We recommend against punching...
![]() You know the hymn "Jesus Paid it All"? Well, it has a line in it that confused me for years. It was the phrase about leopards. Don't remember that line? Most people sing it, "Thy pow'r and thine alone, can change the leper's spots". I honestly thought we were singing about a jungle cat...until I was reading it as a teenager -- seriously! (Though apparently some versions actually do read, "Can change the leopard's spots" as a reference to Jeremiah 13:23. In Jeremiah, God is asking rhetorical questions about things that cannot be changed outside the power of God. So, maybe the hymnal was really talking about cats when I was a kid!) Kids are amazing. They think very literally and don't take punctuation into consideration.
"The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want." I memorized Psalm 23 in King James Version when I was so young, I am not sure I reached my mother's waist yet. And that is the way I memorized it -- no comma. Which means, I don't want God. Which means my little mind knew the words, but had no idea what it meant. Because even at that age, I knew the Bible taught I should want God. It took years for that misunderstanding to be de-mystified for me!
So, why aren’t those things in the Bible? Lots of reasons, but most of all: God's Word is true (John 17:17b). |
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January 2025
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