Scripture Twisting: 20 Ways the Cults Misread the Bible Paperback – October 1, 1980

Many people don't realize the term "cult" is not an insulting word, but a descriptive one, meaning a group of people following after a leader's or a certain group's, interpretation or teachings on the Bible, instead of traditional teachings on the Bible. The cult will follow what they have been taught instead of what they themselves can read and understand from reading their Bible. The Mormons follow the teaching of Joseph Smith's, Brigham Young's, and other prophets of that church...even if those teachings contradict God's Holy Word, the Bible. The followers are taught to follow blindly, without questions, or be kicked out of fellowship and have their businesses, etc ruined. They Have to do and believe what their church teaches or suffer the consequences. Other cults are the same. Also these cults twist scriptures to make scripture appear to say what they want it to say, so they can teach followers their preconceived notions, instead of just teaching the truth of Scripture. This book is very informative and helps the Christian to understand what the cultist is doing when the cultist shows up at the door to try to convince the Christian of his cult's correct teaching. This book shows how verses taken out of context can lead a Christian away from the plain and simple Truths of the Holy Bible. I strongly recommend it to every Believer. I also strongly recommend every Christian, and Cultist get their hands on a copy of Walter Martian's book, "The Kingdom of the Cults". If your heart breaks for those following false teachers and organized religions like the Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormonism, get both books today. If this review insults cultists that is not my intent. My intent is to challenge you to look at the historical facts of your chosen religion, even if it offends your church, and be a good Biblical Berean and search the Scriptures and History, and make sure you know the Truth, since your very soul depends on it. God loves you and He will show you the Truth and lead you into the Truth...if you honestly want to find it. These two books can help you find it and understand it. May God bless you.

Cannot recommend this book highly enough. I buy this for my friends and folks at my church. I think that it encourages people to read the Bible carefully, and can give you the necessary training to discern correct and incorrect interpretations of scripture. While the book is primarily geared towards identifying common misreadings of the Bible present in ... non-mainstream ... Christian writings, it also helps train readers to let the word of God speak for itself - rather than constraining it to say what we wish it to say.

