Twisting Scripture:
A Contemporary Choice, An Age-Old Evil
August 7, 2025
Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer
Guest: Dr. Bryan Osborne
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 8/07/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Sam Rohrer:
Hello and welcome to this Thursday edition of Stand In the Gap Today. And it’s also our monthly focus on creation, biblical worldview and apologetics. And today my special guest is author and speaker for answers in Genesis Bryan Osborne. One primary emphasis of this program here stand in the gap today and shared by my guest and answers in Genesis is the emphasis on the authority of scripture as the written expression of God himself settled forever in heaven. We know that that is unchanging and forever true Jesus Christ. As the physical God man became the living word at Christ first coming as declared in John one where it says in the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the word was God. And as the Son of God is perfectly just and holy, unchanging and without beginning or end, so is the truth of the very Word of God.
We can hold in our hands as we know breathed out by the spirit of God. So as the nature of God and his character are unchanging and forever true inseparable from His name, so is the written God-breathed word, inseparable in importance from the name of God. So as God declares the taking of his name in vain to be a sin worthy of death, that’s in the 10 Commandments, right? So is any effort to change, to add, or to take away or to twist in any way the written word of God. Revelation 2218 makes this warning from God very clear. It says there, for I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life, from the holy city and from the things which are written in this book.
Now for those who might say, well, Sam, that verse only applies to the Book of Revelation, well that’s actually a requote from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy chapter four in verse two, where it said There you shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I have commanded you. Yet sadly, I think we see throughout history many efforts, repeated efforts to curse God and to violate his word. And so it is today and when it occurs, we as God-fearing people must be aware so that we can note it and with great care, make sure that we don’t do it ourselves. Now the title I’ve chosen to frame today’s focus is this twisting scripture, twisting scripture, A contemporary choice in age old evil. And with that, I welcome right now calling in from where the Ark encounter is in Kentucky. Bryan Osborne. Bryan, thanks for being back with us.
Bryan Osborne:
Hey Sam, always good to be with you.
Sam Rohrer:
Bryan, in the balance of today’s program, I’m going to ask you to identify some very recent examples of people twisting scripture and then talk with you about the circumstances surrounding them, but from a larger perspective here as we get going, can you share your thoughts about why people so frequently refer to scripture, even citing it sometimes publicly, but either purposely or perhaps ignorantly twisting it to mean something that it does not mean?
Bryan Osborne:
Yeah, that’s such a great question as far as looking at people’s motives and the thoughts behind what they are doing, and we’re definitely seeing a lot of it in our culture today. And I think the motives vary from person to person and the intent varies. Now you have good intentions, you get the worst of consequences no matter how good your intentions may be, which is the case for some people. I think for some it’s just general biblical ignorance we’ve talked about before how there’s a real lack of biblical literacy in the American and the Western culture today. And so people may take verses to the Bible just out of context and think they’re quoting them rightly, but they’re actually quoting it incorrectly or actually sometimes contrary to the point of the verse they’re quoting, they don’t even know that because they don’t know scripture well.
So it could be just general ignorance. I think for some, and we’ll see in a couple of the things we referenced today, I think they believe they can use the Bible to push their ideas, to push their agenda on a culture that seems to be more welcoming to biblical ideas or at least quoting the Bible. So they think if I can quote this verse, I can get this people to agree with me because they like the Bible, so therefore I’m quoting the Bible, therefore that to agree with me. So they think of it as a way to push their agenda. And then others are I think maybe just purely evil and just enjoy misquoting it to attack it either directly or indirectly. But I think they span the gamut as far as motives, but no matter what their motives are, it is an atrocity and it’s blasphemous in the sense of undermining what God’s word truly says.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay. Alright, and I think that’s clear ladies and gentlemen, if you’re just tuning in, we’re talking today here about twisting scripture, a contemporary choice. It’s being done by a lot of people. We’re going to share some examples can also be done well, fairly ignorantly, but it’s not something new. It’s an age old evil. Now Bryan, just kind of following up to that general, general view of why it is done so often, staying in a general sense of that though, what areas do we see a twisting of scripture? What areas of life, in other words, is it something that is just limited to the false prophet who’s standing in the pulpit perhaps?
