This morning I have seen two things about the Bible that have gotten me thinking about how we need to be careful about what we say about the Bible and what it says. It is very important that we don't confuse our own interpretations and traditions with the actual truth.
I saw a post on Facebook (I apologize, I went back and tried to find it to add to this post, but I've lost it) about things that were believed to be in the Bible but were not. The problem with this post is that most of what they were saying was wrong. A great example of this is the fact that the post claimed that the Bible never mentions hell. Ummm... really?? I don't even know where they get that! There were other things in there that were just totally wrong or misrepresentations and word-twisting but that was the biggest example. This is a very dangerous and irresponsible way of handling God's Word.
Also, I was doing my Bible study this morning and came across something similar. I was reading about Daniel, if you spent any time in Sunday School, you know all about Daniel and the lion's den. In chapter 6 of the book of Daniel it tells us that because of an order that the king was tricked into signing into law, he had to place Daniel in a den of lions. Now it's safe to use our imagination here as to what should happen to Daniel. The lions would eat him, right? Of course, that's not how the story ended. Our amazing God sent His angel to shut the mouths of the lions and Daniel survived. The king had spent the entire night worrying and rushed to the den in the morning to see if Daniel's God had saved him.
This is a great story about God's faithfulness and I love to read about it. However, in my study, the author stated that Daniel spent the night in peace and in the arms of an angel. The problem with this is that the Bible does not say that he spent the night in peace. It does tell us that the king spent the night worrying, but mentions nothing about how Daniel spent the night other than that he was in with the lions.
I had to ask myself if it was worth thinking it through and does it matter if we assume that Daniel spent his time with the lions in perfect peace. I don't want to be over-thinking or judgmental, but I do think that this is a point worth debating and here is why. When we assume things like this we are setting some up for feeling like failures. I have seen this happen in my lifetime and have even experienced it myself. We (Christians) make assumptions like this and picture (for example) Daniel being so Godly that he spent the night peacefully sleeping while an angle held him securely and then it goes to feeling guilty and ashamed that we can't be so "holy". Satan finds his way in and tells us lies that we are worthless because we certainly don't have the faith that those Biblical saints had so we surely can't be usable by such a holy God. I have had someone say to me recently "I am struggling so bad, why am I such a sinner?" You see, when we don't show our struggles (or that of the Biblical characters) then we make others feel like they aren't worthy of God.
Did Daniel spent the night with the lions happy and peaceful? Did he spend it cowering in the corner? Did he spend it partying with the lions and having pizza as shown in VeggieTales? We don't know. I bet he spent it in prayer. I am guessing that he didn't really get much sleep. But I don't know. So I can't assume and teach with certainty either way. I know that he was human so at the very least, he was probably at least scared. Why are we as Christians so afraid to show others the human side? Why do we have to pretend that we are so perfect? The only One that is perfect is our God and we need to be pointing people to Him rather than ourselves. We can't make ourselves feel good and others feel bad. We all fail. We all sin. But we have an amazing God that covers all our sins. Praise Him for that!! But please don't try to make the Bible say things that it does not say.
