they interpret the Bible. He covers the full range form simple misquotation to complex argumentation which links one slightly eccentric interpretation to another, mixes in a few orthodox readings and ends with a conclusion totally foreign to the biblical world view. Sire also handles twisted translation, over specification, virtue by association, ignoring the context and others. Scripture Twisting is a great book to pick up and read. I recommend it!

1. INACCURATE QUOTATION:

A biblical text is referred to but is either not quoted in the way the text appears in any standard translation or is wrongly attributed. Example: the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi says, "Christ said, 'Be still and know that I am God.'" This text is found only in Psalm 46:10.

2. TWISTED TRANSLATION:

The biblical test is re translated, not in accordance with sound Greek scholarship, to fit the preconceived teachings of a cult. Example: the Jehovah's Witnesses translate John 1:1 as "In [the] beginning the Word was. and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god". The correct translation is: " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

3. THE BIBLICAL HOOK:

A text of Scripture is quoted primarily as a device to grasp the attention of readers or listeners then followed by teaching which is so unbiblical that it would appear far more dubious to most people has it not been preceded by a reference to Scripture. Example: Mormon missionaries quote James 1:5 which promises God's wisdom to those who ask him and follow this by explaining that when Joseph Smith did this he was given a revelation from which he concluded that God the Father has a body.
James 1:5 NKJ-" If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him."

4. IGNORING THE IMMEDIATE CONTEXT:

A text of Scripture is quoted but removed from the surrounding verse which form the immediate framework for its meaning. Example: Alan Watts quotes the first half of John 5:39; "You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life", and Alan claims that Jesus was challenging His listeners' overemphasis of the Old Testament, but the remainder of the immediate context reads, "and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life", which shows that Jesus was upholding the value of the Old Testament as a testimony to Himself.


5. COLLAPSING CONTEXTS:

Two or more verses which have little or nothing to do with each other are put together as if one were a commentary on the other(s). Example: the Mormons associate Jeremiah 1:5 with John 1:2&14 and thus imply that both verses talk about the premortal existence of all human beings; Jeremiah 1:5 however speaks of God's foreknowledge of Jeremiah (not his premortal existence) and John 1:2 refers to the pre-existence of the Son of God and not to human beings in general.

Jeremiah 1:5 NKJ " “ Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”

Note from Bible Truth: The Son of God (Creator/Jesus) knows who you are and your true name...you have predestined Good Works to do...however this belief that Jeremiah or you and me existed before we were physically born on earth is not biblically correct...God's foreknowledge and man's pre-mortal existence are two totally different concepts and this pre-mortal existence idea makes no biblical sense.

John 1:2 NKJ "He was with God in the beginning."

John 1:14 NKJ "14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

TO BE CONTINUED....


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