Bryan Osborne:
Yeah, no, not at all. Unfortunately. It’s literally everywhere in our culture today. And I think the ones we’re looking at today, three main sources. You have one source where you have a professing pastor. Now she’s a female, so biblically that’s not going to work, but that’s what she professes and she’s in a church misquoting scripture. So in the church she’s misquoting scripture. In another instance, we have someone who’s in politics who’s literally twisting scripture to push anti-biblical ideas. But it sounds convincing if you don’t know God’s word, if you’re not astute to being like a Berean, to really analyze it from that biblical perspective. And another instance, we have one from just popular pop culture where people who are known from TV from their program to have been recognized as Christians in the past, but now they’re taking a stance on an issue that’s unbiblical and they’re actually standing firm in their unbiblical stance. And so whether they’re talking about pop culture, politics or talking about even within the church, we’re seeing twisting of scripture happening literally everywhere in our culture in different ways.
Sam Rohrer:
And we have just a little bit of time left before the break, but in your area, even in the answers in Genesis area, it focuses a lot on science. It’s heavily involved in science, is it not medicine too as far as that goes?
Bryan Osborne:
How did I miss that one? Yeah, I was so focused on getting the other ones right, but what we focus on really people misunderstanding the Bible, even Christian, it’s misinterpreting to fit with modern ideas of secular interpretation in regards to science. And so yes, definitely in science in regards to origins and the age of earth and rock layers and dinosaurs, nose A can flood, all those things. It’s literally everywhere, Sam.
Sam Rohrer:
It is. And ladies and gentlemen, it could be, let me ask you this question, could you possibly be involved in this? Could I be involved in, let’s put it this way, not treating God’s holy word as the true final authority. I’m going to submit that. Yeah, we can, if we’re not careful and not maybe blatant like some of the examples we’re going to share in the next segment, but it’s something we need to be very, very careful about twisting scripture, a contemporary choice, but it’s an age old evil. It comes right out of our heart, does it not? We’ll be back in just a moment as we continue my special guest today, Bryan Osborne, author, conference speaker, and Christian apologist from Answers and Genesis.
Okay, we’re entering into our second segment today. If you’re just joining us, welcome aboard. Our theme today is this twisting SA contemporary choice, an age old evil. That’s the title I’ve given to it. My special guest is Bryan Osborne, Christian apologist and speaker with answers in Genesis and this theme, we’re going to get some examples in this segment of how people, well very brazenly in some cases, some cases prepped more ignorantly, but nonetheless can take God’s word and change it, edit it or twist it in all cases, unacceptable. Now, current examples of people twisting God’s word to justify a particular decision, I’ve seen it regard to government policy and law or unfortunately increasingly evident. There seems to be more of this is going on as we a culture have moved away from fearing God and considering God’s definition for how life should be and his creation as he made it to be.
Sometimes, as I mentioned, these examples can be egregious and very blatant blasphemy. In other cases they’re more subtle, but nonetheless, evidence of the cavalier nature toward God’s name and God’s word, which is I think marking the days in which we live and the attitudes toward God manifested by the people of today. And that is just evidenced in all kind of research. Now, Bryan, I want you to share in just a moment a very public example in media where God’s word was twisted. And you’re going to talk about that one in the general media realm, a political realm and then one in the church. But for the sake of suggesting that twisting scripture is limited to the extreme and public examples that you’ll share, ladies and gentlemen, can I just submit that when I said earlier that we could all do this and take a part, so here, what about this? For instance, can I make a case? Can you make a case that if we say we fear God and we commit to keeping his commandments, but we don’t do it, we come upon a decision, we know what God’s word says, or we choose not even to go to God’s word to find out what he says so that we don’t have to deal with it. Are we not in effect altering God’s word, his authority over us questioning it or placing ourselves above it?
