I’m always amused, when not disturbed, by the ways in which people misunderstand and, then, misrepresent biblical teaching. It’s interesting and instructive to study the phenomenon. In doing so, you discover there is one-short-of a zillion factors that might lead a person to do so.

Usually those factors are more-or-less unconscious. The person committing the “crime” doesn’t fully understand his own motivation.

Most frequently it seems, when that is the case, he remembers an incident from the past that he uses now to bolster his totally irrational reasoning. Something–you know–like what happened to Aunt Minnie fifteen years ago. He thinks that the reason for citing her case, I said, is to bolster his argument as an illustration for or against something, when all of the time, rather than an additional proof,” it is the very reason for his atrocious prejudice. All these years he’s been waiting to get at whoever might seem to agree with what happened to old “Aunti.”

Of course, he probably doesn’t even have a clue as to what really happened to her—or, if he does, it’s probably distorted. Nor does he have the inside dope on what someone else that he is now excoriating actually said, says, did, or is doing. But why should that matter? His ire is up again, and he has a convenient person or group to take it out on. Hurray!

So, be careful ABOUT WHAT YOU HEAR OR READ.

It may be nothing more than someone spouting off what has been building up inside. Stick with the Scriptures, and pay no attention to arguments built on experience.

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