Can you spot the error? Below you will find passages from the Bible which I have slightly altered. Some misreadings are subtle, some are obvious. The point is less about spotting the error, more about the irony of the misreading. They are all wrong, yet the wrong readings are sadly true to life.
“You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you, resist an evildoer. If anyone slaps you on your right cheek, slap him right back. As for the one who wants to sue you and take away your shirt, sue the coat of his back. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, force him to carry you back to where you started.”
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ Amen.”
“Be careful to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father in heaven. So whenever you give to the poor, sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be applauded by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward, and so do you.”
“Everyone can serve two masters, since he will serve one with hatred and the other with love, or he will serve one with love and the other with hatred. You can serve both God and money.”
“Why do you look at the splinter in one brother’s eye but don’t notice the log in your other brother’s eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a beam of wood in your other brother’s eye? Hypocrite! Don’t show partiality. Take the beams out of both your brothers’ eyes.”
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we preach sermons about the gospel, and grow our churches, and gain many social media followers in your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’”
Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. And they said, “What do you want?” and “Why are you talking with her?”
After saying this, he breathed on the eleven disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
A man should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God. So too, woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman came from man. Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man. This is why a woman should have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, but man is independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man rules over woman, and God rules over all. Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to teach men? Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man allows a woman to teach him it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman is taught by man, it is her glory? If anyone wants to argue about this, they are wrong, because nature couldn’t be more clear.
Power is perfected in strength.
Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, lead your wives, just as Christ led the church and instructed her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word.
Many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with lesser strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in the ways that we stumble, he is a lying to himself and should be judged with greater strictness.
I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and witness to the sufferings of Christ, as well as one who shares in the glory about to be revealed: Shepherd God’s flock among you, overseeing willingly and eagerly out of greed for money, lording it over those entrusted to you, being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.
But the cowards, faithless, detestable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters—their share will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
Quote from Søren Kierkegaard
“The truth is a snare: you cannot get it without being caught yourself. In fact, you can never get the truth by catching it yourself but only by its catching you.”1
Question
Were any errors are harder to spot? Can you think of any other verses that, when copied erroneously, match with how Christians have actually interpreted and applied God’s Word?
Update on Book Writing
I am less than 45 days away from having to turn in my manuscript for Jesus and the Reconstructors. Yikes! I’m pleased to report that the bulk of the book—45,000 words with footnotes—is ready for editing. Which is what I’m trying to do, at least 4 days a week from 4:30am-6:30am. I’m excited, but also daunted.
It helps to meet other writers in the midst of the writing process! Beau Stringer is a local pastor here where I live in Kansas City, and he also has a book coming out next fall. He also beat me to the punch with this line: “There is something about meeting an internet person in real life and finding out they are even better in three dimensions.” Yes indeed. I was honored to learn about Beau’s journey in pastoral ministry and see the humility he explains in his recent post The Slow Yes: Why a process feels like care instead of bureaucracy.
To close, here’s a note from yesterday that shows one of the many amazing interpretive moves the Spirit gives in John. There’s lots more where that came from!
Søren Kierkegaard, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, edited by Charles Moore (Walden, NY: Plough Publishing House, 2002), 394.