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Things you thought were in the Bible but aren’t

Kristi Sayles

When it comes to the Bible, I am picky. I want to know what the Bible says and means, not what people say it says and means. 1 Thessalonians 5:21 says, “Test everything. Hold on to the good.” Christians should not just accept whatever is fed to them. Many are honest – honestly wrong! They have grown up hearing certain Bible misquotes and have repeated them out of ignorance. How many of these have you heard (or quoted)?

Money is the root of all evil. 1 Timothy 6:10, says the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, not money itself. There’s nothing inherently evil about having money. Loving money is the problem. Adam and Eve shared an apple. The Bible says they ate from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2-3). It almost certainly wasn’t an apple. Cleanliness is next to godliness. This was John Wesley, in his sermon “On Dress”, not the Bible. God works in mysterious ways. Yes, He does, but it’s not in the Bible either. William Cowper penned this one in the poem “On The Loss of the Royal George”.

I hope that you have begun to see the importance of what I am saying. It is imperative to use the brains the good Lord gave us when listening to other people (even preachers) quoting the Word. Be an active listener. Turn to the Scriptures and check. Don’t just assume that the other person knows what he is talking about. After all, to err is human, to forgive divine. (No, that’s not Scripture either.)

Kristi Sayles is a freelance writer from Camden, Tenn.

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Last modified November 16, 2000.

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