Who’s ‘Propheting’?

The Devotional booklet, “Our Daily Bread” tells an interesting story about Christopher Columbus…

“On one of Christopher Columbus’ voyages, he found that his crew’s food supply was almost depleted. Anchored off the island of Jamaica, he was grateful to be given food by the islanders. But as time went on, the gifts of food decreased so that the crew began to starve.

Columbus knew from an astronomy book that a lunar eclipse would soon occur. He called the native chiefs together and told them God was angry about their selfishness and would blot out the moon. At first the islanders scoffed. But when they watched the night’s silver disc slowly become dark, they became terrified and quickly brought food. Columbus said that if he prayed, the moon would be restored. Though we may empathize with his circumstances, Columbus’ “message from God” was dishonest and self-serving.

The purpose of sharing God’s truth is to profit others, not to prosper ourselves.”

See more examples below of how others distort Scripture to suit their own purposes. These excerpts are taken from James W. Sire’s excellent book, “Scripture Twisting”:

Misreading No. 7: Word Play

“The Bible must be recognized as a work of literature in its native tongue as well as in translation. If we are to do a word study, that is, examine the etymology (word origin), definitions, use of the word in various Biblical texts and so forth, we must work from the [original] Greek or Hebrew.

Some study can be accomplished by use of an English-language concordance, but it must be checked against the words in the original [language].

Misreading No. 8: The Figurative Fallacy [spiritualizing, mistaking the literal for the figurative or the figurative for the literal]

The figurative fallacy is far more difficult to avoid than word play. Every reader must determine the way language is being used.

Does the fact that in John 4 the word “water” is used both literally and figuratively mean that it is always used this way in Scripture? And is the figurative meaning always the same?

The important point in all this to remember is that as responsible Bible readers, we must understand the text in the manner in which it was written.

Misreading No. 9: Speculative Reading of Predictive Prophecy

There is nothing in Scripture more difficult to treat with certainty than the interpretation of predictive prophecy, especially those prophecies in both the Old and New Testaments which were not fulfilled by the time of the New Testament era and interpreted as such by New Testament authors.

This is where dubious interpretations of predictive prophecy are explained as specific events.

The principle of good reading we want to raise as a result is simply this: when the New Testament declares an Old Testament prophecy to be fulfilled, do not look for another fulfillment; when any prophecy does not appear to be fulfilled, measure all modern attempts to identify its fulfillment against the backdrop of the rest of the Bible. And refuse to accept any interpretation which serves to substantiate a religious philosophy that is nonbiblical in other more obvious ways.”

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Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:3-4, “The time is coming when people will NOT endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”

Be on your guard! (Acts 20:30-31a) Don’t go beyond the bounds of Scripture!