If there is one word of advice, I’d give to new readers of the Holy Scripture it is “context.” With over 727,000 words in the NIV version of the Old and New Testaments, like fortune cookies, people can easily make up anything using out of context bible statements. Anytime you hear a bible phrase quoted, be sure to look it up yourself, read several verses before and after (seeking to understand who is the audience, what are the circumstances), and examine several translations for wording which can alter the true intent of the Word.
I’m not talking about the famous example of a mistranslation that led to a wide spread misunderstanding; the depiction of Moses with “horns” on his head. In the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible by Saint Jerome in the late 4th century, Exodus 34:29-35 describes Moses as having “radiant” or “horned” skin on his face after he received the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai. The word used in the original Hebrew text of the Bible is “karan”, which means “to radiate” or “to send out rays of light”. However, the word was mistranslated as “keren” which means “horned” in Hebrew. This led to the depiction of Moses in art as having horns on his head, rather than beams of light radiating from his face.
This mistranslation has been corrected in modern translations of the Bible, such as the New International Version (NIV), which describes Moses as having “radiant” skin on his face. Interpretation of the Bible is not only influenced by the original text but also by the translation process, and that even small errors in translation can lead to significant misunderstandings.
Nor am I talking about the so called “wicked bible” where a printing error resulted in the statement of the seventh commandment reading “thou shall commit adultery.” There is reported to be 15 or so surviving copies of this bible, selling when they do for up to $100,000 as a novelty.
I’m also not talking about how Jesus corrected the devil when he attempted to quote scripture and incite Jesus to sin. In Matthew 4, the devil tries three time to tempt Jesus, twice while quoting scripture. He truthfully claims “It is written” and quotes Psalm 91:11-12 about angels lifting you up. Jesus corrects him stating “it is also written” quoting from Deuteronomy 6:16 “You must not test the Lord your God …”
What I’m referring to is how someone can say “the Bible says” and quote a verse out of context, like “Take it easy. Eat, drink, and be merry.” This comes from Luke 12:19 where if you bother to read a bit further you’d discover the very next word is “but” and is really the authors way of saying how foolish it is to ignore Gods will when planning in our lives.
Modern day misquoters say things like “judge not and you shall not be judged” (which is probably the only time they use the term “shall not.”) Thinking they are quoting from the Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 7, they are actually misquoting Jesus’ intent which was to condemn those use falsely accuse others of wrongdoing. They think they are throwing the Bible back in the face of persons who condemn behavior they see as flagrantly ignoring the commandments of God, but they are actually ignoring the rest of the sermon. In saying, “Do not judge,” Jesus was not saying, “anything goes.” He was condemning judgments that were superficial (John 7:24), hypocritical, and self-righteous, unforgiving.
Jesus gives us permission to tell right from wrong. Are we to point out someone else’s sin at all? (oh oh, here comes another quote about the “plank in my eye and the speck in yours” found in Matthew 7:3-5). The best advice may be what Paul gave his younger ward Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:24-25, “A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth. Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil’s trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants.”