Misquoted: Things we think are in the Bible, but are not

By Russell Muilenburg

In an age of slogans, memes and catchphrases, Christians love to express profound thoughts about God and life with an economy of words. We often share these statements with the confidence and authority of quoting the Bible itself. But a lot of the clichés we quote do not come from the Bible, and often they express ideas that are far from Biblica

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hope Writers Publishing
• Release date: Aug 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985348330

Book preview

Misquoted

Things we think are in the Bible,

but are not

Russell Muilenburg

Misquoted

© 2022 by Russell Muilenburg

Cover: Joana Franca and Hello Delaney

Interior Design: Step In Hope LLC

Published by: Anchoring Hope Publishing

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN:  979-8-9853483-2-3

eISBN:  979-8-9853483-3-0

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (NIrV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Reader’s Version®, NIrV® Copyright © 1995, 1996, 1998, 2014 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. www.zondervan.com The NIrV and New International Reader’s Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Printed and bound in the United States of America

DEDICATION

For Beth. You inspire me to communicate well.

CONTENTS

Dedication

Contents

Introduction: Christianisms

1. God Helps Those Who Help Themselves

2. Let Go and Let God

3. God Just Wants Me to Be Happy

4. Time Heals All Wounds

5. Charity Begins at Home

6. Just Follow Your Heart

7. God Will Not Give You More Than You Can Handle

8. Everything Happens for a Reason

Conclusion: Do Not Settle for Easy Answers

Endnotes

Discussion Guide

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Christianisms

From the French

Back in the days of printing presses, the iron plate which was etched with the words, phrases, or images to be printed was known as a stereotype. Whenever this plate pressed down to reproduce another page, it would make a loud noise which, for French printers, sounded a lot like their word for click. That word is cliché.

Thus, cliché came to mean a saying that gets repeated often. Or, we might say, a stereotypically simplistic and tired phrase.

Generally speaking, clichés are statements which were striking and thought-provoking when first coined; but which have become unoriginal and overused. Popularity makes them seem trite. Often, the original meaning of the phrase is lost and the statement comes to stand for a whole range of barely understood ideas.

As Christians, we have a tendency to adopt sayings that reduce deep truths about God and our world to clichés. I call them Christianisms. Sometimes they are referred to as Christianese. There are dozens of them. Pithy, memorable sayings that Christian people repeat over and over again that look good on fridge magnets and tasteful t-shirts.

My contention is that most of these phrases are not that helpful and—worse than that—many are not even true. This book is about some of these clichés.

Filling the Cracks in our Conversations

I think of the phrases covered in this book as verbal filler. These sayings are the sort of things that Christians use to fill in the cracks in our conversations.

Imagine you are talking to a friend. That friend is sharing something heavy that has recently happened: a parent diagnosed with an illness, a child who has been in trouble at school, a job situation that has turned ugly.

It’s an emotional situation. There’s a long pause, a crack in the conversation.

You want to offer comfort and encouragement. Above all, you want to bolster this person’s faith in God. So you reach for the trowel and you fill the crack with some verbal spackling:

God won’t give you more than you can handle.

Everything happens for a reason.

You’ve gotta just let go and let God.

These are Christian clichés. They are statements we make without really thinking them through. They are so familiar to us that we accept them as unquestioned truth. We hear them so often that we assume they are helpful.

But this kind of verbal filler rarely withstands careful consideration. Your friend might feel you are being truly caring in the moment—and you are trying!—but if they take time to reflect on what you have said, they are going to find there isn’t much comfort to be had there.

Singing Songs to a Heavy Heart

Proverbs 25:20 says: Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on a wound, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.

If it’s cold outside, and you come by and take away my coat, that’s not gonna help me. Likewise, if I have an open sore, and you come by and throw vinegar on there, that’s gonna hurt me worse.

In the same way, if I am stricken by grief and you come to me with empty platitudes and cheap clichés, that’s just not helpful. It’s like asking me to go to an upbeat concert when what I really want to do is sit at home and eat ice cream.

