DISinformation and MISinformation are highly effective in the art of war. And satan, who understands this better than anyone, has been using this technique since the Garden of Eden when he said, “Did God really say…???”
One way satan wages his MISinformation/DISinformation campaign is by taking Scripture out of context. He knows that when a Scripture is taken out of context, he can make the Bible say anything he wants.
I’ve included three more excerpts below from James W. Sire’s book on “Scripture Twisting” as we continue to examine some common ways that Scripture is distorted.
Misreading No. 4: Ignoring the Immediate Context
“From the standpoint of the Bible as literature, the simplest error of reading is the failure to consider the immediate context of the verse or passage in question. The literature of the cults is FILLED with illustrations of this basic mistake.
The text of Scripture should first be understood within the context in which it occurs. Any reading which contradicts the meaning of the text IN CONTEXT cannot be a proper interpretation.
Misreading No. 5: Collapsing Contexts
When two or more unrelated texts are treated as if they belonged together, we have the fallacy of collapsing contexts. This reading error can be especially knotty because it is the corruption of a perfectly good principle of reading: to compare Scripture with Scripture.
We are responsible as good readers of the Bible to make use of every text bearing on the subject we wish to understand. To select some texts which agree with our preconceived ideas and ignore those that don’t is, in fact, a major mistake. But it is equally possible to put texts together which don’t belong together. This, too, can produce confusion.
The principle is to see each text first in its own immediate and then larger contexts; if these context overlap with the contexts of other texts, these other texts may be relevant. That is, if two or more texts talk about the same subject in a similar way, then when we study them together we are not collapsing the contexts. But even as we put them together, we want to keep in mind their original contexts.
Misreading No. 6: Overspecification
As human beings we tend to be curious—sometimes over-curious, longing to know what we do not know, to go a step beyond the ordinary person in insight and knowledge.
In science this curiosity leads to new hypotheses, new experiments—sometimes down blind alleys and sometimes to new knowledge. In business it leads to speculation and hence sometimes to financial success and sometimes to bankruptcy. In religion it leads to study, to speculative theology, and sometimes to new spiritual insight, and sometimes to answers to our questions BEYOND what can yet be truly known through Scripture.
Misreading the Bible in this way is a constant temptation for all of us. Somehow we want the Bible to say just what WE want the Bible to say, and so we read into it a meaning that is either not possible at all or is FAR MORE SPECIFIC than the text actually confirms. In reading and interpreting Scripture, we should strive to draw from any given text only so much as is specified by that text taken in context and from any given set of texts only so much as they specify when seen first in their immediate contexts and then in the larger framework of Scriptural thought.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As Paul warned in Acts 20:30-31a, “FROM YOUR OWN NUMBER, men will arise and DISTORT THE TRUTH! So BE ON YOUR GUARD!”
Study the entirety of God’s Word for yourself. Take the time to VERIFY the context. Look at what comes before or after the verse being quoted. Look at the people being addressed, the theme of the book, and the social, cultural, or political climate during the time the text was written. Pay attention, and don’t go beyond the bounds of Scripture.
a collector (of sentences) 