Hello people, this is Hattie Collier here, and as I have said before I’m a religious woman who gets kind of bent out of shape with all of these changes going on in the world. I’m trying my best to adjust, but it’s not always easy. Just the other day I read something that just about threw me for a loop.
First of all, I've been hearing and saying the words "God works in mysterious ways" since I was a little girl, and believe me that's been a while ago. Everybody I know told me that quote came straight from the bible. Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather when this article said that the quote comes from some poet from the 19th Century named William Cowper. As a matter of fact his exact words were: "God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform." Say what?
Oh, I was too through—I thought—but there was more. You know the saying “spare the rod, spoil the child?” That one was in there too, described as what they called one of the pseudo-verses, which in regular English means phony. Supposedly that one comes from twisting Proverbs 13:24 which actually says: “The one who withholds the rod is one who hates his son.” Can you believe that? Let me tell you, if its not in there, it ought to be. I flipped through the bible for about two hours on that one looking for the book and the verse to prove the quote was in the bible. Unfortunately, I haven’t found it yet. I plan on continuing my search.
Now there was one passage that Benjamin Franklin, one of the country’s founding fathers, gets credit for instead of the bible and that’s okay with me. That saying is “God helps those that help themselves.” I wasn’t too choked up in tossing that one aside. I always thought of that saying as being kind of selfish and that it gives people justification to do whatever it is that they want to do, and use God and the bible in the process.
It seems that the bible and religion have been used for enough evil in the world and I found it worrisome that some of the things that I grew up believing came from the bible either didn’t or had been distorted. With all of the mess out here in the world we need something to guide us and keep us on the straight and narrow--not that it seems to be doing any good in some cases. Now, don’t get me wrong. Reading about some quotes not really being in the bible is not going to stop me from reading or believing in the Word, but it makes me wonder how mistakes like these happened.
The religious scholars that were interviewed for this article gave a few reasons for all of this confusion. Ignorance about the Word was one of them. That came as no great surprise. I know that I read my bible faithfully, but there are others who shall remain nameless who would turn to stone if they picked one up. You know that they say the Bible is the one best seller that’s never read. So it would be easy to tell some folks anything when it came to what’s inside of one. Of course, if a good Christian like me could be fooled then nobody else stands much of a chance. Another reason given for believing these mistakes was the number of different translations of the bible. Where the King James Version used to be the most popular, you’ve got bibles springing up all over the place nowadays. I know I’ve lost count and every time there’s a new one released something is lost in the translation. It’s no wonder the non bible readers don’t know what’s in it or what’s not.
Another reason given was that since the monk, Martin Luther, started the Protestant revolt against the Catholic Church, phony bible verses started sprouting up like weeds. Last, but not least one biblical expert named Craig Hazen, the director of the Christian Apologetics Program at Biola University in Southern California said that when people gather for bible studies without the guidance of an expert that “Not only do they get the interpretation wrong, but very often end up quoting verses that really aren’t there.”
Hold it right there! I don’t appreciate that comment one bit. I might invite this expert to our bible study meeting. We've got members with good reading glasses and about 100 years of testimony between us. Now that’s expertise. Also I’d like to know where Biola University is because I’ve never heard of it, and what in the world is an Apologetics Program? I’d also like to suggest that he look up the word jackass. It’s in the bible, or maybe the word is jackal. Oh well, until next week—
Muse on that.
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