We live in the day of the sound bite, the meme, and the Tweet. We love to capture that perfect line that sums up complicated issues in a way that is memorable and quotable. That’s one of the reasons these sayings have endured. They seem to express profound thoughts about God and life with an economy of words.

But when we reduce the great mysteries of evil and suffering to a slogan that will fit on a bumper sticker, it’s inadequate. It’s patching up a hole in the wall with bubble gum and masking tape. It ignores the depth of the pain by going for a pat answer. When we resort to clichés like those covered in this book, we are just as likely to convey an attitude of un-concern as we are to convey truly helpful care. That’s singing songs to a heavy heart.

What your friend in that tough situation needs is not a carefully crafted catchphrase, but a shoulder to lean on and a listening ear.

Be Like the Bereans

I would like all of us to stop using the phrases in this book because they are not that helpful. But I have a deeper reason: they’re not Biblical either.

The subtitle of this book is Things we think are in the Bible, but are not. Most of the sayings I chose to examine get quoted so frequently by believers, and with such certainty, that it seems like we are citing a Bible text. If I can help us realize that not everything we repeat like a Bible verse is an actual Bible verse, that will be a win.

My beef with these sayings, however, is not just that the exact wording is not found in the pages of Scripture. There are plenty of true statements that do not come directly from the Bible. Every week I prepare a sermon which I try to summarize in one or two key phrases. Those phrases are usually not direct quotes from the Bible, but I hope they capture Biblical ideas. A phrase does not need to be a quote from the Bible in order to be true.

When I say that the clichés in this book are not Biblical, what I mean is that the ideas they convey are not in keeping with Biblical teaching. My beef with these clichés is that they give misleading or incomplete pictures of God and our relationship with Him.

In Acts 17, Paul’s missionary journeys led him to the Greek city of Berea. It’s a small part of Paul’s story, covering just a few verses. And nothing terribly noteworthy appears to have happened in Berea. But in recounting his brief stay, the narrator of Acts (Luke) makes this praiseworthy observation of the Bereans: Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true (Acts 17:11).

The Bereans were eager listeners, but they were also critical listeners. They didn’t just accept the things Paul said because he was Paul. They weren’t roped in by the power of his presentation or the cleverness of his phrasing. Instead, they went back to the Scriptures to see if Paul’s teaching was in accordance with what God had already revealed about Himself.

Ultimately, that’s what I hope this book will help us all to do. The sayings covered in this book have been repeated so often in the English-speaking world of Christianity, and with such confidence, that we accept them uncritically. They are conventional wisdom. Truisms. We hear them so often we don’t even think to question them.

But we must question them. We must examine the Scriptures to see if what has been accepted as conventional wisdom is true.

It’s not just that they are misquotes of things that sound vaguely Biblical, they can also be dangerous. Built on false assumptions and misunderstandings about God, these sayings, and the beliefs that underpin them, can lead to disillusionment and frustration when they fail to hold true. A wall that is patched with inferior material is going to crumble. As Jesus said in the parable of the two builders, a house built on sand will one day fall with a crash (see Matthew 7:24–27).

I hope this book will help us all to reconsider some of the clichés and pat answers we might have been prone to accept unblinkingly in the past. I also hope this book will give us the tools to be like the Bereans in examining Scripture to see if what we are being told is true. Not just in the phrases looked at in this book, but in the vast array of other Christianisms that are bound to come our way.

Gameplan

Please understand, my goal is not to make anyone feel bad if you have used these phrases. I’ve said all these phrases on multiple occasions, even after beginning work on this project. They are such a part of our Christian world that I don’t know if they will ever go away altogether. But I do want us to think more carefully about the things we say and hear.

My plan, then, with each statement is to ask a form of the following three questions:

First, I want us to inquire: Is there any Biblical truth?

Something doesn’t become a cliché unless it is based on some truth. Surely there is a reason each of these statements has become so popular among Christians. With each phrase, then, I’ll give my best-faith effort to find the Biblical teaching that supports the idea.

Second, I want us to ask: Where does the statement go wrong?

This is where we need to think critically. Just because these statements