What about every time I think about this on our dollar bills, it says in God we trust now was our national motto, right? It was done for in some cases it was more political reasons at that point to set us aside from communist Russia at that point. But nonetheless, it’s on there. So when we take it in, God, we trust what a beautiful and wonderful thing, but when we take it and we exchange and we buy things, are we ever thinking about it’s in God we trust or are we really thinking, well it’s in this dollar I trust so we can make light of that, which is true, we can choose to not do it. We can choose to override what scripture says and justify it. All of us can do that, right? So when you hear these examples, don’t think that, well, it’s just some of them we need to look in the mirror. I would submit carefully, Bryan, offer any comments to what I just said. And then if you don’t mind, go ahead and share that first example you talked about of someone in media in the circumstances surrounding that where God’s word was well twisted.
Bryan Osborne:
Yeah, I think you offer a great point to really kick off the way as we dive into the subject because it is easy to point a finger at those people making these mistakes very publicly and not realize we can do the very same thing. And it’s a reminder for all of us that we should be going to God’s word and taking every thought captive and making into obedient to Christ, being rooted in that foundation and to be diligent to be sure that we know God’s word, therefore we can handle it rightly in season and out of season. Yeah, and that’s something that we all can do because I think we’ll see Sam with these different people for many of them, but they profess to be believers and maybe one of the reasons they’re compromising is because they want the applause of man instead of the applause of God.
And that’s something we all have to deal with. Do we want to please God or do we want to please man? And that’s a fear in a way everyone’s going to struggle with probably to one degree or another. So it’s important that we recognize that in ourselves and deal with it personally internally. So I think it’s a great point, great way to start. And these people in these instances can be good for us to take that internal look and to keep watch over our souls. So one we just mention very quickly, Chip and Joanna Gaines, they’re a very well-known couple who were known for flipping houses, renovating houses, and they were professing Christians about 10 years ago, came on the scene and getting large following because of that. And they’ve grown and grown in popularity. Now they have their own show own network and they recently made a show with it’s being shown on HBO Max and it’s called, I think the Last Frontier is the name of the show if I remember correctly.
But on the show they invite all these couples, they these families to come and live like they did back in the 18 hundreds. So give up of all technology, just try to live off the land. And it’s really just showing how much things have changed. And I like the premise of the show, but one of the families they have on the show is a gay couple, two men with their twin boys and this family’s on the show and it’s promoted as normal. And they are basically giving a platform for these two men to promote their life and their lifestyles and their choices as normal in the culture in American culture. And once the commercials came out for the show, they got a ton of pushback from so many Christians and rightfully so because they’re platforming this agenda that’s pushing the L-G-B-T-Q ideology that’s actually making it seem like it’s okay to take twin boys away from their biological mother to strip them from that and to put them with two men.
That’s a normal thing. You can call that a family. Mothers aren’t needed and they’re getting a lot of pushback from that. And so in response to that chip gains, he responded on Twitter or now XI guess, and made some comments and one of them was this. He said, talk, ask questions. Listen, maybe even learn too much to ask for modern American Christian culture. Judge first understand it later or never and it goes on. It said later on they said that the Bible says, do not judge and why are we judging? The Bible says, do not judge. And of course Sam, that’s what we hear all the time from people. Oh, well you can’t say that’s wrong because that’d be judging. The Bible says, don’t judge. And they take that verse out of Matthew seven until they twist it out of context because the judgment that is being referred to in Matthew seven is don’t hypocritically judge like the Pharisees do that we’re to judge rightly using a biblical foundation and we judge ourselves first and then judge others by the same standard.
