I recently heard a popular praise song. Overall, it was a good tune, but there was one
verse that really bothered me:
These are the days of
your servant David rebuilding the temple of praise.
This verse bothers me for two reasons. The first is that it is Biblically
inaccurate. David did not rebuild the
Jewish temple. That was Zerubbabel. He rebuilt it several decades after it was
destroyed by the Babylonians. It was
built centuries before the Babylonian invasion by Salomon, David’s son.
David never rebuilt the temple. He never even built the first one. In fact, the first temple was built years
after David’s death. To attribute the
rebuilding of the temple to David would be like attributing the moon landing to
the Viking Eric the Red.
The second reason this song bothers me is that no one seems
to notice the Biblical inaccuracy despite the fact that it is a popular song sung
weekly in many Bible believing churches.
The same day I heard that song, I listened to a podcast made
for small business owners. The podcast was not a Christian podcast, but one of the guests talked about using biblical
principles to run his business. He talked
about how he did not take a salary for the first three years after the founding
of his business because he wanted to follow the biblical principle given to the
Israelites when the entered the Canaan and were instructed to continue eating the
manna God provided for the first three years.
Yet this principle is nowhere in scripture. In fact, God stopped providing manna shortly
after the Israelites entered Canaan specifically because the Israelites were able
to live off the land and no longer required the heavenly bread (see Joshua 5:11-12).
There may be great wisdom in investing all profit from your
business back into the business for the first 3 years, but we should not go
around making up Bible stories to back up our business decisions.
Misquotation, or misuse of the Bible seems to be a growing
trend, and the unfortunate thing is that it often goes unchallenged. Quotes from the Bible are taken out of
context to make a point. Stories are
told as biblical that cannot be found in the Bible. Verses are written for praise songs that make
no sense biblically.
And no one seems to challenge it.
No one seems to even notice.
As a society, we are biblically illiterate. This includes those of us who call ourselves
Christians. We believe the Bible to be
God’s message to us, but we don’t know what it says.
Think about this for a minute. Millions of Americans believe that the Bible
is not only a message from God, but God’s primary
message to us. The English language has
more translations of the Bible than any other language. America has more biblical resources than any
other country. Yet even as Christians we
have such a week understanding of the Bible that it is easily misused and
misquoted without being challenged.
Whenever someone quotes or references the Bible in any
context, find out where that reference comes from. If you find it to be misquoted or misused,
challenge the person who is made the mistake.
If we really believe the Bible is scripture, we should read
it, study it, know it, and not allow it to be misused.
