Not all sayings you hear in the pulpit are true especially when the pastor is younger and fat than you . . . 9 Lies You Hear in Church: #3. God Never Gives You More Than You Can Bear There are all kinds of things that people assume the Bible says but it actually doesn’t. At the top of that list is “The Lord helps those who help themselves” with something like 80% of Christians believing that quote is from the Bible. (It’s actually from the Ancient Greeks by way of Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac). But in a close second is the statement: “God never gives you more than you can bear.” It is frequently “quoted” to people in times of distress with great certainty. Everything will be alright—the suffering one is told—God wouldn’t have given you this trial if you couldn’t get through it. Right off the bat, however, there are two basic problems with that quote. II. THE TEXTS First, it’s not in the Bible. There’s a quote like it; but there is nothing that says “God will never give you more than you can bear.” The quote that is frequently used to back up the idea, from 1 Corinthians, doesn’t really say what people assume it does: No temptation has seized you that isn’t common for people. But God is faithful. He won’t allow you to be tempted beyond your abilities. Instead, with the temptation, God will also supply a way out so that you will be able to endure it. Paul is reminding his readers that God will not allow people to be tempted beyond their abilities. That is, there is no temptation that you should feel you are powerless against, because God would not allow you to be tempted by something you couldn’t resist. If you’re being tempted, in Paul’s thinking, it’s something you are strong enough to resist. But that is a far different thing from claiming that nothing will happen to you, that you will not have to bear a burden, that you cannot bear. In fact, in addition to that quote not being in the Bible, we can find plenty of quotes that mean the exact opposite that are in the Bible, including one from Paul himself where he writes: “Brothers and sisters, we don’t want you to be unaware of the troubles that we went through in Asia. We were weighed down with a load of suffering that was so far beyond our strength that we were afraid we might not survive.” (2 Corinthians 1:8 CEB) “We were weighed down with a load of sufferings that was so far beyond our strength that we were afraid we might not survive.” That is quite different from saying “God didn’t give us any burdens we couldn’t bear.” And elsewhere in scripture we find similar sentiments. In the Psalms: “I’m worn out, completely crushed; I groan because of my miserable heart.” (Psalms 38:8 CEB) “My wrongdoings are stacked higher than my head; they are a weight that’s way too heavy for me.” (Psalms 38:4 CEB) Part 3 of the series “9 Lies You Hear in Church” Rev. Mark Schaefer Kay Spiritual Life Center September 23, 2012
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 06:11:31 +0000
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