What standard, the authoritative word of God that is by which we make judgments. And so we are told to make judgments all the time in line with God’s word for God’s glory. But chip like so many other professing really progressive Christians, they’ll argue, well, if you say anything against the cultural narrative about different things like sexuality, marriage, well then they’ll use judge not as a sledgehammer to make you be quiet, but they take the verse and twist it out of context. Now we must judge, and it’s for God’s glory and for people’s good. God’s truth is a good thing. It’s a loving thing to proclaim God’s truth. That’s just one example. Another one, he said this also on Twitter, it’s a sad Sunday when non-believers, I’ve never been confronted with hate or vitriol until they’re introduced to a modern American Christian. And that kind of falls into the category of, well, Christians are to love and the way you Christians are acting online is unloving.
But Sam, we cannot out love God. When God tells us what marriage is, it’s out his perfect love. He gives us the right parameters for marriage, for sexuality, for gender. The most loving thing we can do is to convey God’s truth to a confused culture. It is unloving to pat someone on the back as they practice an unbiblical thing that leads to their destruction and ultimately to hell. They don’t want to put their faith in Christ. But what some of these people do, they twist love. They say, well, love’s just about acceptance and be intolerant. No love is about God’s truth aligned with God’s nature. And that yes, we realize we’re all sinners in need of a savior, but it doesn’t justify sin. Sin still you’re accountable to God for your sin. And so anyway, they twist passages about love in the Bible, passages about judgment to try to dismiss the acceptance of secular teachings about marriage and sexuality and gender, all while they’re undermining biblical truth and leading people astray.
Sam Rohrer:
And I think that’s an excellent example. The idea that judging in this case is we must do that, judging, evaluating, but when God’s word is the basis not our own opinion. So alright, now let’s move on to another one here and I think we’ll come back on some of these. You mentioned one from the area politics, a politician has recently said something. Would you share that please?
Bryan Osborne:
Yeah, we could spend all day on this one. Actually, I’ll just give a shout out. There’s a commentator, Stuckey did a great podcast on the whole interaction with a politician named James Alico and Joe Brogan, he was on the Joe Brogan podcast, which has a huge influence and basically he’s a progressive Christian. He’s spouting all basically Sam, here’s what he does. He pushes all the progressive secular democratic talking points and slaps a Bible verse on them, basically what he does. And each time he slaps the Bible verse on that progressive secular ideology, he takes a verse and twists it utterly out of context. But the way he says it, the way he frames it, if you don’t know you’re a Bible, it can sound convincing even to believers. And that’s why we have this desperate need, Sam, for believers to know God’s word and be rooted in that.
I mean so many things. He actually said that support for abortion in the Bible is found in the fact that Jesus elevated women. Well, Jesus did care about women, he elevated them, he treated, they’re made in God’s image. He treated them like that. But who actually argued that because Jesus treated women with respect, he was pro feminism and he was pro all the feminist ideology. And because of that, he actually said that God asked Mary’s permission before she was dropped by the Holy Spirit to give birth to the Savior, which is not what happened in scripture, but he takes these verses and twist them to try to make an argument for very much pro and or anti-biblical ideologies. And we got to watch out for that because many more people are doing this because they think it appeals to the culture we live in today.
Sam Rohrer:
Alright ladies and gentlemen, we have to make sure, again, looking at ourselves that we don’t do that, finding a verse to support something that we want to do, but disregarding other portions of scripture that say, no, you can’t do that. Alright, so anyways, we’ll come back. Another example we want to share and then we’re going to move on to some historical biblical examples to show that this kind of thing has been around for a long time, but when we come back, we’ll share one that’s happened actually within the church. Well, as we continue on our theme today, twisting scripture, twisting scripture, a contemporary choice, meaning it’s something that a lot of people are doing. But then we will cover in this segment a little bit and give some examples of the fact that it frankly is an age old evil. It’s not a mistake, it’s not something of little consequence twisting scripture or in any way altering what God has said is dangerous, brings severe consequences. Bryan, you gave an example of one in media, one in the political area, all of these could build out so much further, but another one was actually someone who was standing kind of behind a pulpit. It was a church, but there were big problems there. Share that one please.
