SCRIPTURE TWISTERS: THEIR TECHNIQUES

In my other posts on the subject Scripture twisting, I have demonstrated the number of different ways the Bible can be misused "creatively" and the motives behind this misuse. However, some of these are hard to detect. So I thought it would also be helpful to also identify some general techniques used by Scripture twisters to try to convince others. Many of these are meant to be discussion stoppers without really dealing with the issue at hand.

THROWING UP SMOKESCREENS I ran across a Catholic Q&A pamphlet for children years ago. One of the questions was: “Doesn't Jesus say in Matthew 23:9 that you should call no man your father?” The response was, “Well, you call your Dad 'father,' don't you?” Of course, that doesn't really answer the objection at all and instead really insinuates that Jesus must not have known what he was talking about. In its context, Jesus is clearly saying that no one should call a spiritual leader “father.”

RELYING ON SIGNS OF THE TIMES instead of the timeless word. Postmillennialism is a view of the future that says the world will get better and better every day until we have a heaven on earth. At one time period in US history before the world wars, it was the most popular theological view of the future in most denominations, including the Southern Baptists. But they were all misled by the optimistic worldview around them at the time. The problem is that this view has virtually no support anywhere in the Bible. Today, however, it is another scheme of prophecy that holds popular sway, premillennialism, which fits in better with the more distressing and pessimistic times we live in. But our beliefs, whatever they are, shouldn't be mainly determined by what is currently happening in the world.

This next technique is so common that it goes by many different names: the fallacy of the excluded middle, FALSE DICHOTOMY, false dilemma, or setting up a straw man in order to knock it down. Take the issue of a young earth vs. an old earth. After a presentation at our church on the biblical evidence for an old earth, I overheard someone say, “That is giving in to the spirit of the age,” which was basically to say that you either believe in six literal days of creation or you are siding with Satan. There are actually a wide variety of Christian views regarding the Creation, and it is by no means a black-and-white, all-or-nothing issue. The issue of faith vs. works also brings out its extreme views so that some people consider practically anything a work that must be de-emphasized, including faith itself.

CONDESCENDING SARCASM: A Presbyterian friend and I would occasionally get into a discussion on the proper mode of baptism. He would always cut off the discussion by quoting an old pastor of his who said, “Do you really think the Jewish authorities would hand over the entire water supply of Jerusalem to some obscure sect on the Day of Pentacost?” His implication was that it would take that much water to immerse the 3,000 believers who came forward that day whereas it could be done easily if they were only sprinkling them. Leaving aside the sarcasm, archeologists have unearthed many ritual immersion baths in Jerusalem dating back before the 1^st century. After all, there needed to be enough of them to accommodate the Jewish purification rites for the many pilgrims coming to town for the major feasts.

DEMONIZING YOUR OPPONENTS: This is a great way to cut off all discussion, and it is especially prevalent during war time. Unfortunately, it also occurs in religious settings. One picture on the internet lumps together Catholic leaders with Nazis, communists and Zionists. And Cyrus Scofield would be surprised to know that some people consider him to be a member of the mysterious Illuminati. Personally speaking, as much as I might disagree with James Hagee, I would stop short of labeling him a Satanist as another internet site does.

But it isn't only people who can be demonized. There are attacks on modern translations of the Bible due to their supposedly suspicious origins. When the Revised Standard Version first came out, pastors condemned it from the pulpit, and their clinching argument was that some of the Bibles were available in red covers – obviously a tip-off to their communistic roots. This sort of attack is still going on today as various on-line sources attest. One that I have seen states that all modern Bible translations have their origin in a combination of Roman Catholic, pagan, Hindu, and satanist sources while the KJV comes from the Received Text, or Textus Receptus. The real story behind that term is that it started as a marketing ploy by a Dutch publishing firm. And of course, the King James Version is also known as the Authorized Version, implying to some people that it must have been authorized by God Himself. However, the term only means it was officially licensed by officials in King James' court.

INTIMIDATION BY “AUTHORITIES”: This ploy comes in all guises, ranging from overt to mild. The most obvious examples that come to mind are cult leaders such as Jim Jones who enforced group-think. One of his ex-followers recounted the time some people in the congregation were looking up references in the Bible while Jones was preaching. Jones yelled at them from the pulpit, “Put down your Bibles and listen to me instead.” This is certainly a lot different from the story of Paul's preaching to the Bereans. I personally witnessed something akin to this years ago in New England while on vacation. My wife and I found a small church nearby and decided to worship there. We arrived in the middle of Sunday school and were ushered into the college age class where the pastor of the church was the teacher. The passage being considered was I Peter 3, perhaps the most difficult passage in the whole NT. The pastor gave his interpretation and then asked if there were any questions. One young man timidly said that it sounds as if Jesus was preaching to people in hell. The pastor yelled at him, “You've been reading Catholic books, haven't you?” The poor man slunk down in his seat and no one dared say anything after that point.

I witnessed another example years ago in a Bible book store. A customer had cornered the store owner and told him that speaking in tongues was a necessary sign of whether you were saved. The store owner gently replied that such a teaching isn't really found in the Bible. The customer actually said, “Well, I don't know much about the Bible, but you should read what this best-selling author says on the subject.”  I have encountered it while teaching Sunday school. After explaining a particular view of the future once, someone in the class countered with "Well, that isn't what Dwight Pentacost says!" as if that was obviously the last word on the subject.

SENSATIONALISM is the next technique to look out for, and it is often coupled with conspiracy theories to explain why their results can't be substantiated. There is the old story of NASA computers supposedly calculating the position of the heavenly bodies backward in time and being one day off in confirmation of Joshua's long day. The story makes no sense and has been denied time and time again by NASA representatives, but it refuses to die. And then, of course, the remains of Noah's ark were supposedly discovered, but the Christian who found them was not given permission to return to Mt. Ararat due to a conspiracy between Islamic officials in Turkey and communist authorities in the USSR. Or how about the fact that the Russians dug a hole in the earth and reached hell where they could hear damned souls crying in agony. Of course, they filled in the hole to hide this fact from the world. Reports claiming to calculate the date of the Second Coming are probably the most common examples of sensationalism, but I would hope by now that most people are rightly suspicious of such pronouncements.

EXCLUSIVITY You should also watch out for any approach to the Bible that claims to hold the exclusive key to unraveling its secrets. For example, Bruce Wilkinson claims that the prayer of Jabez in I Chronicles 4:9-10 “contains the key to a life of extraordinary favor.” There is nothing wrong with looking at the Bible from a particular viewpoint to get insights (and you can even purchase Prophecy, Apologetic or Archeological study Bibles). I myself have taken mainly a literary approach to the Bible for the last forty years or so but I certainly wouldn't claim that it is the exclusive, or even the best, way to understand it.