Saturday, November 10th, 2012.
Prooftexting is using Bible verses out of context to prove a point. It is a Bible study crime.
It is most often committed while pushing a personal or political agenda.
The harm in prooftexting is that it substitutes the true meaning of God’s words with personal opinion.
Instead of asking “what does God say?”, the prooftexter asks, “Isn’t there a verse somewhere in the Bible that supports me?”
The prooftexter is looking for one verse to prove his point. If he doesn’t find it in one translation he will use another.
He is not concerned with what God says, but in using God’s authority to bolster his opinion.
Our opinions do not deserve the authority of God’s words, especially his words taken out of context.
Dispensational Bible study discourages prooftexting. It requires we understand the context (historical, doctrinal, spiritual) of a verse.
Don’t let someone prooftext the Bible, always seek the context of their verse references and then rightly divide. Let God be true.
Any criminal can be Biblical. It requires a student to be dispensational.
For His Glory,
Justin “prooftext police” Johnson