Bryan Osborne:
Yeah, I like the church quote because we use that term lightly here in regards to this particular person. But yeah, so evidently the person speaking is Reverend Robin Bartlett. As far as I can tell, they don’t have a direct quote in the link, but I think that’s who it is. But there are others like her. This may be Universalist church, but Lutheran, there’s quote Lutheran ministers is a very similar thing. I found their clips as well, but this particular person, she said this, she quoted the Bible, John one 14, the word became flesh and lived among us. And so that’s where she, that’s what she quoted. And then she says, my body, your body, their bodies are home for the living God. And so she quotes John one 14, which is talking about the incarnation of God. And she uses that to then go on to say this.
This is why, because my body indwells God. She says, my body, your body, our bodies are home for the living God, therefore our bodies are holy and sacred in some way. This is why her talking, this is why I take my 11-year-old boy to drag shows in the summer with my friend and fellow church leader and with her son as well. I want him to know that there is no wrong way to have a body, especially if you’re a man that bodies can be celebrated and played with. I want him to know that all bodies can shapeshift and be adorned with makeup and glitter. And so it goes on. And so she quotes this verse about God and his incarnation and how he came to save us from our sins. That’s why it came in Joel flesh and it goes on to celebrate the sins that he came to save us from.
And it just gets more blasphemous if you keep listening. I don’t encourage people to do so. It’s not really fun at all. But that’s the sort of stuff you see where people take a single verse, and in this case she twist it so radically out of context to push her transgender LG BT Q ideology. And oh, by the way, if you watch the video clip behind her as a transgender flag that has all the rainbow colors and it has words that says hate has no home here. And again, the idea that well, if you’re loving that, you’ll celebrate, you’ll endorse all these people who practice these unbiblical things. And again, Sam, true love is proclaiming God’s truth in a loving way. Yes, we care for people, we want to meet their needs, but we proclaim God’s truth because they need that. That’s the most loving thing that’ll bring clarity and change in their lives and lead ’em to their God. And so that’s the type of stuff we’re dealing with. It’s literally all over the place. That’s kind of an extreme example, but there are many more just like it,
Sam Rohrer:
Okay? There really are. And we could spend programs on identifying things that are out there that much. But let’s now go back and just look at some things that are recorded in scripture, Bryan, because the attempt to take God’s word to make it say something, to make God say, since God gave us his word to put words in God’s mouth or to change what God has said is not something new. But what’s the first account in scripture as you can think of where we find the first example of somebody trying to change what God said?
Bryan Osborne:
Well, here at anxious of Genesis, we love the Book of Genesis. And you see right there in Genesis chapter three, when the devil said to Eve, did God really say? And literally he gets her the question God’s word right from the beginning. And then he says to her, you’ll not surely die for God knows that when you use the fruit, you will be like God knowing good and evil. And of course there’s a nugget of truth in what he said, but he taste that nugget and he utterly twist it to gets him to question God’s word, to doubt it and to reject it. And actually to make the opposite point instead of obedience, he’s trying to leave them towards rebellion. And that’s so much of what people are doing today when they take these Bible verses and twist them out of context, it’s not just a matter of, hey, just to think differently, but actually to have the opposite effect of what the Bible says.
The Bible says, do this, obey God to get this result. We’re saying no, reject against God, reject God, rebel against God to have an opposite result. We see it right there in Genesis chapter three. And then of course you think about the temptations of Jesus and the wilderness and the devil tempting Jesus. What did the devil do for pretty much all temptations quoted scripture, he twisted scripture. How did Jesus respond? Jesus responded with scripture correctly cited in context. And Sam, that’s how we need to address all these things that we use God’s word rightly to rebuke and rebut these really bad ideas and these bad interpretation of scripture that are usually just taken out of context.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay, alright, that’s excellent. So all the way back it starts with the devil himself. And that’s the point. That’s why it’s so evil, isn’t it, to take and subvert what God says, but think of another example that’s in the scripture, perhaps in the Old Testament, then we will pick up something maybe in the new, if you can think of that where somebody took God’s word and attempted to do with it, alter it in some way.
