July 7, 2019 – Pastor Barry Clair continues the series “Don’t get it Twisted” with the message “I Can Do All Things”
Most of you, I would wager, have Philippians 4:13 memorized. You’ve seen it on tee-shirts, you’ve seen it on tattoos, you’ve seen it on coffee mugs, you’ve seen it on picture frames. In this series, we are taking a look at what happens when people take a verse from the sacred text and misinterpret, misunderstand, misapply, and misuse it. Some practice this form of what I call exegetical malpractice for honorable reasons such as citing a scripture to back up their belief about a moral issue. That practice is called proof-texting, and sometimes that can get us into trouble because we think on face-value, the scripture applies to what we are talking about and oftentimes it doesn’t.
Some practice exegetical malpractice for malevolent reasons such as attempting to intentionally mislead people for personal gain or to obfuscate the Word of God. Whatever the reason, text-jacking is a phenomenon that is all too common in Christianity today.