When I was very young, I actually thought Psalm 84:10b went
like this, “I’d rather be a dorky bird
in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.” (The real
word is “doorkeeper.” You can see why I was confused!)
I also had a problem with the great hymn, “Lead On, O Kinky Turtle.” (King Eternal)
My husband, when he was a little boy, thought the song,
“Brighten the Corner Where You Are” was actually “Right In the Corner Where You Are.”
Have you ever played the game, “Gossip”? (At the end of a
line of participants, a sentence is whispered to the next in line. He repeats
it to the next person, and so on, until the sentence reaches the end of the
line. Then, the last person repeats the sentence as he heard it. It’s always different from the beginning!)
Do we sometimes misunderstand God’s Word? Do we think it
says dorky bird when it actually says
doorkeeper? Do we have preconceived notions
about God’s Word that aren’t actually there?
We can certainly laugh at the confusion of little
children, but what about us? What about adults who should understand the words
of Scripture and their contexts, yet we just listen to what we want to hear. Or
we hear what we think we hear, and we don’t quite get it right? Do we need to
take more time with God’s Word so that we can rightly divide the word of truth?
Study to shew thyself approved unto God,
a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)
Smiling about the dorky turtle and such. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe only misunderstanding from a song that I can remember was from the hymn "I Will Praise Hymn," which contains the line, "Praise the Lamb for sinners slain." I thought it sounded like we were praising the Lamb for killing sinners, and thought that was disturbing. It was only a few years ago (I'm ashamed to admit) that I was explaining it to someone when it dawned on me that we were praising the Lamb who was slain for sinners (and then I REALLY felt dumb). That was a truth I knew well, but for some reason there was just a disconnect with the phrasing there.
I do see a lot of people interpreting Scripture according to their preconceived notions rather than looking at what it actually says in its context, and that can be quite misleading.