Bryan Osborne:
Yeah. See, I will do this, Sam. I would say I want to take this one step further as far as the analogy of what happens. We undermine biblical authority. So here at answers and Genesis, we talk about how if you give a biblical authority in Genesis, then y trust biblical authority in Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, Deuteronomy, the book of John, Romans revelation. And I would suggest we were seeing such another collapse of the Christian worldview and this rejection of clear biblical truth in our culture because there’s been a progressive undermining of biblical authority that started with an attack on the book of Genesis many years ago where the ideas of evolution in millions of years coming on the scene, people began to question the validity, the historicity of Genesis. And many Christians began to reinterpret Genesis one to 11 and doing the same things we’re seeing with the social issues today.
They would reinterpret the clear reading of Genesis chapter one to say maybe the days aren’t regular days, maybe they’re long periods of time and we can squeeze millions of years in evolution into the Bible. And so often, Sam, what appears to be the motive is that, well, the culture saying this, the secular scientists are saying this, well, they must be right, it’s scientific. So we’ve got to take these scientific ideas and use them to reinterpret God’s clear word. And when you do that, you’re making man’s worthy authority over god’s. And right there began this attack on biblical authority. Many Christians starting in the 18 hundreds, late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, began to reinterpret more and more of God’s word starting at the beginning. And Sam, here’s the deal. If I can reinterpret Genesis with man’s ideas, if I can reinterpret origins and where people came from and dinosaurs and all this stuff, science stuff from just using man’s words, the authority, then why can’t I take man’s word and reinterpret what the Bible says about sexuality, what the Bible says about marriage, sex in general, what it says about gender, what it says about any issue, why can’t man’s word be authority in all things?
And many Christians today progressively give up biblical truths one layer at a time to really capitulate to the cultural thinking of our day oftentimes because we want to be praised by man instead of being approved of by God. And so I really think we can see this undermining of biblical authority starting in Genesis, and we’re seeing the consequences of that give it genesis, it’s foundation for every single biblical doctrine and it’s foundation for biblical authority once you give up that biblical authority is undermined in progressively other areas as well. And we’re seeing that really play out right before our very eyes.
Sam Rohrer:
Yeah, Bryan, I think that that is excellent. And I was thinking of another one here, ladies and gentlemen, in a practical sense because overtly altering or changing what God has said is very, very clearly a tampering and a twisting of God’s word. But what’s probably the biggest example I can think of, Bryan, I’m thinking back in the Old Testament here, I’m looking at Deuteronomy chapter eight, God gave the law his commandments, which include Genesis and all through and gave it to his people. And he said, all right, now fear me and keep these commandments, obey my word authority, say under my authority and then I’m going to bless you. And so he did for Israel, took him into the land, he blessed them greatly. And then he warned them in Deuteronomy chapter eight said, now, once I give you great wealth and security from your enemies and respect among the nations, and I bless you with good health and plenty of rain and lots of food, all the kind of things ladies and gentlemen we’ve had in our country, think about that.
He said, but I warn you when that happens, do not believe that this wealth came from your own hand because at which point you do, all of my blessings will turn into judgment. And why is that legion, gentlemen, do you think about that? Why is that? How does that pretend what we’re talking about today? Well, when we ascribe to what we have as something that comes from us and not from God, we have replaced God with us. That’s idolatry and that’s what God calls it. It’s pride and idolatry. And how do we do that? By well saying we don’t need God’s word anymore and we can go it alone without it. Can I submit that in one of the ways we can all really be guilty of twisting scripture is really just saying, we don’t need scripture. We don’t need to read God’s word every day.
