Several Facebook friends have sent a message to me written by Sandy Barker-Mitchell. I have two problems with Sandy’s message. But before I address those, here’s what Barker-Mitchell wrote:
In 3 short months, just like He did with plagues of Egypt, God has taken away everything we worship. God said “You want to worship athletes, I will shut down the stadiums. You want to worship musicians, I will shut down the Civic Centers. You want to worship actors, I will shut down theaters. You want to worship money, I will shut down the economy and collapse the stock market. You don’t want to go to church and worship Me, I will make it where you can’t go to church. “If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, THEN I will heal their land.” Maybe we don’t need a vaccine. Maybe we need to take this time of isolation from the distractions of the world and have a personal revival where we focus on the ONLY thing in the world that really matters. Jesus.
“God said…”? Really? How are we to know God actually spoke those words to Sandy? Well, we have no way of knowing that we’re hearing the very words of the Lord God Almighty. I assure you that the words in her message did not come from God; they are words Sandy believes God would say if He actually spoke to her — which He did not. That’s problem #1. Problem #2 is that Sandy took a verse out of context and applied a meaning to it that was not the author’s intent. Taking verses out of context has become common place in the Church. The problem is, people who do this often do it intentionally. Their aim is to twist Scripture to make it conform to their own personal beliefs, even to promote a political agenda. Which leads me to Tim Chaffey’s article below. In his piece he reminds us how important it is to know what the context of a verse is before quoting it. Chaffey suggests that we ask ourselves a couple of things: #1…Do you know when these words were spoken and to whom they were addressed? #2…Do you know the occasion for these words or have you just repeated them thinking that they were meant for your particular situation?
So with this backdrop in place, listen to Tim Chaffey explain why 2 Chronicles 7:14 is not a divine promise to Christians. He writes:
We have probably all done it before. I know I have. In fact, I have even made the mistake of doing it in a published work. I used a Bible verse improperly by not paying close enough attention to its context.
This is a common problem among both Christians and non-Christians. Many skeptics and other unbelievers will pull verses out of context in their efforts to attack the Bible. Many Christians have heard or read a verse that they really like, so they quote it as though it was given as a divine promise just for them. However, we must be careful to examine the context of a passage and make sure that when we quote a verse, we use it in a way that the original author meant for it to be used.
In this particular post, I want to examine one of the verses that Christians regularly misuse. In some future posts, we will look at some more verses misused by Christians and some misused by unbelievers. I realize this will upset some of my readers, but before getting upset with me, you need to take some time and study the context of the verse and then ask yourself, “Am I using this verse appropriately, or am I guilty of misusing it?” I’ll close by sharing the verse that I misused at the end of one of my books.
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