Many Christians in the USA today are having problems with the national media. There are many reports that they are presenting the truth incorrectly. The plea seems to be, ‘Where do I go to find reliable truth?’
How do we feed our sheep? If a preacher stood up on Sunday to deliver a message on Job and Jabez, suggesting that they are one and the same person, we would all hopefully scream loudly. The congregation would certainly wonder if that was the right church for them.
In the same way, Christian authors have an immense responsibility to present God’s Word correctly. We can’t help but see Christianity through our own lens and that of our church’s denomination—that’s not what I’m writing about. I’m stating that we authors have a heavy responsibility to adequately research and present correctly the Word of God. The national media is being increasingly held to a higher standard—shouldn’t we, too?
The biggest offense I see is Christian authors taking a verse out of context. Big problem! One-liners that, without the consideration of the surrounding text, take on a completely new meaning.
I was asked this week to read the latest book by a leading Christian author. On the first page he quoted one of the psalms. The sense that he used was completely contrary to the whole theme of the psalm. He possibly used a word search to find the verse but did not ask himself what that ten-verse psalm was really saying. In this case, his Bible translation had used a word that has two meanings and he used the wrong meaning. We must read the text in context to assure we are not inadvertently presenting God’s Word incorrectly.
In the same way, Christian authors have an immense responsibility to present God’s Word correctly. We can’t help but see Christianity through our own lens and that of our church’s denomination—that’s not what I’m writing about. I’m stating that we authors have a heavy responsibility to adequately research and present correctly the Word of God. The national media is being increasingly held to a higher standard—shouldn’t we, too?
The biggest offense I see is Christian authors taking a verse out of context. Big problem! One-liners that, without the consideration of the surrounding text, take on a completely new meaning.
I was asked this week to read the latest book by a leading Christian author. On the first page he quoted one of the psalms. The sense that he used was completely contrary to the whole theme of the psalm. He possibly used a word search to find the verse but did not ask himself what that ten-verse psalm was really saying. In this case, his Bible translation had used a word that has two meanings and he used the wrong meaning. We must read the text in context to assure we are not inadvertently presenting God’s Word incorrectly.
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