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THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT
Luke 19:34 says, “And they said, ‘The Lord has need of him.’” His eyes grew large with excitement. “Hallelujah!” he exclaimed. “The Lord has need of me!” His excitement disappeared, however, when his wife reminded him of the context: “Wait a minute!” she said. “You can’t use this—it’s talking about a donkey!” I have heard scriptural reasoning like this from many Christians. Here is a simple but important question: how could this have been avoided? How could George Hensley’s audience have avoided falling prey to his sensationalism? It’s simple: the same way Jesus avoided the temptation to throw Himself off the temple. He quoted scripture in context. That is our safeguard, too—but in order to be able to do it, you have to develop a broad-based knowledge of the Bible. Tragically, biblical illiteracy appears to be more widespread than ever, even among Christians! For example, consider the troubling experience I had a couple of years ago. I was speaking to a group of young people in church and asked them which was the most popular show on television. Not only were they able to give me the name of the program, they also knew what time the show aired each week on different networks, were familiar with the basic plot, and knew the cast of characters by memory. Fair enough. Sometimes it is hard to avoid knowing such things in a world so completely saturated by the secular media. But then I asked them where you find the story of David and Goliath in the Bible. I didn’t ask for chapter and verse, just the name of the book. And they didn’t have to tell me from memory; they were allowed to thumb HTTP://WWW.SERVANTOFMESSIAH.ORG