Key Bible Verse: Some … have twisted his [Paul's] letters around … just as they do the other parts of Scripture—and the result is disaster for them (2 Peter 3:16). Bonus Reading: 2 Timothy 2:14-19

Your experience impacts how you think. As you were growing up, say, only mean-looking bikers and biker chicks sported tattoos and body piercing. So you believe these to be wrong.

Inbred opinions cause us to read Bible texts with predetermined selectivity—some texts stongly impress us, while we ignore others. We come across a verse like, "Never cut your bodies … or mark your skin with tattoos" (Leviticus 19:28) and it leaps off the page to us. God feels the same way! we think. Never mind that in the previous verse men are told, "Do not trim the hair on your temples or clip the edges of your beards." We still avoid side-whiskers and scraggly, untrimmed beards.

So why aren't we consistent in applying Bible texts like these? Because something in us longs to emphasize the verses that resonate with our own opinions and to ignore the ones that don't. People do it every day, and slap God's endorsement on their interpretations.

By the way, we told our four kids we didn't want them permanently altering their bodies at least until they were adults. We just didn't claim that our old-fashioned weirdness was directed by God.

—Ed Gungor in Religiously Transmitted Diseases

My Response: A time I saw believers inject their background into their understanding of the Bible was …

Thought to Apply: Everyone Is Entitled to My Opinion.—DAVID BRINKLEY (title of book by the TV news anchor)

Adapted from Religiously Transmitted Diseases (Nelson Ignite, 2006) by permission.

Prayer for the Week

Lord, make me aware of the cultural blinders I bring to your Word, and please keep me from becoming a modern Pharisee.

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