This verse really, really, really shouldn't have made it into this list, but anything is possible with liberal Bible Twisters, so I shouldn't be surprised. The verse I am referring too is Joshua 10:12-13 "At that time Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel,
"Sun, stand still at Gibeon,
and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon."
13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped,
until the nation took vengeance on their enemies."
You may be thinking "What is so dangerous about misusing this verse, and how on Earth could this be misused?" I too, at one point, didn't think twice of this verse, and only thought of it as a very interesting story of how the LORD listened to Joshua's prayer. Unfortunately, some liberal tele-evangelists looked at this verse and applied it to themselves and to all of their audience. Paraphrasing, they said: "the weather world-wide has reached biblical proportions, and we believe that this is a result of our sins. Christians in every country must therefore pray a sun stand still prayer and take authority over the weather." I don't know about you, but I think if I went to Minnesota and tried to take authority over a tornado, I would probably get sucked up and thrown very far. The reason I believe Christians can't take "authority" over the weather is that Paul was shipwrecked three times, and if he prayed a "sun stand still prayer" then I'm guessing it didn't take much effect, or else he probably wouldn't have been shipwrecked. And if Paul couldn't take authority over the weather, I highly doubt I could, or any other Christian for that matter.
You may be wondering why I even included this misused verse, and what the danger is in misusing that verse in such a way as this. The problem with this misuse of the verse is that it paints our God as totally powerless until we pray a special prayer, being sure to say all the correct words. And when the weather doesn't change the way we want it to (and we're sucked into the physical/metaphoric tornado), people can look at our failure and say: "Hmm, their God didn't help them like they thought he would, so he must either be powerless or non-existent." The result is Christianity being a laughing stock to all of the world (not that I care what the world thinks, but it's hard to be a light to the world when they view us as ridiculous).
If there are any verses that apply to Christians and suggests that we can take authority over the weather, please let me know, so I can alert the guy who alerted me to this misuse, and so I could put forward a retraction. Or so we can debate possible interpretations to the verses and try and find out if this is possible (because if it is, we could get careers praying before football or rugby games so it doesn't rain... jk)
Hope this post was informative and thought-provoking. Let me know what you think.
Sincerely,
Joe Anderson
All Authority in Heaven and on Earth was given to JESUS the CHRIST, not Joe Shmoe the common Christian
Only two verses left! Can't wait to be done with this series and move onto the next one. Can't decide if the next one should be Primary doctrine or secondary doctrines. I'm thinking Primary, so we can get a grip of what is important to agree on before moving on to what's not so important.
ReplyDeleteJoe,
ReplyDeleteJust to nitpick a little, because I'm annoying: why did you choose to apply the world "liberal" to the groups in question here? Last I checked, liberal theologians were more likely to deny Christ's miracles than go around claiming we can perform miracles.
Liberal as in they are perfectly fine in liberally applying verses where they do not belong (or perhaps they are unaware of it). I can't think of a better title, perhaps broad-minded? I'm stumped.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that Christians can still perform miracles such as prophesies, speaking in tongues (my definition: speaking in a language not previously known to the speaker) and healings (I'm pretty sure I've seen them happen), but going out and "taking authority over the weather," I have only seen this done in New Testament times by Jesus.
As for you being annoying: never. I look forward to any and every comment, however nitpicky they are. It forces me to think.
Your Brother in Christ,
Joe