Recommendation:Read this book so you can quickly and easily spot the repeated errors of false teachers like Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Beth Moore, and Sarah Young. Not only will you be able to catch their errors, but you will be able to explain to others how these false teachers are misusing the Bible.Chapters:1. The Methodology of Misreading: An Introduction2. World-View Confusion: A Preliminary View3. The Text of Scripture4. Scripture as Rhetoric5. Scripture as Literature6. Scripture as Evidence7. Reasoning from Scripture8. The Authority of the Bible9. World-View Confusion: The Heart of the Matter10. The Discipleship of the WordDetailed Review:In his preface to the book, James Sire writes:As Christians and, we trust, good readers of the Bible, we need all the help we can get to be sure we are reading the Scripture accurately, that we are indeed worshiping the one true God. That's why I wrote this book: to help all of us-myself as much as anyone-to become better readers of the Scriptures, more devoted followers of our Lord Jesus Christ, more effective communicators of God's truth to all people. But the book also seeks a special audience-those being led, as are so many today, by false teachers into false doctrines and perhaps eventually into eternal darkness (Sire, p. 8).While the text and the examples within the book are focused on the cults, the lessons are equally important today within Christianity. People within the church misuse and abuse the Bible in the same manner as the cults. Satan uses the same playbook in both cases. It is not that these people want to openly reject the Bible, but rather they misuse use it for their purposes just as Satan did in the temptation of Jesus as recorded in Luke 4:1-13. Sire specifically notes that the Bible is often employed simply to add credibility to false teaching:The Bible has long been a book that commands attention. If you can employ it in the service of your own cause, you can gain for your cause a certain credibility-even where the Bible is not accepted as the sole authority on matters of faith and life (Sire, p. 41)How do two people reading the same text come to different conclusions? By "violating the principles of sound literary interpretation":If traditional Christianity affirms the Bible as its sole authority - sola Scriptura, as the Reformers said - how can these very different religious movements claim Scripture for their own? The obvious answer is the right one, I believe. They can only do so by violating the principles of sound literary interpretation (Sire, p. 12).It is these violations that Sire describes in Scripture Twisting. He has identified 20 classes of violations:1. Inaccurate Quotation2. Twisted Translation3. The Biblical Hook4. Ignoring the Immediate Context5. Collapsing Contexts6. Overspecification7. Word Play8. The Figurative Fallacy9. Speculative Readings of Predictive Prophecy10. Saying but Not Citing11. Selective Citing12. Inadequate Evidence13. Confused Definition14. Ignoring Alternative Explanations15. The Obvious Fallacy16. Virtue by Association17. Esoteric Interpretation18. Supplementing Biblical Authority19. Rejecting Biblical Authority20. World-View ConfusionAs the title of chapter 9 makes clear, Sire recognizes that non-Biblical world-views are the "heart of the matter" and result in or influence many of the other errors of interpretation. Sire writes:The most significant and pervasive explanation of how the Bible is used to support essentially nonbiblical ideas involves world-view confusion... World-view confusion occurs whenever a reader of Scripture fails to interpret the Bible within the intellectual and broadly cultural framework of the Bible itself and uses instead a foreign frame of reference. In other words, rather than seeing a statement of Scripture as a part of the whole biblical scheme of things, the reader or interpreter views it from a different standpoint and thus distorts the Bible, perhaps seriously, sometimes even reversing the meaning (Sire, pp. 25-26).In discussing the Biblical Hook, Sire makes an interesting application from the story of Joseph Smith's, founder of the Mormon Church, first vision:If we find ourselves in the situation he [Joseph Smith] describes before his vision, frustrated because we can't seem to get it handle on God's truth, our response should be to pray for God's wisdom-yes, indeed-hut to apply ourselves again to Scripture and to resist either personal visions proclaiming nonbiblical truth or teaching from others based on such visions. The Bible should only hook us to study more intently the Bible itself. To be hooked on Scripture is to be hooked on truth (Sire, p. 50).It is all too common today that authors, speakers, and teachers are actively encouraging individuals to look outside the Bible for God's wisdom. Sire accurately compares this to the error made by Joseph Smith. That alone should make Christians very cautious. Not to mention that it denies the sufficiency of Scripture.Scripture Twisting contains another important reminder about the ordinary use of language by the author's of the Bible:God chose to reveal himself to us by speaking through his prophets in ordinary language. The rules for understanding the Bible are therefore essentially the same as the rules for understanding Homer, Aeschylus, Dante, Milton, Dickens and Conrad. We are to read in the same spirit as the writer who wrote. If the author wrote a letter, we are to read it as a letter; if a poem, as poetry; if a chronicle, as chronicle; if a parable, as parable; if prophecy, as prophecy (Sire, p. 51).While we do need the working of the Holy Spirit to correctly apply the Scriptures and come to saving faith, we do not need any special methodologies for reading them properly. For example, in his gospel Luke writes:It seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught (ESV, Luke 1:3-4).Would Luke have said this in his gospel account if he believed that Theophilus would not be able to read it and understand? Could Theophilus understand what Luke wrote before the formation of the supposedly infallible teaching Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church? Both ideas are nonsense. Each of the human authors of Scripture believed they were writing documents that could be understood by their readers.If world-view confusion is the heart of the matter for improper Bible use, reading a verse out of context is probably the most common:From the standpoint of the Bible as literature, the simplest error of reading is the failure to consider the immediate context of the verse or passage in question (Sire, p. 52).The text of Scripture should first be understood within the context in which it occurs. Any reading which contradicts the meaning of the text in context cannot be a proper interpretation (Sire, p. 58).As Chris Rosebrough of Pirate Christian Radio regularly reminds his listeners, "The three most important rules for interpreting Scripture are context, context and context." As an aside, it was Rosebrough's recommendation that led me to read Scripture Twisting.In Scripture Twisting, Sire provides the example of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation, misusing Psalm 46:10, "Be still, and know that I am God", by both misquoting it and taking it out of context. Best-selling "Christian" authors such as Sarah Young have likewise taken Psalm 46:10 out of its context and abused it to justify their own false ideas of meditation and personal extra-Biblical revelation from God:A life-changing verse has been "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). Alternate readings for "Be still" are "Relax," "Let go," and "Cease striving" (NASB). This is an enticing invitation from God to lay down our cares and seek His Presence. I believe that God yearns for these quiet moments with us even more than we do. I also believe that He still speaks to those who listen to Him (Young, Introduction, loc. 697).While that verse may have changed her life, it does not teach what Young has read into the text. When properly taken in the full context of Psalm 46, verse 10 is teaching us that we can stop worrying about the troubles around us. We can "be still", "relax" and "cease striving" because the LORD (Yahweh) "is with us" and He "is our refuge and our strength."Reading Scripture Twisting will equip readers to recognize errors by the obvious cultists like the Yogi as well as wolves in our midst like Sarah Young. Also, it prevents us from making the same mistakes when we read and interpret the Bible:A knowledge of misreading goes well with developing good reading habits. Christians who respect biblical authority have a special burden to read right. We, too, are prone to fall into error. In fact, none of us is absolutely right about what God's Word really means. That is why we must ourselves return daily to the Bible-reading and rereading, thinking and rethinking, obeying what we grasp, correcting our earlier readings as new insight is given us, constantly crosschecking our grasp of Scripture with our pastor, our fellow Christians and with the historic understanding of Scripture by orthodox Christianity (Sire, pp. 14-15).

This book is true to its title. Not only will it help you to see and will show you how the Scriptures have been twisted, but will also assist you to understand the translation and paraphrasing process of the Scriptures. I believe it is a "must have" for those whose interest in the Bible as the word of God is genuine. It is easy to read, easy to follow and precise in its information. It is printed in a 10 or 11 typesetting which is very easy on the eyes (for those that may have problems with their vision). I could not put it down, and keep it very close for it has a quick reference (Apendix) section that comes in handy.

Maybe if this book had been a best seller in 1980 when it was written so many cult leaders wouldn’t have gotten away with their destruction of the church and God’s word in the 80s & 90s.

If you are interested in True Hermeneutics, you must learn how not to interpret the Scriptures. This book will show you how not to interpret the Bible. This book was recommended to me by the Late Great Walter Martin. He wrote the Kingdom of the Cults and I learned Hermeneutics from him. I highly recommend this book. At the few bucks I paid for this book, I know it was a steal...

Good, informative book. Shows common means which people use to twist scripture to say something other than it actually says.

Well made