We don’t need to align our thinking and our actions with God’s word. We can go it alone. Can I make it real practical here? We can make America great again when an only God can make it great again. And he said very clearly, depending on two things for greatness, fear me and keep my command list. Okay, alright. See the idea. We can easily, easily be a part of that, which Bryan just explained us three examples that appear to be well, they don’t appear to be, they’re arrogant and they’re blasphemy, but we also can be a part now. Alright, in the end we’ll come back, we’ll talk about it right now. Here’s examples. So how do we fortify ourselves? How do we fortify ourselves so that we can recognize twisted scripture when we see it and avoid doing it ourselves? Well, as we go into our final segment here today, I want to give a website, my guest today has been Bryan Osborne.
If you’ve been with us from the beginning, you know that. But he’s with Answers in Genesis and their website is answers in genesis.org. Bryan is an author, he is a conference speaker and a Christian apologist. And Bryan, I think I first heard you at my church some years ago when you were there and then made a connection with you. And it’s been good to have you and some of your partners there here on the program, but I would suspect that you are available to go and speak. You just did so at a Christian camp in Western Pennsylvania, you told me earlier. So you are available as well as your other team. And so in just a moment you can comment further if you want on that, but I just put that out there and you can get in contact with him by going to the website.
Now, just quickly as well, if you have not written to us recently, would you let us know? I wanted to say, and I don’t have time to read the letters, but this week I’ve heard from two individuals, different parts of the country that spoke very, very, very clearly to how God is using this program and has used this program even this week and last week in specific ways in their lives as direct answers to prayer where in study with God’s word, they were being dealt with by the Holy Spirit and were wondering about certain things, didn’t have the answers. And then it just so happened, so happened that on the program we dealt with that specific issue. So that’s the kind of thing that God is doing in the lives of many, many people. But hearing from you, if that is the case, examples similar to that or whatever, it’s a wonderful thing and I would encourage you to share that with us.
Certainly partner with us in prayer. It costs you nothing and it makes a big difference with us. And if God so leads consider partnering with us financially because well, it costs money to be on the air and to run things. And so you can help in that regard. Okay, I’ll stop right there and I’m going to move into it now. In the end, God’s word is established forever. The authority of scripture is where we started today talking about the authority of scripture, God’s word. It’s settled on heaven, it settled on earth and settled in heaven. We know that scripture says that God’s name, God’s will, God’s way, and God’s word is the unchanging truth. And when we tamper with it, that person walks into judgment. How do we know that? Well, scripture says that I repeat again what I said at the beginning, revelation 2218, for I testify to everyone who hears the words of this prophecy of this book.
And it’s not just revelation, but it’s specifically because it’s the final chapter. It’s the final chapter of God’s written word. It goes on. It says that if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life, from the holy city and from the things which are written in this book. So when we tamper or alter God’s word in any way, the consequences are severe and eternal. God has warned us. So how can we make sure then that we don’t add or subtract or twist God’s word? Bryan, what can you recommend that a God-fearing person can do to fortify themselves? So I’m going to say two parts here so as to be able to identify when people are twisting God’s word so that we don’t fall under that or embrace that deviancy. And then the other is to make sure that we don’t do it ourselves.
Bryan Osborne:
Yeah, this is the application, right? This is so important, Sam, I’ll start by saying this, that you cannot spot the counterfeit until you know the original. And we got to know what is right and what is true. We have to know God’s word. We have to be soaked and saturated in God’s truth. And those biblical principles applied rightly to the world around us to be able to spot those counterfeits when they pop up wherever they may pop up, whether it’s in pop culture, whether it’s in politics, or whether it’s in a professing church or professing believers. We got to know God’s word. Know that truth to say what you’re saying there that doesn’t align with scripture and God’s word is the authority. How do we do that? I think numerous ways. Number one, Sam, we know this. First of all, you need to be plugged into a good Bible believing church.
