Do you choose your words carefully when you share your faith?  What I mean is, are you careful when you talk to others about God’s Word that what you attribute to God is actually what is written in scripture?

Proverbs tells us not to add to His word or face rebuke and be found to be a liar. Revelation says, “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book.”  Because of this, I believe we should be careful when talking to others about God especially when you preface a sentence by saying, “The Bible says.”

Most people paraphrase scripture when talking about the Bible.  For example, rather than say, “In the Beginning God created the heaven’s and the earth…” they might say something like,  “God made heaven, then He made earth.” There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that, as long  as you make it clear that you are describing scripture in your own words. And I don’t think this is a small point.  It’s very easy to accidentally add to the meaning of any written document any time you stray from the words written on the page.  Not only that, you can quote a scripture verbatim out of context making it appear to say something very different than God’s word. Antitheists are quite skilled at intentionally doing this.

Are you careful as you should be when using the phrase, “God said…”?

What are your thoughts?