Doesn’t everybody do this?
Twisting Scripture is easy. It’s quite simple to twist the Bible to have it say whatever you want it to. All you do is take a phrase out of context and apply it to your situation. For example, Jesus wants us to love others, right. Thus someone might say that they can “make love” with whomever they want whenever they want to for whatever reason they want.
This is essentially what one cult called the “Children of God” practiced from 1974 to 1987. They called it “flirty fishing.” What was flirty fishing? It was evangelistic religious prostitution—they encouraged females to have sex with guys to draw them into their cult.
Recently the Anglican fellowship put the Episcopalian Church in America on 3 years probation for their promotion of same-sex marriages.
Other denominational groups are also twisting Scripture, or even ignoring them, to bend to the norms of society.
How can “Christian” groups justify practices such as these which are so contrary to Scripture? Answer: They twist Scripture to say what they want it to and ignore the clear teaching of the Bible.
The problem is of course that with no reference point, Christianity becomes anything anyone wants it to be. And if it becomes anything anyone wants it to be, it begins to become nothing. This is why the liberal mainline denominations are declining rapidly, while Bible-believing denominations grow.
So what are Christians to do?
Here’s the answer right from the Word of God: “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV)
Christians are obligated to study the Bible and carefully, without twisting Scripture, determine what it says and obey. It’s as simple as that.
What can you do if you are part of a church whose leaders who might or might not be “rightly dividing the word of truth?”
The answer is to do what the people in Berea did: “Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11 NIV)
Note in this verse that checking what the Apostle Paul said against Scripture was not questionable, instead it was “noble!”
Every believer has the responsibility to double check teaching to make sure it is indeed what the Scriptures say, no matter who is saying it!
No matter how great, respected and renowned a teacher might be, even if it is the Apostle Paul, it is “noble” to examine Scripture to make sure what is being said is what the Book says.
In our day, there is major twisting on the issue of homosexuality. So I wrote some articles titled “What Scripture Says About Homosexuality: Uncut, Uncensored and Unedited” and “Can a Christian Support Gay Marriage.”
I also wrote an article about twisting Scripture titled “Have You Written Your Own Bible and another titled “Beware of Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing.”
But how do we know we can trust the Bible? To find out, check out these articles and podcasts:
Note: There are many ministries I can enthusiastically endorse. For a list, see my Recommended Resources page.