You got to go to a church that knows where they preach God’s word. They love God’s word. They stand on biblical authority that the pastor is leading in that charge, rooted in a biblical understanding. The Christian life is not meant to be walked along. It’s meant to be walked with companions with our brothers and sisters in Christ as we work to proclaim the goodness of God and really push the kingdom of God for his glory into our world. And so it’s meant to be done in unison with other believers to find a good Bible believing church. If it’s a little bit further drive, well then we make that sacrifice. We need to find that place because having good feeding from scripture is so important in helping us to stand firm and know God’s word rightly. So I’d say find that good Bible leave from church.
Secondly, I’d say you got to know God’s word. You’ve got to know the original. You’ve got to know what the Bible actually says. And Sam, what that means is we may actually have to read the Bible and other things, right? That means there might be some work involved in that. But hopefully for people listening like myself, reading can be hard at times, but it’s also joy as we get to dive into God’s word and grow closer to our savior, our creator. And knowing him through that and then reading other resources to help us understand is rightly having good Bible commentaries, studying God’s word and not just reading it superficially, but reading it to understand it, chewing on it, meditating on God’s word, really contemplating what does this mean in context? Do I learn about God from this passage? How do I rightly apply it to our culture and my life today?
And so really understanding, knowing God’s word, and I’ll say getting equipped, getting supplement resources to help you where you’re not really sure ministries like answers and genesis where you are. You realize in our world that you’re confronted with all these ideas about evolution and eight men and Big Bang and dinosaurs a millions of years ago. And then all those social issues, and there’s so many questions swirling around that you waste too much to take in. Well, there are ministries like ours, like others who have been raised up by God to help believers have answers where they’re at understandable answers. And like you mentioned earlier, people can go to our website answers in genesis.org and there are literally thousands of articles and videos, all three on the website answering so many questions about science and social issues. They go to YouTube, look up answers in Genesis there we have hundreds of videos on YouTube answering so many questions.
But find those good ministries, those good places you can go to that are trustworthy, rooted in God’s word and whatever topic they’re focused on, and get answers from them. Because oftentimes, Sam, they’ve done the research ahead of time. They’ve broken down, they’ve done the, like for us, we do the research on radiometric dating that most people aren’t going to do. We do the research on the rock layers and the fossils and all those sorts of things. And we do the hard scientific work and the hard philosophical work and then break it down to a layman level. We’ve done that upfront so people can go places like that, help them really break down and understand these really complex ideas sometimes in a right, biblical way. And then as we do all this, I think, Sam, we got to engage this culture and predetermine ahead of time that we’re going to be bold and courageous, that we’re going to stand on God’s word.
That’s something we, before we get hit with the hard questions, before we get into that awkward encounter, we have predetermined. I’m standing on God’s word. I’m going to be bold. I’m going to be courageous. I’m going to be loving and humble. It’s not about me, it’s about God In this glory. I want to be loving and sharing truth with people, and I want to love my God by honoring him and obeying him and proclaiming his truth to the world around me. And humility says, I’m not focused on me. Whether they like me or not doesn’t matter, but do they hear God’s word? Can God work through his word and the proclamation of his truth in the proclamation of biblical principles to change that heart, to change that mind? And so we want to be humble and loving. And then lastly, I say, Sam, we’ve got to be hopeful. We need to realize as Christians, I was reading Isaiah the other day kind of towards the end, it just kind of points to the coming Messiah, how God wins. And Sam, we got to remember that God wins. We win in Christ. And so we can be humble, loving, bold, courageous, stand and proclaim the God work.
Sam Rohrer:
And Bryan, that is excellent, ladies and gentlemen. That’s why we say it’s a choice. Pursue the truth. That’s God’s word. Embrace the truth, the authority of God’s word, and then stand in the gap for the truth. It’s a choice. It’s a choice. We identify the counterfeit by knowing the truth. We are protected by God himself when we stay under his authority. Thank for being with us today. Bryan Osborne from answers in genesis.org.
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