A Serious Thing
Everyone agrees; it is a serious thing to misquote scripture. Jer 14:14 and Deu 18:20 tells us about that! However, scripture is often misused and misquoted. There are a handful of favorites. How about, “Money is the root of all evil?” That’s a misquote. The Bible actually says, “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” Money itself is not the problem, the problem is greed. (1 Timothy 6:10)
Misusing or misquoting the Bible is commonplace. It can be excused when coming from an atheist and frankly, an atheist using the bible as his source of authority when arguing about a religious matters ought to be excused. Misquoting the bible can be understood when when it comes from a believer who is not really familiar with the scriptures. But misquoting the bible should never be tolerated when it comes from some of our greatest and most trusted biblical scholars!
A Stunning Revelation
Recently, in the course of my regular, daily Bible study, I was absolutely stunned when I realized how pervasive, entrenched and completely accepted one particular misquote has become. Entire denominations have been built around this misquote. Yet, when I stopped to really think about it, I was left flabbergasted. How could a biblical error so obvious be so missed and even accepted by some of our best biblical scholars?
Let me give you a bit of perspective and let’s see if you are not as shocked as I was when this dawned on me. When a scripture is misquoted, by definition this means the misquote is not from God. It is a twisting of the truth. We should never tolerate or accept that, right? This particular misquote leads people astray. This misquote is vigorously protected and defended, sometimes with great emotion. It is wildly popular. It is used in nearly every church. It has stood the test of time. It has been lauded and embraced by some of the greatest bible teachers and preachers in history. Many prominent scholars claim it as an infallible doctrine of holy writ… but, they are wrong. Do I have your attention?