SORRY, BUT IT'S NOT IN THE BIBLE

“Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” (John 17:17)

For the end of the year, the MetroWest Daily News (Framingham, MA) is running a series on “Persons of Distinction” in MetroWest. (This series is ONLY found in the print edition; it’s not in the on-line edition.) I want to be very careful about how I frame this piece because I’ve never met the man featured in today’s (December 27, 2010) paper, but he sounds like an outstanding and great man: Mr. Peter Hill. Hill is the leader of the V.F.W. of Holliston. Hill served in Iraq as a National Guardsman. He’s also on the Holliston Fire Department. I consider guys like Mr. Hill genuine heroes. They are a great blessing to society. They touch many lives and make a great positive difference in the world.

Reporter Julia Spitz wrote the piece. She included three questions she asked Mr. Hill and his responses. One question was, “What’s the best quote or saying you wished you’d said, or that guides you when you need a boost?”

Mr Hill’s reply was, “There are two quotes from the Bible that I can think of.
‘I used to complain that I had no shoes until I met the man that had no feet’”.

Mr. Hill’s other quote was, “’Give a man a fish and he will eat for a meal. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.’”.

Listen, there’s nothing wrong with those quotes. I’ve heard both of them many times before. They’re powerful, and I agree with each of them.

Here’s the one problem: Neither one is found in the Bible.

If you check (on-line) you’ll find that each is often mistakenly cited as being found in the Bible. In fact, the one about the man with no shoes meeting the man with no feet is most likely an old Persian proverb. And, the one about teaching a man to fish is most likely an old Chinese proverb.

Don’t get me wrong, both are very wise sayings which certainly embody Biblical principles.

I really mean no harm to Mr. Hill, and I hope he keeps citing those quotes, but that he’ll understand they’re not found in the Bible. There are all sorts of sayings that are supposedly found in the Bible. One is “God helps those who help themselves”. Another is “money is the root of all evil”. (Now there IS a verse very close to that one about money, but it actually says, “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” ) Still another so-called Bible verse is “spare the rod and spoil the child”. Now, the Book of Proverbs DOES have much to say about the “rod of correction” but that particular line is never found in the Book of Proverbs or anywhere else in the Bible.

Tonight, I watched Jeopardy, and once again there was a fairly easy Bible question on there that none of the contestants could get right. Each week, I get an e-mail newsletter from the Rev. Charles Crabtree, President of Zion Bible College in Haverhill, MA. In a couple of recent issues, Crabtree lamented the Biblical illiteracy of modern Americans. Recently I was talking to a young businessman who happened to be a nominal Catholic. We were talking about getting ready for Christmas, and he asked me, “Do Protestants celebrate Christmas?” He assumed Christmas was a ROMAN CATHOLIC holiday and that Protestants don’t celebrate it! (Well, technically there IS a very tiny minority of Protestants; maybe one or two percent who do not celebrate Christmas, and the Puritans in colonial New England did not celebrate Christmas, but let’s face it, 98% of Protestants celebrate Christmas!)

I guess it wouldn’t hurt to read one of those “Bible for dummies” or “Religion for dummies” books, but the fact is, to REALLY know your Bible, you’ve got to read it and study it consistently. I know sitting and reading from a bunch of books spread out all over the place may seem dry, but today there are all kinds of Bible study helps right on line. I can just do a google search, say, for Luke 2 or Matthew 2 about the birth of Jesus, and thousands and thousands of Bible commentary references, not to mention scores of Bible translations, will just pop up on the computer screen. So, as we near 2011, maybe that ought to be a goal...to get more familiar with God’s Word. You don’t want to find yourself naming your favorite quotes from the Bible that...well...aren’t in the Bible...