TEXTS WE LOVE TO MISUSE

Here is a text for our pluralistic culture.  Here is evidence that Jesus is on the side of our highest contemporary cultural norm of tolerance. In fact, it seems like Jesus may just agree that the greatest ‘sin’ is intolerance and that there is no place for Christians to criticize or find fault with any person’s choices. It is true that we must not be judgmental, but Jesus isn’t prohibiting calling sin by its right name.  It may just have more to do with whose sin we name first!

Liars need really good memories. They aren’t free because there are sections of their life that are built on lies that may be found out, and there’s no freedom.  So, the misapplication of the verse this time actually lands on something that is true, but it isn’t what Jesus was saying that day. A life built on truth is the route to a life with more personal freedom (no need to keep up with your lies). However, what Jesus is saying here is so much larger and more significant than even this.

We love this text! After all, we’ve all made a bunch of mistakes, and who wants to look back and dredge up all that pain? Some may even use this text to be a bit cavalier about moral failures…got to move on, don’t dwell on the past, let bygones be bygones.  As soldiers in the Lord’s army, we just press on, straining for what is ahead. Paul had enough mistakes in his past, at one time even a persecutor of followers of Jesus. He watched the coats while Stephen was stoned. He was a self-righteous Pharisee! We will dig in to see what Paul is really saying.

This text is misused in two opposite ways. 1) No matter how small the gathering, just two or three, and Jesus is there with them. 2) Let’s get a prayer chain going to put all our two's and three’s together to amplify our prayers and turn the hand of God.  We may be surprised to see the context and the call to settle things in community without negating our private devotion to God.

Here’s a text we love because we are the star in our own movie, and we like the sound of God’s voice in this declaration.  We like the idea of God’s plan being to prosper us and not to harm us. It could easily be the weekly verse to cite among those who preach a prosperity gospel (which is not gospel at all). Without context, it appears to offer a guarantee that in the end, life will be okay, and that the general path we are on is one of prosperity.  If we’ve adopted this understanding and then really bad stuff happens, we may get mad at God for not fulfilling a promise he never made! Jeremiah 29:11

This is the quintessential pep talk passage. It is most often used to pump up a spirit of achievement and even pride - like the Little Engine’s, “I think I can!” What is the real context?  Paul is here considering how God has enabled him, strengthened him to be content in times of plenty and times of shortage. Paul writes this from prison, and from the way the text has been abused, you might think it is positive self-talk to break out of jail. This isn’t a passage about going out and accomplishing great feats (think graduation talk), but really about pursuing faith and trust that God can give us the grace to be content in all circumstances.

Didn’t Jesus say we must be as perfect as God? Or, did he? Didn’t Jesus say if someone hits you once, let him hit you again? Or, did he? Professor of Religion at AdventHealth University, Ernie Bursey, will launch our series on texts from Scripture often misunderstood by considering Matthew 5:38-48.